February 17th.--We left Edlip after mid-day. Our road lay through a wood
of olive trees, in a fertile uneven plain of red argillaceous soil. In
one hour we reached Sheikh Hassan, the tomb of
RIEHA.
[p.125]a saint; in an hour and a quarter the insulated hill Tel Stommak
[Arabic], with the village Stommak on its west side. The direction from
Edlip S. by W.: this hill seems to be an artificial mound of earth. The
Wood of olive trees here terminates. In two hours and forty minutes we
arrived at Rieha [Arabic], which we did not enter, through fear of the
rebel Seyd Aga, who occupies it. It contains about four or five hundred
houses, is a much frequented market, and has two large soap
manufactories. Rieha is situated on the northern declivity of the Djebel
Erbayn [Arabic], or the Mountain of the Forty; and belongs to the
government of Aleppo; but since the expulsion of Mohammed Pasha, Seyd
Aga has been in the possession of it, and governs also the whole
mountain of Rieha, of which Djebel Erbayn forms a part. This man is a
chief of that kind of cavalry which the Turks call Dehlys. He has about
three hundred of them in his service, together with about one hundred
Arnaouts; common interests have closely connected him with Topal Aly,
the chief of the Dehlys at Djissr Shogher, who has about six hundred
under his command, and with Milly Ismayl, another chief, who commands at
Kalaat el Medyk. Unless the Porte finds means to disunite these three
rebels, there is little probability of its reducing them. They at
present tyrannize over the whole country from Edlip to Hamah.
About two hours to the S.E. of Rieha lies the village of Marszaf
[Arabic], and S. of the latter about one hour, the ruined town Benin. We
ascended the mountain from Rieha, turned round its eastern corner, and
in one hour from Rieha, reached the village of Kefr Lata [Arabic]. We
were hospitably received at the house of the Sheikh of Kefr Lata,
although his women only were at home. A wondering story-teller amused us
in the evening with chanting the Bedouin history of the Beni Helal. Kefr
Lata belongs to Ibn Szeyaf, one of the first families of Aleppo.
February 18th.--Kefr Lata is situated upon the mountain of
KEFR LATA.
[p.126]Rieha, on the S. side of a narrow valley watered by a rivulet; it
contains forty or fifty houses, all well built of square stones, which
have been taken from the buildings of a town of the lower empire, which
occupied the same site. The remains deserve notice, on account of the
vast quantity of stone coffins and sepulchres. The mountain is a barren
calcareous rock, of no great hardness. In some places are a few spots of
arable ground, where the inhabitants of the village grow barley and
Dhourra.
