In The Interior Of
The Area, On The E. Side, Is A Niche Sixteen Feet Deep, Arched At The
Bottom, With Small Vaulted Rooms On Both Its Sides, In Which There Is No
Other Opening Than The Low Door.
KANOUAT.
[p.86]On the S. and W. sides, the building is enclosed by a large paved
area.
At a short distance from thence is another building, whose entrance is
through a portico consisting of four columns in front and of two others
behind, between two wings; on the inner sides of which are two niches
above each other. The columns are about thirty-five feet high, and three
feet and a half in diameter. Part of the walls only of the building are
standing. In the wall opposite the entrance are two niches, one above
the other. Not far from this building, toward its western side, I found,
lying upon the ground, the trunk of a female statue of very inelegant
form and coarse execution; my companion the priest spat upon it, when I
told him that such idols were anciently objects of adoration; by its
side lay a well executed female foot. I may here mention for the
information of future travellers in these parts, that on my return to
Soueida, I was told that there was a place near the source of spring
water, where a great number of figures of men, women, beasts, and men
riding naked on horses, &c. were lying upon the ground.
Besides the buildings just mentioned, there are several towers with two
stories upon arches, standing insulated in different parts of the town;
in one of them I observed a peculiarity in the structure of its walls,
which I had already seen at Hait, and which I afterwards met with in
several other places; the stones are cut so as to dovetail, and fit very
closely.
The circuit of this ancient city may be about two miles and a half or
three miles. From the spring there is a beautiful view into the plain of
the Haouran, bounded on the opposite side by the mountain of the Heish,
now covered with snow. There were only
EZZEHOUE.
[p.87]two Druse families at Kanouat, who were occupied in cultivating a
few tobacco fields. I returned to Soueida by the same road which I had
come.
November 18th.--After having made the tour of the city, I took coffee at
the house of the Sheikh, whose brother and sons received me very
politely, and I visited some sick people in the village,--for I was
continually pressed, wherever I went, to write receipts for the sick,--I
then left Soueida, with the intention of sleeping the following night in
some Arab tent in the mountain, where I wished to see some ruined
villages. The priest's fear of catching cold prevented me from
proceeding according to my wishes. Passing the Birket el Hadj, we
arrived in an hour and a quarter at a miserable village called Erraha
[Arabic]; twenty minutes farther we passed the Wady el Thaleth [Arabic],
so called from three Wadys which, higher up, in the mountain unite into
one.
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