Its
inhabitants make cotton stuffs, and a great number of millstones, the
blocks for forming which, are brought from
The interior of the Ledja;
the stones are exported from hence, as well as from other villages in
the Loehf, over the greater part of Syria, as far as Aleppo and
Jerusalem. They vary in price, according to their size, from fifteen to
sixty piastres, and are preferred to all others on account of the
hardness of the stone, which is the black tufa rock spread over the
whole of the Haouran, and the only species met with in this country.
Ezra was once a flourishing city; its ruins are between three and four
miles in circumference. The present inhabitants continue to live in the
ancient buildings, which, in consequence of the strength and solidity of
their walls, are for the greater part in complete preservation
[p.58]They are built of stone, as are all the houses of the villages in
the Haouran and Djebel Haouran from Ghabarib to Boszra, as well as of
those in the desert beyond the latter. In general each dwelling has a
small entrance leading into a court-yard, round which are the
apartments; of these the doors are usually very low. The interior of the
rooms is constructed of large square stones; across the centre is a
single arch, generally between two and three feet in breadth, which
supports the roof; this arch springs from very low pilasters on each
side of the room, and in some instances rises immediately from the
floor: upon the arch is laid the roof, consisting of stone slabs one
foot broad, two inches thick, and about half the length of the room, one
end resting upon short projecting stones in the walls, and the other
upon the top of the arch. The slabs are in general laid close to each
other; but in some houses I observed that the roof was formed of two
layers, the one next the arch having small intervals between each slab,
and a second layer of similar dimensions was laid close together at
right angles with the first. The rooms are seldom higher than nine or
ten feet, and have no other opening than a low door, with sometimes a
small window over it. In many places I saw two or three of these arched
chambers one above the other, forming so many stories. This substantial
mode of building prevails also in most of the ancient public edifices
remaining in the Haouran, except that in the latter the arch, instead of
springing from the walls or floor, rests upon two short columns. During
the whole of my tour, I saw but one or two arches, whose curve was
lofty; the generality of them, including those in the public buildings,
are oppressively low. To complete the durability of these structures,
most of the doors were anciently of stone, and of these many are still
remaining; sometimes they are of one piece and sometimes they are
folding doors; they turn upon hinges worked out of the stone, and are
about four [p.59]inches thick, and seldom higher than about four feet,
though I met with some upwards of nine feet in height.
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