[p.221]close to which runs the Ledja; and the Wady Lowa descends the
mountain on the west side of it. We proceeded in the direction of
Soueida, and in an hour and a quarter from the village stopped, after
sunset, at an encampment of the Djebel Haouran Arabs. My companion, and
a guide whom I had engaged at Om Ezzeitoun, persuaded me to appear
before the Arabs as a soldier belonging to the government, in order to
get a good supper, of which we were in great want, that of the preceding
night, at the saltpetre works, having consisted of only a handful of dry
biscuit. We were served with a dish of rice boiled in sour milk, and
were much amused by the sports and songs of the young girls of the
tribe, which they continued in the moonlight till near midnight. One of
the young men had just returned to the encampment, who had been taken
prisoner by the Aeneze during a nightly predatory expedition. He showed
us the marks of his fetters, and enlarged upon the mode of treating the
Rabiat, or prisoner, among the Aeneze. A friend had paid thirty camels
for his liberation. In spring the Arabs of the Djebel Haouran and the
Ledja take advantage of the approach of the Aeneze, to plunder daily
among their enemies; they are better acquainted with the ground than the
latter, a part of whose horses and cattle are every spring carried off
by these daring mountaineers.
April 25th.--At half an hour from the encampment is the hill called Tel
Dobbe [Arabic], consisting of a heap of ruins, with a spring. To the
N.E. of it, a quarter of an hour, is the ruined village of Bereit, which
was inhabited in 1810, but is now abandoned. The Haouran peasants wander
from one village to another; in all of them they find commodious
habitations in the ancient houses; a camel transports their family and
baggage; and as they are not tied to any particular spot by private
landed property, or plantations, and find every where large tracts to
cultivate,