The walls of the mosque are covered with a coat of fine plaster, upon
which were many Cufic inscriptions in bas-relief, running all round the
wall, which was embellished also by numerous elegant Arabesque
ornaments; a few traces of these, as well as of the inscriptions, still
remain. The interior court-yard of the mosque is covered with the ruins
of the roof, and with fragments of columns, among which I observed a
broken shaft of an octagonal pillar, two feet in diameter; there are
also several stones with Cufic inscriptions upon them.
Passing from the great mosque, southwards, we came to the principal ruin
of Boszra, the remains of a temple, situated on the side of a long
street, which runs across the whole town, and terminates at the western
gate. Of this temple nothing remains but the back wall, with two
pilasters, and a column, joined by its entablature to the main wall;
they are all of the Corinthian order, and both capitals and architraves
are richly adorned with sculpture. In the wall of the temple are three
rows of niches, one over the other. Behind this is another wall, half
ruined. In front of the temple, but
[p.230]standing in an oblique direction towards it, are four large
Corinthian Columns, equalling in beauty of execution the finest of those
at Baalbec or Palmyra (those in the temple of the Sun at the latter
place excepted): they are quite perfect, are six spans in diameter, and
somewhat more than forty-five feet in height; they are composed of many
pieces of different sizes, the smallest being towards the top, and they
do not appear to have been united by an entablature. They are not at
equal distances, the space between the two middle ones being greater
than the two other intervals. About thirty paces distant stands another
column, of smaller dimensions, and of more elaborate but less elegant
execution. I endeavoured in vain to trace the plan of the edifice to
which these columns belonged, for they correspond in no way with the
neighbouring temple; it appeared that the main building had been
destroyed, and its site built upon; nothing whatever of it remaining but
these columns, the immediate vicinity of which is covered with the ruins
of private houses. These four large columns, and those of Kanouat, are
the finest remains of antiquity in the Haouran. Upon the base of the
pilaster in the back wall of the temple is the following inscription, in
handsome characters:
[Greek].
Upon a broken stone in a modern wall near this temple I read:
[Greek].
[p.231] Upon another broken stone not far from the former is this
inscription, now almost effaced, and which I made out with difficulty:
[Greek].
The ruin of the temple just described is in the upper part of the town,
which slopes gently towards the west; not far from it, in descending the
principal street, is a triumphal arch, almost entire, but presenting
nothing very striking in its appearance, from the circumstance of the
approach to it being choked with private houses, as is the case with all
the public buildings in Boszra, except the church first mentioned. The
arch consists of a high central arch, with two lower side arches;
between these are Corinthian pilasters, with projecting bases for
statues. On the inside of the arch were several large niches, now choked
up by heaps of broken stones. On one of the pilasters is this
inscription:
VLIO IVLIA . . . . . NAR PRAEF LEG. p ARTHICAE . . . . . . PPIANAE DVCI
DEVOTI S . MO . TREBICIVS CAVOINUS PRAEF ALAE NOV. EFIRME CATAPRACTO
PHILIPPIAN . PRAEPOSITO OPTIMO
Upon a stone in the wall over the gate of a private house on the west
side of the temple, was the following, upside down:
[p.232] [Greek].
Over the gate of another house, in the same neighbourhood:
[Greek].
Among the ruins in the N.W. part of the town is an insulated mosque, and
another stands near the above mentioned Deir Boheiry; in its court-yard
is a stone covered with a long and beautiful Cufic inscription, which is
well worth transporting to Europe; the characters being very small it
would have required a whole day to copy it; it begins as follows:
[Arabic].
Not far from the great mosque is another triumphal arch, of smaller
dimensions than the former, but remarkable for the thickness of its
walls: it forms the entrance to an arched passage, through which one of
the principal streets passed: two Doric columns are standing before it.
In the eastern quarter of the town is a large Birket or reservoir,
almost perfect, one hundred and ninety paces in length, one hundred and
fifty three in breadth, and enclosed by a wall seven feet in thickness,
built of large square stones; its depth maybe about twenty feet. A
staircase leads down to the water, as the basin is never completely
filled. This reservoir is a work of the Saracens; made for watering the
pilgrim caravan to Mekka, which as late as the seventeenth century
passed by Boszra. A branch of the Wady Zeid [See p. 105.]empties itself
in winter into the Birket. On the south side it is flanked by a row of
houses, by some public edifices, and a
[p.233]mosque; and on the west side by an ancient cemetery; the other
sides are open.
Upon a broken stone, in the middle of the town, is the following
inscription, in characters similar to those which I met with at Hebron,
Kanouat, and Aaere.
[xxxxx].
I now quitted the precincts of the town, and just beyond the walls, on
the S. side came to a large castle of Saracen origin, probably of the
time of the Crusades: it is one of the best built castles in Syria, and
is surrounded by a deep ditch. Its walls are very thick, and in the
interior are alleys, dark vaults, subterraneous passages, &c. of the
most solid construction. What distinguishes it from other Syrian
castles, is that on the top of it there is a gallery of short pillars,
on three sides, and on the fourth side are several niches in the wall,
without any decorations; many of the pillars are still standing. The
castle was garrisoned, at the time of my visit, by six Moggrebyns only.
There is a well in the interior. I copied the following from a small
altar-shaped stone lying on the ground within the castle:
[Greek]. [Legionis tertiae Cyrenaicae. Ed.]
The castle of Boszra is a most important post to protect the harvests of
the Haouran against the hungry Bedouins; but it is much neglected by the
Pashas of Damascus, and this year the
[p.234]crops of the inhabitants of Boszra have been almost entirely
consumed by the horses of the Aeneze, who were encamped on the E. side
of the Djebel Haouran.
From a broken stone in the modern wall of a court-yard near the castle I
copied the following letters:
[Greek].
In proceeding from the castle westwards, I arrived, in a quarter of an
hour, at the western gate of the town, where the long street terminates.
The gate is a fine arch, with niches on each side, in perfect
preservation: the people of Boszra call it Bab el Haoua [Arabic], or the
Wind gate, probably because the prevailing or summer breezes blow from
that point. A broad paved causeway, of which some traces yet remain, led
into the town; vestiges of the ancient pavement are also seen in many of
the streets, with a paved footway on each side; but the streets are all
narrow, just permitting a loaded camel to pass.
Near the Bab el Haoua are the springs above mentioned, called Ayoun el
Merdj; with some remains of walls near them. The late Youssef Pasha of
Damascus built here a small watch-tower, or barrack, for thirty men, to
keep the hostile Arabs at a distance from the water. The town walls are
almost perfect in this part, and the whole ground is covered with ruins,
although there is no appearance of any large public building. Upon an
altar near one of the springs was the following inscription: