On one side of this
room is an entrance into a circular chamber fourteen feet in diameter;
and on the other is a similar apartment but of smaller dimensions, also
with channels in its walls; adjoining to this is a room without any
other opening than a very small door; its roof, which is still entire,
is formed of small stones cemented together with mortar; all the walls
are built of large square stones. The building seems evidently to have
been a bath.
On a stone built in the wall over the door of a private dwelling in the
town, I copied the following:
[Greek].
[p.74]
SHAKKA.
[Greek] [Legionis Decimę Flavianae Fortis. Ed.]
To the margin of the third line the following letters are annexed:
[Greek].
The inhabitants of Shohba fabricate cotton cloth for shirts and gowns.
They grow cotton, but it is not reckoned of good quality. There are only
three Christian families in the village. There are three large Birkets
or wells, in two of which there was still some water. There is no spring
near. Most of the doors of the houses, are formed of a single slab of
stone, with stone hinges.
November 15th.--Our way lay over the fertile and cultivated plain at the
foot of the Jebel Haouran, in a north-easterly direction. At a quarter
of an hour from the town we passed the Wady Nimri w-el Heif [Arabic], a
torrent coming from the mountain to the S.E. In the winter it furnishes
water to a great part of the Ledja, where it is collected in cisterns.
There is a great number of ruined mills higher up the Wady. Three or
four hours distant, we saw a high hill in the Djebel, called Um Zebeib
[Arabic]. Three quarters of an hour from Shohba we passed the village
Asalie [Arabic], inhabited by a few families; near it is a small Birket.
In one hour and three quarters we came to the village Shakka [Arabic];
on its eastern side stands an insulated building, consisting of a tower
with two wings: it contains throughout a double row of arches and the
tower has two stories, each of which forms a single chamber, without any
opening but the door. Upon the capital of a column is:
[Greek].
[p.75]Adjoining the village, on the eastern side, are the ruins of a
handsome edifice; it consists of an apartment fourteen paces square
opening into an arcade, which leads into another apartment similar to
the first. In the first, whose roof has fallen down, there are pedestals
for statues all round the walls. On one side are three dark apartments,
of which that in the centre is the largest; on the opposite side is a
niche. The entrance is towards the east.
