[p.129] we passed a copious spring, enclosed by a square building,
called El Monboaa [Arabic]. In the plain to the right we saw the village
Kefrzebou [Arabic], and half an hour to the west of it another, called
Ourim [Arabic]. We met with several sepulchral caves on our road.
Wherever, in these parts, the soil admits of culture, wheat and barley
are sown among the rocks. If such spots are distant from a village, the
cultivators pitch a few tents for the purpose of watching the seed and
crop; such encampments are called Mezraa [Arabic]. In an hour and ten
minutes we reached Nahle; two hours and forty minutes the village
Meghara [Arabic], with many remains of ancient buildings. Here I saw a
neat sepulchral cave with a vaulted portico supported by two pillars. In
three hours we reached the village Merayan [Arabic]; the direction of
our route sometimes S.W. sometimes S.S.W. Just by Merayan is a large
coffin, cut in the rocky ground, like those of Kefr Lata; and near it a
spring, with ancient walls. In three hours and twenty minutes we came to
Ahsin [Arabic], half an hour to the west of which is the village Eblim
[Arabic]. The principal produce of all these villages is grapes, which
are carried to the Aleppo market, and there sold, in ordinary years, at
about nine shillings per quintal; or else they are boiled to form the
sweet glutinous extract called Debs, which is a substitute for sugar all
over the East. At the end of four hours and a half we reached the
village El Bara [Arabic], where we finished our day's journey; but we
met with a very cold reception, although I had taken the precaution of
obtaining a letter of recommendation to the Sheikh of the village from
the proprietor of it, Taleb Effendi, of the family Tcheleby Effendi Toha
Zade, the first house of Aleppo.
Half an hour N.W. of Bara lies the village Belyoum. A high hill,
contiguous to the Djebel Rieha, called Neby Ayoub [Arabic], bears N.W.
from El Bara, distant about an hour and three
[p.130]quarters. On its summit is a Turkish chapel sacred to the memory
of the prophet Ayoub (Job). Two hours distant from El Bara, S. by W.
lies the village Kefr Nebyl.
February 20th.--The mountain of Rieha, of which El Bara forms a part, is
full of the ruins of cities, which flourished in the times of the lower
empire;[The following are the names of other villages and ruined towns,
situated upon the mountain of Rieha from the information of a man or El
Bara: viz. Medjellye [Arabic], Betersa [Arabic], Baouza [Arabic], Has
[Arabic], El Rebeya [Arabic], Serdjelle [Arabic], El Djerada [Arabic],
Moarrat Houl [Arabic], Moarrat Menhas [Arabic], Beshelle [Arabic],
Babouza [Arabic], El Deir [Arabic], El Roweyha [Arabic], with extensive
ruins; Zer Szabber [Arabic], Zer Louza [Arabic], Moar Bellyt [Arabic],
Moar Szaf [Arabic], Serdjeb Mantef [Arabic], Nahle [Arabic], El Rama
[Arabic], Kefr Rouma [Arabic], Shennan [Arabic], Ferkya [Arabic],
Belshou [Arabic], Ahsarein [Arabic], Moarrat Maater [Arabic], Djebale
[Arabic], Kefrneba [Arabic], Beskala [Arabic], Moarrata [Arabic],
Djousef [Arabic], El Fetteyry [Arabic], El Ahmeyry [Arabic], Erneba
[Arabic], El Arous [Arabic], Kon Szafra [Arabic], El Mezra [Arabic],
Aweyt [Arabic], Kefr Shelaye [Arabic], Szakhrein [Arabic], Benames
[Arabic], Kefr Djennab [Arabic], Szankoul [Arabic].] those of El Bara
are the most considerable of the whole, and as I had often heard the
people of the country mention them, I thought it worth while to take
this circuitous road to Hamah.
The ruins are about ten minutes walk to the west of the village.
Directing our researches to that side we met with a sepulchral cave in
the immediate vicinity of the town; a broad staircase leads down to the
entrance of it, over which I copied this inscription:
[Greek].
The following figure, in relief, was over it. We saw the same figure,
with variations, over the gates of several buildings in these ruins; the
episcopal staff is found in all
[p.131]of them. The best executed one that I saw was of this form. On
the outside of the town are several sepulchral caves, and a few coffins.
The town walls on the E. side are yet standing; they are very neatly
built with small stones, with a square pillar at every six or seven
paces, about nine feet high. The ruins extend for about half an hour
from south to north, and consist of a number of public buildings,
churches, and private habitations, the walls and roofs of some of which
are still standing. I found no inscriptions here. The stone with which
the buildings are constructed is a soft calcareous rock, that speedily
decays wherever it is exposed to the air; it is of the same description
as that found in the buildings of the towns about the mountain of St.
Simon, and in the ruins of St. Simon, where not a single legible
inscription remains, though, as at Bara, traces of them are seen in many
places. We surveyed the town in all directions, but saw no building
worth noticing, except three tombs, which are plain square structures
surmounted with pyramids. The pyramidal summit of one of them has
fallen. The interior of these tombs is a square of six paces; on the
side opposite the door is a stone coffin; and two others in each of the
other two walls; the pyramidal roof is well constructed, being hollow to
the top, with rounded angles, and without any interior support. On the
outside the pyramid is covered with thin slabs, on each of which is a
kind of knob, which gives the whole a very singular appearance. The
height of the whole building may be about twenty-four feet. In one of
the tombs is a window, the other is quite dark. Two of them stand near
together; a third is in a different part of the town. The sides of one
of the coffins is carved with a cross in the middle.
[p.132]The mode of construction in all the private habitations is
similar to that which I noticed in the ancient towns of the Haouran, and
which, in fact, is still in use in most of the Arab villages in Syria,
with this difference, that the latter build with timber and mud instead
of stone.
On the N. side of El Bara stands a castle, built in the Saracen or
Crusade style, with a spring near it, called Bir Alloun [Arabic], the
only one in the neighbourhood of the ancient town, and which apparently
was insufficient to the inhabitants, as we found many cisterns cut very
deep in the rock. Turning from the spring towards the present village,
we passed the tomb of a Turkish saint, called Kubbet Ibn Imaum Abou
Beker, where the son of Abou Beker is reported to have been killed: near
it is a cave, with eight receptacles for the dead. I saw there some
rocks of the same basaltic tufwacke which I met with in the Djebel el
Hasz and in ome of the districts of Haouran.
The greater part of the villages of Djebel Rieha belong to the Dehly
Bashi, at Rieha. Feteyry belongs to the district of Marra; its
inhabitants have often been punished for their rebellious conduct, and
their predatory incursions into the neighbouring districts; their
spirit, however, is unbroken, and they still follow the same practices.
The frontiers of the Pashaliks of Damascus and Aleppo run across the
mountain of Rieha, which commences above Rieha, and extends to Kalaat el
Medyk, varying in breadth from two to five hours: it is a low but very
rocky chain, little fit for culture, except in the valleys; but it
abounds in game, especially wild boars; and ounces have sometimes been
killed in it.
We left the inhospitable Bara at mid-day, with two armed men, to escort
us over the mountain into the valley of the Orontes. In half an hour we
passed a ruined stone bridge across a narrow Wady; it rests upon piers,
which are formed of immense blocks