During
The Latter Period The Christians Have Two Large Camps Or Douars, And The
Turks Five.
Here they
[P.388] live like Bedouins, whom they exactly resemble, in dress, food,
and language. The produce of their fields is purchased by the Bedouins,
or exchanged for cattle. The only other commercial intercourse carried
on by them is with Jerusalem, for which place a caravan departs every
two months, travelling either by the route round the southern extremity
of the Dead sea, which takes three days and a half, or by crossing the
Jordan, a journey of three days. At Jerusalem they sell their sheep and
goats, a few mules, of which they have an excellent breed, hides, wool,
and a little Fowa or madder (Rubia tinctorum), which they cultivate in
small quantities; in return they take coffee, rice, tobacco, and all
kinds of articles of dress, and of household furniture. This journey,
however, is undertaken by few of the natives of Kerek, the trade being
almost wholly in the hands of a few merchants of Hebron, who keep shops
at Kerek, and thus derive large profits from the indolence or ignorance
of the Kerekein. I have seen the most common articles sold at two
hundred per cent. profit. The trade is carried on chiefly by barter: and
every thing is valued in measures of corn, this being the readiest
representative of exchange in the possession of the town’s-people; hence
the merchants, make their returns chiefly in corn and partly in wool.
The only artizans in Kerek who keep shops are a blacksmith, a shoemaker,
and a silversmith.
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