FRIDAY, March 16.—I rose with the earliest dawn of day, and while morning coffee was preparing, I took an opportunity to steal out unobserved, for the purpose of taking a hasty glance around the town, well knowing that our party would not be ready to mount before they had taken their breakfast and enjoyed their pipes, which would be nine o'clock at the earliest. During this hurried excursion I observed that the town of Gheryeh resembled, in all its general features, the many places of a similar size that I had already passed through in the Hauran, with very few local peculiarities to distinguish it. In the centre of the town is a reservoir for water, sixty-five paces long, forty paces broad at the east end, and thirty broad at the west, the descent into it being by flights of steps at each corner, about fifteen feet in depth. At the east end of this reservoir, or tank, as it would be called in India, stood a portico formed of eighteen pillars, in three several rows of six each. A remarkable feature of this building was, that instead of the portico being on a level, and above the ascending flight of steps, to the number of seven, by which it was entered, the pillars stood on the steps themselves, the front row being the longest, the second row shorter, and the last or inner row the least in altitude of the whole, a peculiarity that I had never before observed anywhere. The pillars were about two feet in diameter, but of rude workmanship. There was a water-work on arches near to this, and a sloping tower rising from amid the whole, the general aspect of the scene being more like the combinations of an Indian pagoda, tank, ghaut, &c., than either a Roman temple or a Christian church. The walls here were at least seven feet thick, and were constructed of large blocks of stone in the rustic style. On the upper range of steps leading to this remarkable building, I observed a large block of stone, apparently black basalt, six spans long and two deep, now used as a mortar, with a wooden pestle in a hollow excavated in the top of it, and lying there to be used by any one who need it for pounding burnt coffee, on the face of which stone is the following inscription: may ΑΓΑΘΗΤΥΧΗ ЄKOINWNANAAWMATWN THCKWMHСХІЄЄКПРONOIAC ΦΑΚΟΡΝΗΛΙΑΝΟΥΠΠ. In the town, the reservoir before mentioned is known by the name of El-Birket, or the Lake. On a loose block of stone, near an old square tower to the west of this lake, is the following inscription, rudely cut: - G G AMAOAATHEZ IAIWNEKTICE KITOMNIHME ONANABITEKA ITCKNOICOTIO OTCOAPEAABEN. Stone doors were seen in several parts of the town, and one of these was barred, studded, and sculptured in each pannel, with great care. In the upper part of the same building to which this belonged, which was a tower, the blocks of stone were dove-tailed into each other for security of union, after the manner already described as prevalent in the earliest buildings of the Hauran. At the west end of the town is a large edifice, called by the Christians here, El-Kaneese or the church; near to this is an arched subterranean work, with large beams of stone; and close by it a modern sepulchre, or a tomb of a Mohammedan Santon. In different quarters of the town there are springs of water, from which it is more abundantly supplied with that necessary of life than any town we had passed through; and in addition to these are reservoirs for containing rain, so that it is probable this place was once the seat of some manufactory, in which the agency of water was perpetually required. I noticed, also, in two separate instances, the act of ploughing up small patches of ground amidst the ruins, for the purpose of sowing corn; and both the ploughmen followed their labours with their swords by their sides; the object of preferring this enclosed ground to larger portions without the limits of the town being, as they told me, for greater security, as, at a very short distance from the dwellings of the husbandman, no one could be sure of reaping what he himself had sown. I learnt also that these patches of cultivated ground were like the houses among which they were seated, the permanent property of no particular individual, passing from hand to hand as events arose to change the motive for tilling them; the only property, therefore, in them being the right of reaping the produce that might be sown; and even this required generally to be defended by vigilance, and some times even by the sword.* There are about one hundred and fifty families at Gheryeh, mostly Christians, then Druses, and lastly Mohammedans. Being now determined to pursue our way to Damascus without waiting for more favourable opportunities, or the protection of an increased number to our party, and to risk all the dangers of the route, we left Gheryeh about nine o'clock, and proceeded in a direction of N. N. W., over a rocky ground, diversified with occasional enclosures and large heaps of stones collected by the way side; and in half an hour after setting out we passed the large ruined town of Hebrān, which was seated on a hill about two miles to the eastward of our path. Here we crossed the stream of the Zeidy, already mentioned more than once, and observed at this place two or three smaller rivulets augmenting this brook by their waters. Half an hour further on from this we passed the ruined town of Ghussun, seated on a hill about a mile to the westward of our path, and like the town of Hebrān, to the east, deserted and in ruins. From the great plain of the Haurān, on the west, to this its eastern border, the elevation is very slight, but gradually continued for a space of about five miles. The hills seen by us from hence on our right forming this eastern border, were now covered with snow; and beyond these again, was another great plain, on a higher level, to This is so striking a confirmation of one of the early stages of society alluded to by the learned and philosophic historian of British India, Mr. Mill, in his chapter on land tenures and taxes, that I shall take the liberty to transcribe the passages from his valuable work; which, however, I had not read until long after the fact noted above had been remarked by me, my journey being in 1816, and Mr. Mill's history being The published in 1820. are as follow: passages "At different times, very different rights and advantages are included under the idea of property. At very early periods of society it included very few: originally, nothing more, perhaps, than right during occupancy, the commodity being likely to be taken by another the moment it was relinquished by the hand that held it. It is worthy of remark, that property in moveables was established, and that it conveyed most of the powers which are at any time assigned to it, while as yet property in land had no existence. So long as men continue to derive their subsistence from hunting, the eastward, said to be in all respects equal to that of the Hauran in the fertility of its soil and the abundant remains of a numerous population. It is really humiliating to see so fine a country in the possession of so barbarous a government as that of the Turks, and abandoned as it were to sterility and desolation. On the mountains and plains of these districts of Belkah, Adjeloon, and Haurān, extending from the Dead Sea to the sources of the Jordan north, and from the banks of that river to the extreme limits of the cultivable land on the east, there would be room for a million of human beings to form a new colony; and so far from doing injury to their surrounding neighbours, they would enrich every country that was on their borders, and form a centre from which industry, arts, science, and morals might extend their influence, and irradiate regions now the prey of ignorance, rapine, and devastation. If the ruler of Turkey knew his interest well, he would imitate the conduct of Shah Abbas the Great, of Persia, who brought a colony of Armenians from Julfa, and planted them near Ispahan, where they enriched themselves, and did incalculable benefit to the Persians also, until they were persecuted by a succeeding government, who pursued a different policy. No part of the Turkish dominions could probably be selected with less risk of interfering with the property and rights of others, or with more certainty of success, than these districts which I have enumerated; where the colonists would find a fertile soil and springs of water capable of being led in any direction for irrigation; towns and houses built ready for their occupation; a delicious climate, and a wide extent of country on all sides, for the consumption of their cattle, grain, and even manufactures. These impressions were forcibly obtruded on my mind at different periods of our journey, but never more so long, indeed, as they continue to derive it from their flocks and herds, the land is enjoyed in common. Even when they begin to derive it partly from the ground, though the man who has cultivated a field is regarded as possessing in it a property till he has reaped his crop, he has no better title to it than another for the succeeding year." MILL'S History of British India, vol. i. b. ii. c. v. p. 257, second edition, 8vo. |