I
found the entrances to all the houses narrow, low, and furnished
with strong gates. These gates are relics of former times, when the
people were always in danger from the attacks of enemies. In the
interiors, there are very beautiful court-yards, and lofty, airy
rooms, with handsome entrances and bow-windows. The doors and
window-frames, the stairs and walls of the ground-floor rooms, are
generally made of marble; though the marble which is used for these
purposes is not very fine, yet it still looks better than brick
walls. The quarry lies close to the town.
Here also the hot part of the day is passed in the sardabs. The
heat is most terrible in the month of July, when the burning simoom
not unfrequently sweeps over the town. During my short stay at
Mosul, several people died very suddenly; these deaths were ascribed
to the heat. Even the sardabs do not shelter people from continual
perspiration, as the temperature rises as high as 97 degrees 25'
Fah.
The birds also suffer much from the heat: they open their beaks
wide, and stretch their wings out far from their bodies.
The inhabitants suffer severely in their eyes; but the Aleppo boils
are not so common as in Baghdad, and strangers are not subject to
them.
