Travels in Syria and the Holy Land. John Lewis Burckhardt

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СКАЧАТЬ I had been told that in one of these buildings was a large stone covered with small Greek characters. I sought for it in vain. Missema has no inhabitants; we met with only a few workmen, digging the saline earth: there are no springs here, but a number of cisterns. E. of Missema are no inhabited villages, but the Loehf contains several in ruins.

      MERDJAN.

      [p.119]From Missema our way lay N.N.W. over the desert plain, towards Djebel Kessoue. This route is much frequented in the summer time by the Aeneze, who pass this way to and from the Haouran. The plain is intersected in every direction by paths formed by camels, called Daroub el aarb [Arabic]. At the end of two hours we saw to the left, in the mountains, the ruined village Om el Kezour; and one hour eastward from thence, in the plain, an insulated pillar called Amoud Esszoubh [Arabic], i.e. the Column of the Morning, on which, as I was afterwards told, are several inscriptions. Our road now turned N. and we reached, after sunset, in three hours and a quarter from Missema, the ruined village Merdjan, where we found some men who had come to sow a few acres of ground, and partook of a frugal supper with them.

      December 3d.—The small village of Merdjan is picturesquely situated on a gentle declivity near the foot of the mountain, and is surrounded by orchards, and poplar trees, which have escaped the rapacious hands of the Arabs: hard by flows a rivulet, which irrigates the adjacent grounds. We left Merdjan early in the morning. Twenty minutes north is Ain Toby [Arabic], or the spring of the gazelle, consisting of several wells, round one of which are the remains of a well built wall. At one hour and a half is Soghba [Arabic], a few houses surrounded by a wall; three quarters of an hour from thence is Deir Ali [Arabic], a village at the western foot of Djebel Mane; before we came to the village we crossed the Moiet Deir Ali, a rivulet whose source is in the neighbourhood. Half an hour from Deir Ali is Meshdie [Arabic], a small village, in the valley between Djebel Mane and Djebel Khiara, which is about three hours in breadth. The ground is here for the greater part cultivated. Our route was N.N.W. from Deir Ali, from whence, in two hours, we reached El Kessoue, and towards sunset we entered Damascus.

      [p.121]

      JOURNAL

      OF A

      TOUR FROM ALEPPO TO DAMASCUS,

      THROUGH THE VALLEY OF THE ORONTES AND MOUNT LIBANUS,

      IN FEBRUARY AND MARCH, 1812.

      February 14th.—I LEFT Aleppo at mid-day; and in half an hour came to the miserable village Sheikh Anszary [Arabic], where I took leave of my Worthy friends Messieurs Barker and Van Masseyk, the English and Dutch Consuls, two men who do honour to their respective countries. I passed the two large cisterns called Djob Mehawad [Arabic], and Djob Emballat [Arabic], and reached, at the end of two hours and a half, the Khan called Touman [Arabic], near a village of the same name, situated on the Koeyk, or river of Aleppo. The Khan is in a bad state; Pashas no longer think of repairing public edifices.

      February 15th—After a march of ten hours and a half, I arrived at Sermein, having had some difficulty in crossing the muddy plain. The neighbourhood of Sermein is remarkable for great numbers of cisterns and wells hewn in the rock: in the town every house has a similar cistern; those in the plain serve to water the peasants' cattle in the summer, for there are no springs in these parts. On the S.E. side of Sermein is a large subterraneous vault, cut in the solid rock, divided into several apartments, and

      EDLIP.

      [p.122]supported in various places by round pillars with coarsely wrought capitals; near this are several other excavations, all inhabited by the poor peasants. Sermein belongs to the family of Khodsy Effendy of Aleppo.

      February 16th.—Half an hour to the left, near our road, is an insulated hill, with the tomb of a saint, called Kubbet Denneit [Arabic]; the plain is here well cultivated, but nothing is sown at present between Khan Touman and Sermein. To the right of the road, on a similar hill, stands Mezar Kubbet Menebya [Arabic]; and one hour to the right, also upon a Tel, Mezar Tar [Arabic]. Half an hour S.E. from Denneit is the village Gemanas.

      In two hours and a half from Sermein we reached the town of Edlip [Arabic], the approach to which is very picturesque; it lies round the foot of a hill, which divides it into two parts; there is a smaller hill on the N. side: the town is surrounded by olive plantations, and the whole landscape put my companion, an English traveller, in mind of Athens and its vicinity. Here again are many wells cut in the rocky soil round the town. This place is called Little Edlip [Arabic]. Of Great Edlip [Arabic], the name only remains: it stood at half an hour's distance from the present town, which is of modern date, or about the middle of the seventeenth century. I reckoned the number of its houses at about one thousand. The inhabitants are for the most part Turks; there are only eighty Greek Christian families, and three of Armenian Greeks. They have a church, and three priests, and are under the immediate jurisdiction of the Greek Patriarch of Damascus.

      The principal trade of Edlip is in soap; there are some manufactories of cotton stuffs, and a few dyeing-houses. The Bazars are well built, some of them of stone. In the town are several Khans, two of which are destined for the reception of strangers;

      [p.123]but the best edifice is the soap manufactory (El Meszbane), a large building. Edlip has no gardens, because there is no water but from wells and cisterns; there are a few orchards of pomegranate and fig trees, and some vine plantations. The place is supplied with vegetables from Rieha, and from Aere, a village two hours distant, lying between Darkoush and Djissr Shogher. There is a single spring in the town of brackish water, which is never used but in seasons of great drought; a man who had cleansed the bottom of the deep well in which the spring issues, told me that he found two openings in the rock, near each other, from the one of which flows sweet water, while that from the other is brackish. I made the tour of the town in thirty-seven minutes; the rocky ground is full of caverns, wells, and pits.

      Edlip is held by the family of Kuperly Zaade of Constantinople; but a part of its revenue is a Wakf to the Harameyn, that is to say, it contributes to defray the expenses of the two holy cities Mekka and Medina. The town pays annually to the above family, twenty purses for themselves, and fifteen for the holy cities; the latter sum was formerly sent to Mekka every year with the pilgrim caravan; but it is now paid into the hands of the Kuperlys. The town of Djissr Shogher [Arabic], distant six hours from Edlip, on the road to Ladikia, belongs to the same family, and is likewise a Wakf attached to the holy cities; it pays fifteen purses to the Kuperlys, and seven to the Harameyn. The revenue arising from thirteen or fourteen villages in the neighbourhood of Djissr Shogher has been assigned to the support of several hospitals which the Kuperlys have built in that town, where a number of poor people are fed daily gratis. Neither Edlip nor Shogher pays any land-tax or Miri, in consequence of their being attached to Mekka; but there is a custom-house at Edlip, where duties are levied on all kinds of provisions, as rice, coffee, oil, raisins, tobacco, &c.

      [p.124]the proceeds of which amount to nearly one hundred purses; besides a house tax, which yields twenty purses. The duties levied on provisions at Djissr Shogher amount to twenty purses.

      The government of Edlip is in the hands of a Mutsellim, named by the Porte; the real power had been for many years in the rich family of Ayash [Arabic], till the present chief of that family, Mahmoud Ibn Ayash, a man famous for his hospitality and upright character, had the misfortune to lose all his influence. In 1810 his house became involved in a deadly quarrel with that of Djahya, in consequence of a game of Jerid, which took a serious turn, and in which much blood was shed. Djahya left Edlip, and went to Rieha and Djissr Shogher, where he succeeded in engaging in his interest Seyd Aga and Topal Aly, the rebel chiefs of those towns, who only wanted a pretext to fall upon Edlip; they accordingly stirred up the inhabitants against Mahmoud, who was obliged to СКАЧАТЬ