On The Western Side Of The Szauan, Nearer To The Wady Serhhan
Than To The Hudrush, Is A Castle Called Kaszr Amera [Arabic], And At A
Quarter Of An Hour From It, On The Foot Of A Hill, The Ruins Of A
Village.
Between the Kaszr and the village is a low ground where the
rain water collects, and forms a small lake in winter half an hour in
length.
Before the castle is a well more than thirty feet deep, walled
in by large stones, but without water. Over the well are four white
marble columns, which support a vaulted roof or Kubbe, such as are often
seen at wells in these countries. The castle is built of white square
stones, which seem not to have been cemented together. Its dimensions
are thirty-six or forty feet from W. to E. and twenty-five from S. to N.
The entrance door, which is only about three feet high, is on the S.
side, and leads into an apartment half the size of the whole building.
In the middle of the western wall of this apartment is another door, as
low as the former, leading to a second apartment of the [p.666] same
size as the former, except that one corner is partitioned off to form a
third chamber. Each of the two latter have a window in the western wall.
The roof of the apartments are vaulted below, and flat above. The walls
which divide the apartments are two yards in thickness; in the two first
rooms there is a stone pavement, in the small room the Arabs have taken
up the pavement to dig for treasures; but they found nothing underneath,
except small pieces of planks and some rusty iron.
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