Travels in Syria and the Holy Land. John Lewis Burckhardt

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СКАЧАТЬ layers of slates. Midway from Ainnete I found a small petrified shell, and on breaking a stone which I picked up on the summit, I discovered another similar petrifaction within it.

      Having descended for two hours, we came to a small cultivated plain. On this side, as well as on the other, the higher Libanus may be distinguished from the lower; the former presenting on both sides a steep barren ascent of two to two hours and a half; the latter a more level wooded country, for the greater part fit for cultivation this difference of surface is observable throughout the Libanus, from the point where I crossed it, for eight hours, in a S. W. direction. The descent terminates in one of the numerous deep valleys which run towards the seashore.

      I left my guide on the small plain, and proceeded to the right towards the Cedars, which are visible from the top of the mountain, standing half an hour from the direct line of the route to Bshirrai, at the foot of the steep declivities of the higher division of the mountain. They stand on uneven ground, and form a small wood. Of the oldest and best looking trees, I counted eleven or twelve; twenty-five very large ones; about fifty of middling size; and more than three hundred smaller and young ones. The oldest trees are distinguished by having the foliage and small branches at the

      BSHIRRAI.

      [p.20]top only, and by four, five, or even seven trunks springing from one base; the branches and foliage of the others were lower, but I saw none whose leaves touched the ground, like those in Kew Gardens. The trunks of the old trees are covered with the names of travellers and other persons, who have visited them: I saw a date of the seventeenth century. The trunks of the oldest trees seem to be quite dead; the wood is of a gray tint; I took off a piece of one of them; but it was afterwards stolen, together with several specimens of minerals, which I sent from Zahle to Damascus.

      At an hour and a quarter from the Cedars, and considerably below them, on the edge of a rocky descent, lies the village of Bshirrai, on the right bank of the river Kadisha [Arabic].

      October 3d.—Bshirrai consists of about one hundred and twenty houses. Its inhabitants are all Maronites, and have seven churches. At half an hour from the village is the Carmelite convent of Deir Serkis (St. Sergius,) inhabited at present by a single monk, a very worthy old man, a native of Tuscany, who has been a missionary to Egypt, India, and Persia.

      Nothing can be more striking than a comparison of the fertile but uncultivated districts of Bekaa and Baalbec, with the rocky mountains, in the opposite direction, where, notwithstanding that nature seems to afford nothing for the sustenance of the inhabitants, numerous villages flourish, and every inch of ground is cultivated. Bshirrai is surrounded with fruit trees, mulberry plantations, vineyards, fields of Dhourra, and other corn, though there is scarcely a natural plain twenty feet square. The inhabitants with great industry build terraces to level the ground and prevent the earth from being swept down by the winter rains, and at the same time to retain the water requisite for the irrigation of their crops. Water is very abundant, as streams from numerous springs descend

      KANOBIN.

      [p.21]on every side into the Kadisha, whose source is two hours distant from Bshirrai, in the direction of the mountain from whence I came.

      Bshirrai belongs to the district of Tripoli, but is at present, with the whole of the mountains, in the hands of the Emir Beshir, or chief of the Druses. The inhabitants of the village rear the silk-worm, have excellent plantations of tobacco, and a few manufactories of cotton stuffs used by the mountaineers as shawls for girdles. Forty years ago the village was in the hands of the Metaweli, who were driven out by the Maronites.

      In the morning I went to Kanobin; after walking for two hours and a half over the upper plain, I descended the precipitous side of a collateral branch of the valley Kadisha, and continued my way to the convent, which I reached in two hours and a half. It is built on a steep precipice on the right of the valley, at half an hour's walk from the river, and appears as if suspended in the air, being supported by a high wall, built against the side of the mountain. There is a spring close to it. The church, which is excavated in the rock, and dedicated to the Virgin, is decorated with the portraits of a great number of patriarchs. During the winter, the peasants suspend their silk-worms in bags, to the portrait of some favourite saint, and implore his influence for a plenteous harvest of silk; from this custom the convent derives a considerable income.

      Kanobin is the seat of the patriarch of the Maronites, who is at the head of twelve Maronite bishops, and here in former times he generally passed the summer months, retiring in the winter to Mar Hanna; but the vexations and insults which the patriarchs were exposed to from the Metaweli, in their excursions to and from Baalbec, induced them for many years to abandon this residence. The present patriarch is the first who for a long time has resided in

      HOSRUN.

      [p.22]Kanobin. Though I had no letter of introduction to him, and was in the dress of a peasant, he invited me to dinner, and I met at his table his secretary, Bishop Stefano, who has been educated at Rome, and has some notions of Europe. While I was there, a rude peasant was ordained a priest. Kanobin had once a considerable library; but it has been gradually dispersed; and not a vestige of it now remains. The cells of the monks are, for the most part, in ruins.

      Three hours distant from Kanobin, at the convent Kashheya, which is near the village Ehden, is a printing office, where prayer-books in the Syriac language are printed. This language is known and spoken by many Maronites, and in this district the greater part of them write Arabic in the Syriac characters. The names of the owners of the silk-worms were all written in this character in different hands, upon the bags suspended in the church.

      I returned to Bshirrai by an easier road than that which I had travelled in the morning; at the end of three quarters of an hour I regained the upper plain, from whence I proceeded for two hours by a gentle ascent, through fields and orchards, up to the village. The potatoe succeeds here very well; a crop was growing in the garden of the Carmelite convent; it has also been cultivated for some time past in Kesrouan. In the mountains about Kanobin tigers are said to be frequently met with; I suppose ounces are meant.

      October 4th.—I departed from Bshirrai with the intention of returning to Zahle over the higher range of the Libanus. We crossed the Kadisha, at a short distance from Bishirrai, above the place where it falls over the precipice: at one hour distant from Bshirrai, and opposite to it, we passed the village of Hosrun. The same cultivation prevails here as in the vicinity of Bshirrai; mulberry and

      ARD LAKLOUK.

      walnut [p.23]trees, and vines, are the chief productions. From Hosrun we continued our way along the foot of the highest barren part of Libanus. About two hours from its summit, the mountain affords pasturage, and is capable of cultivation, from the numerous springs which are everywhere met with. During the greater part of this day's journey I had a fine view of the sea shore between Tartous and Tripoli, and from thence downwards towards Jebail.

      At three hours and a half from Hosrun, still following the foot of the upper chain of the Libanus, we entered the district of Tanurin (Ard Tanurin), so called from a village situated below in a valley. The spots in the mountain, proper for cultivation, are sown by the inhabitants of Tanurin; such as afford pasture only are visited by the Arabs El Haib. I was astonished at seeing so high in the mountain, numerous camels and Arab huts. These Arabs pass the winter months on the sea shore about Tripoli, Jebail, and Tartous. Though like the Bedouins, they have no fixed habitations, their features are not of the true Bedouin cast, and their dialect, though different from that of the peasants, is not a pure Bedouin dialect. They are tributary to the Turkish governors, and at peace with all the country people; but they have the character of having a great propensity to thieving. СКАЧАТЬ