[p.56]which they may have purchased at Damascus, always however giving
them a piece of old clothing of the same kind in return. The country
from Szanamein to one hour's distance along our road is stony, and is
thence called War Szanamein. After passing it, we met some other Haouran
people, whose reports concerning the Arabs so terrified my companions,
that they resolved to give up their intention of reaching Ezra the same
day, and proceeded to seek shelter in a neighbouring village, there to
wait for fresh news. We turned off a little to our left, and alighted at
a village called Tebne [Arabic], distant one hour and a half from
Szanamein. We left our beasts in the court-yard of our host's house, and
went to sup with the Sheikh, a Druse, at whose house strangers are
freely admitted to partake of a plate of Burgoul. Tebne stands upon a
low hill, on the limits of the stony district called the Ledja, of which
I shall have occasion to speak hereafter. The village has no water but
what it derives from its cisterns, which were at this time nearly dry.
It consists wholly of ancient habitations, built of stone, of a kind
which I shall describe in speaking of Ezra.
November 10th.--We quitted Tebne early in the morning, and passing the
villages Medjidel [Arabic], Mehadjer [Arabic], Shekara [Arabic], and
Keratha [Arabic], all on the left of the route, arrived, at the end of
three hours and a quarter, at Ezra [Arabic]. Here commences the plain of
the Haouran, which is interrupted by numerous insulated hills, on the
declivities, or at the foot of which, most of the villages of the
Haouran are seated. From Tebne the soil begins to be better cultivated,
yet many parts of it are overgrown with weeds. On a hill opposite
Manhadje, on the west side of the road, stands a Turkish Meziar, called
Mekdad. In approaching Ezra we met a troop of about eighty of the
Pasha's cavalry; they had, the preceding night, surprised the above-
mentioned
[p.57]party of Arabs Serdie in the village of Walgha, and had killed
Aerar, their chief, and six others, whose heads they were carrying with
them in a sack. They had also taken thirty-one mares, of which the
greater number were of the best Arabian breeds. Afraid of being pursued
by the friends of the slain they were hastening back to Damascus, where,
as I afterwards heard, the Pasha presented them with the captured mares,
and distributed eight purses, or about £200. amongst them.
On reaching Ezra I went to the house of the Greek priest of the village,
whom I had already seen at the Patriarch's at Damascus, and with whom I
had partly concerted my tour in the Haouran. He had been the conductor
of M. Seetzen, and seemed to be very ready to attend me also, for a
trifling daily allowance, which he stipulated. Ezra is one of the
principal villages of the Haouran; it contains about one hundred and
fifty Turkish and Druse families, and about fifty of Greek Christians.
It lies within the precincts of the Ledja, at half an hour from the
arable ground: it has no spring water, but numerous cisterns. Its
inhabitants make cotton stuffs, and a great number of millstones, the
blocks for forming which, are brought from the interior of the Ledja;
the stones are exported from hence, as well as from other villages in
the Loehf, over the greater part of Syria, as far as Aleppo and
Jerusalem. They vary in price, according to their size, from fifteen to
sixty piastres, and are preferred to all others on account of the
hardness of the stone, which is the black tufa rock spread over the
whole of the Haouran, and the only species met with in this country.
Ezra was once a flourishing city; its ruins are between three and four
miles in circumference. The present inhabitants continue to live in the
ancient buildings, which, in consequence of the strength and solidity of
their walls, are for the greater part in complete preservation
[p.58]They are built of stone, as are all the houses of the villages in
the Haouran and Djebel Haouran from Ghabarib to Boszra, as well as of
those in the desert beyond the latter. In general each dwelling has a
small entrance leading into a court-yard, round which are the
apartments; of these the doors are usually very low. The interior of the
rooms is constructed of large square stones; across the centre is a
single arch, generally between two and three feet in breadth, which
supports the roof; this arch springs from very low pilasters on each
side of the room, and in some instances rises immediately from the
floor: upon the arch is laid the roof, consisting of stone slabs one
foot broad, two inches thick, and about half the length of the room, one
end resting upon short projecting stones in the walls, and the other
upon the top of the arch. The slabs are in general laid close to each
other; but in some houses I observed that the roof was formed of two
layers, the one next the arch having small intervals between each slab,
and a second layer of similar dimensions was laid close together at
right angles with the first. The rooms are seldom higher than nine or
ten feet, and have no other opening than a low door, with sometimes a
small window over it. In many places I saw two or three of these arched
chambers one above the other, forming so many stories. This substantial
mode of building prevails also in most of the ancient public edifices
remaining in the Haouran, except that in the latter the arch, instead of
springing from the walls or floor, rests upon two short columns. During
the whole of my tour, I saw but one or two arches, whose curve was
lofty; the generality of them, including those in the public buildings,
are oppressively low. To complete the durability of these structures,
most of the doors were anciently of stone, and of these many are still
remaining; sometimes they are of one piece and sometimes they are
folding doors; they turn upon hinges worked out of the stone, and are
about four [p.59]inches thick, and seldom higher than about four feet,
though I met with some upwards of nine feet in height.
I remained at Ezra, in the priest's house, this and the following day,
occupied in examining the antiquities of the village. The most
considerable ruins stand to the S.E. of the present habitations; but few
of the buildings on that side have resisted the destructive hand of
time. The walls, however, of most of them yet remain, and there are the
remains of a range of houses which, to judge from their size and
solidity, seem to have been palaces. The Ezra people have given them the
appellation of Seraye Malek el Aszfar, or the Palace of the Yellow King,
a term given over all Syria, as I have observed in another place, to the
Emperor of Russia. The aspect of these ruins, and of the surrounding
rocky country of the Ledja, is far from being pleasing: the Ledja
presents a level tract covered with heaps of black stones, and small
irregular shaped rocks, without a single agreeable object for the eye to
repose upon. On the west and north sides of the village are several
public edifices, temples, churches, &c. The church of St. Elias
[Arabic], in which the Greeks celebrate divine service, is a round
building, of which the roof is fallen in, and only the outer wall
standing. On its S. side is a vestibule supported by three arches, the
entrance to which is through a short arched dark passage. Over the
entrance is the following inscription:
[Greek]
Over a small side gate I observed the following words:
[Greek]
[p.60] On the arch of the entrance alley,
[Greek]
On the outer wall, on the north side of the rotunda;
[Greek]
On the south side of the village stands an edifice, dedicated to St.
Georgius, or El Khouder [Arabic], as the Mohammedans, and sometimes the
Christians, call that Saint. It is a square building of about eighty-
five feet the side, with a semicircular projection on the E. side; the
roof is vaulted, and is supported by eight square columns, which stand
in a circle in the centre of the square, and are united to one another
by arches. They are about two feet thick, and sixteen high, with a
single groove on each side. Between the columns and the nearest part of
the wall is a space of twelve feet. The niche on the east side contains
the altar. The vaulted roof is of modern construction. The building had
two entrances; of which the southern is entirely walled up; the western
also is closed at the top, leaving a space below for a stone door of six
feet high, over which is a broad stone with the following inscription
upon it:
[Greek]
[p.61] [Greek] [A.D. 410. This was the third year of the Emperor
Theodosius the younger, in whose reign the final decrees were issued
against the Pagan worship. It appears from the inscription that the
building upon which it is written was an ancient temple, converted into
a church of St. George. Editor.]
Before the temple is a small paved yard, now used as the exclusive
burial ground of the Greek priests of Ezra.
In the midst of the present inhabited part of the village stand the
ruins of another large edifice; it was formerly applied to Christian
worship, and subsequently converted into a mosque: but it has long since
been abandoned. It consists of a quadrangle, with two vaulted colonnades
at the northern and southern ends, each consisting of a double row of
five columns. In the middle of the area stood a parallel double range of
columns of a larger size, forming a colonnade across the middle of the
building; the columns are of the Doric order, and about sixteen feet
high. The side arcades are still standing to half their height; those of
the middle area are lying about in fragments; the E. and W. walls of the
building are also in ruins. Over the entrance gate are three inscribed
tablets, only one of which, built upside down in the wall, is legible;
it is as follows:
[Greek]
Over an inner gate I saw an inscription, much defaced, which seemed to
be in Syrian characters.
Adjoining this building stands a square tower, about fifty feet high;
its base is somewhat broader than its top. I frequently saw
[p.62]similar structures in the Druse villages; and in Szannamein are
two of the same form as the above: they all have windows near the
summit; in some, there is one window on each side, in others there are
two, as in this at Ezra. They have generally several stories of vaulted
chambers, with a staircase to ascend into them.
To the E. of the village is the gateway of another public building, the
interior of which has been converted into private dwellings; this
building is in a better style than those above described, and has some
trifling sculptured ornaments on its gate. On the wall on the right side
of the gate is this inscription.
[Greek]
There are many private habitations, principally at the S. end of the
town, with inscriptions over the doors; most of which are illegible. The
following I found in different parts of the village, on stones lying on
the ground, or built into the walls of houses.
Over the entrance of a sepulchral apartment,
[Greek]
[p.63]I observed a great difference in the characters in which all the
above inscriptions were engraved. That of S. Georgius is the best
written.
In the evening I went to water my horse with the priest's cattle at the
spring of Geratha, one hour distant from Ezra, N. by E. I met there a
number of shepherds with theyr flocks; the rule is, that the first who
arrives at the well, waters his cattle before the others; several were
therefore obliged to wait till after sunset. There are always some stone
basins round the wells, out of which the camels drink, the water being
drawn up by leathern buckets, and poured into them: disputes frequent1y
happen on these occasions. The well has a broad staircase leading down
to it; just by it lies a stone with an inscription, of which I could
make out only the following letters
[Greek]
This well is called Rauad.
November 12th.--I left Ezra with the Greek priest, to visit the villages
towards the mountain of the Haouran. I had agreed to pay him by the day,
but I soon had reason to repent of this arrangement. In order to
protract my journey, and augment the number of days,