[p.214]of the black stone of the Ledja, about twenty-five or thirty feet
high, of the Ionic order, and with a high pedestal. I had been told that
there were some inscriptions upon it, but I did not find any. The column
is half an hour distant from Merdjan, to the eastward of south. Round
the column are fragments of three or four others, which appear to have
formed a small temple. The remains of a subterraneous aqueduct,
extending from the village towards the spot where the column stands, are
yet visible. In one hour from thence we passed a ruined village called
Beidhan [Arabic], with a saltpetre manufactory. Two hours from Merdjan
is Berak [Arabic], bearing from it S.E.b.E. Our road lay over a low
plain between the Djebel Kessoue and the Ledja, in which the Bedouins of
the latter were pasturing their cattle. Berak is a ruined town, situated
on the N.E. corner of the Ledja; there is no large building of any
consequence here; but there are many private habitations. Here are two
saltpetre manufactories, in which the saltpetre is procured by boiling
the earth dug up among the ruins of the town; saline earth is also dug
up in the neighbouring plain; in finding the productive spots, they are
guided by the appearance of the ground in the morning before sunrise,
and wherever it then appears most wet with dew the soil beneath is found
impregnated with salt. The two manufactures produce about three Kantars,
or fifteen or sixteen quintals per month of saltpetre, which is sold at
about fifteen shillings per quintal. The boilers of these manufactories
are heated by brush-wood brought from the desert, as there is little
wood in the Ledja, about Berak. The whole of the Loehf, or limits of the
Ledja, is productive of saltpetre, which is sold at Damascus and Acre; I
saw it sold near the lake of Tiberias for double the price which it
costs in the Loehf. In the interior of a house among the ruins of Berak,
I saw the following inscription:
[p.215]
[Greek] ["The tenth of Peritius of the eighth year." Peritius was one of
the Macedonian months, the use of which was introduced into Syria by the
Seleucidae. It answered to the latter part of December and beginning of
January. Ed.].
On the outside wall of a house, in another part of the town, was the
following:
[Greek] [[GREEK] Apellaeus was another Macedonian month, and answered to
half October and half November. This inscription is within a tablet of
the usual form. Ed].
Berak, like most of the ancient towns of the Ledja, has a large stone
reservoir of water. Between these ruins and Missema lies the ruined city
Om Essoud [Arabic], in the Loehf.
Djebel Kessoue runs out in a S.E. direction as far as the N.E. limits of
the Ledja, and consists of the same kind of rock as that district. The
other branch of it, or Djebel Khiara, extends towards Shaara. One hour
S.W. from Berak, in the Ledja, are the ruins of a tower called Kaszr
Seleitein [Arabic], with a ruined village near it. An Arab enumerated to
me the following names of ruined cities and villages in the Ledja, which
may be added to those mentioned in my former journal: Emseyke [Arabic],
El Wyr