Travels in Syria and the Holy Land. John Lewis Burckhardt
October 8th.—I went to see the ruined temple called Heusn Nieha, two hours from Zahle, in the Djebel Sannin, and half an hour
[p.30] from the village of Fursul. These remains stand in a Wady, surrounded by barren rocks, having a spring near them to the eastward. The temple faced the west. A grand flight of steps, twelve paces broad, with a column three feet and a half in diameter at each end of the lower step, formed the approach to a spacious pronaos, in which are remains of columns: here a door six paces in width opens into the cella, the fallen roof of which now covers the floor, and the side walls to half their original height only remain. This chamber is thirty-five paces in length by fifteen in breadth. On each of the side walls stood six pilasters of a bad Ionic order. At the extremity of the chamber are steps leading to a platform, where the statue of the deity may, perhaps, have stood: the whole space is here filled up with fragments of columns and walls. The square stones used in the construction of the walls are in general about four or five cubic feet each, but I saw some twelve feet long, four feet high, and four feet in breadth. On the right side of the entrance door is a staircase in the wall, leading to the top of the building, and much resembling in its mode of construction the staircase in the principal temple of Baalbec. The remains of the capitals of columns betray a very corrupt taste, being badly sculptured, and without any elegance either in design or execution; and the temple seems to have been built in the latest times of paganism, and was perhaps subsequently repaired, and converted into a church. The stone with which it has been built is more decayed than that in the ruins at Baalbec, being here more exposed to the inclemency of the weather. No inscriptions were any where visible. Around the temple are some ruins of ancient and others of more modern habitations.
Above Fursul is a plain called Habis, in which are a number of grottos excavated in the rock, apparently tombs; but I did not visit them.
AIN ESSOUIRE
[p.31] October 9th.—I was disappointed in my intention of proceeding, and passed the day in calling at several shops in the town, and conversing with the merchants and Arab traders.
October 10th.—I set out for Hasbeya, accompanied by the same guide with whom I had made the mountain tour. We crossed the Bekaa nearly in the direction of Andjar.[The following are the villages in the Bekaa, and at the foot of the western mountain, which from Zahle southward takes the name of Djebel Riehan; namely, Saad-Nayel [Arabic], Talabaya [Arabic], Djetye [Arabic], Bouarish [Arabic], Mekse [Arabic], Kab Elias [Arabic], Mezraat [Arabic], Bemherye [Arabic], Aamyk [Arabic], Deir Tenhadish [Arabic], Keferya [Arabic], Khereyt Kena [Arabic], Beit Far [Arabic], Ain Zebde [Arabic], Segbin [Arabic], Deire el Djouze [Arabic], Bab Mara [Arabic], Aitenyt [Arabic], El Kergoue [Arabic], El Medjdel [Arabic], Belhysz [Arabic], Lala [Arabic], Meshgara [Arabic], Sahhar Wyhbar [Arabic], Shedite, Nebi Zaour, Baaloul [Arabic], Bedjat [Arabic], Djub Djenin [Arabic], Tel Danoub [Arabic], El Khyare [Arabic], El Djezyre [Arabic], El Estabbel [Arabic], El Merdj [Arabic], Tel el Akhdar [Arabic], Taanayl [Arabic], Ber Elias [Arabic], Deir Zeinoun [Arabic].] The generality of the inhabitants of the Bekaa are Turks; one fifth, perhaps, are Catholic Christians. There are no Metaweli. The land is somewhat better cultivated than that of Belad Baalbec, but still five- sixths Of the soil is left in pasture for the Arabs. The Fellahs (peasant cultivators) are ruined by the exorbitant demands of the proprietors of the soil, who are, for the greater part, noble families of Damascus, or of the Druse mountains. The usual produce of the harvest is tenfold, and in fruitful years it is often twenty fold.
After two hours and three quarters brisk walking of our horses, we passed Medjdel to our right, near which, on the road, lies a piece of a large column of acalcareous and flinty breccia. Half an hour beyond Medjdel, we reached a spring called Ain Essouire. Above it in the hills which branch out of the Anti-Libanus, or
HASBEYA
[p.32] Djurd Essharki, into the Bekaa, is the village Nebi Israi, and to the left, in the Anti-Libanus, is the Druse village of Souire. A little farther on we passed Hamara, a village on the Anti-Libanus. At one hour from Ain Essouire, is Sultan Yakoub, with the tomb of a saint, a place of holy resort of the Turks. Below it lies the Ain Sultan Yakoub. Half an hour farther is Nebae el Feludj, a spring. Our road lay S. by W. At the end of three hours and a half from Ain Essouire, we reached the village El Embeite, on the top of a hill, opposite to Djebel Essheikh. The route to this place, from Medjdel, lay through a valley of the Anti- Libanus, which, farther on, towards El Heimte, loses itself in the mountains comprised under the name of Djebel Essheikh. The summit of this mountain, which bears west from Damascus, is probably the highest in Syria, for snow was still lying upun it. The mountain belongs to the district of the Emir of the Druses, commanding at Rasheia, a Druse village at one hour and a half from El Heimte. We slept at El Heimte, in the house of the Druse Sheikh, and the Khatib, or Turkish priest of the village, gave us a plentiful supper. The Druses in this district affect to adhere strictly to the religious precepts of the Turks. The greater part of the inhabitants of El Heimte are Druses belonging to Rasheia. Near it are the villages of Biri and Refit.
October 11th.—We set out at day-break, and at the end of an hour passed on the left the Druse villages Deneibe and Mimis, and at two hours Sefa on our right, also a Druse village. Our road lay over an uneven plain, cultivated only in spots. After three hours and a half, we came to Ain Efdjur, direction S.W. by W.; from thence in two hours and a half we reached the Djissr-Moiet-Hasbeya, or bridge of the river of Hasbeya, whose source is hard by; the road lying the whole way over rocky ground little susceptible of culture. From the Djissr we turned up a steep Wady E. b. S. and arrived, in about three quarters of an hour, at Hasbeya, situated
[p.33] on the top of a mountain of no great height. I had letters from the Greek patriarch of Damascus to the Greek bishop of Hasbeya, in whose house, four years ago, Dr. Seetzen spent a week, having been prevented from proceeding by violent snow and rain. The bishop happened to be absent on my arrival, and I therefore took up my lodging in the house of a poor Greek priest, with whose behaviour towards me I had every reason to be satisfied.
October 12th.—The village or town of Hasbeya may contain seven hundred houses; half of which belong to Druse families; the other half are inhabited by Christians, principally Greeks, though there are also Catholics and Maronites here. There are only forty Turkish families, and twenty Enzairie. The inhabitants make cotton cloth for shirts and gowns, and have a few dyeing houses. The principal production of their fields is olives. The chief of the village is an Emir of the Druses, who is dependent both on the Pasha of Damascus and the Emir Beshir. He lives in a well-built Serai, which in time of war might serve as a castle. The following villages belong to the territory of Hasbeya: Ain Sharafe, El Kefeir, Ain Annia, Shoueia, Ain Tinte, El Kankabe, El Heberie, Rasheyat el Fukhar, Ferdis, Khereibe, El Merie, Shiba, Banias, Ain Fid, Zoura, Ain Kamed Banias, Djoubeta, Fershouba, Kefaer Hamam, El Waeshdal, El Zouye.
The neighbourhood of Hasbeya is interesting to the mineralogist. I was told by the priest that a metal was found near it, of which nobody knew the name, nor made any use. Having procured a labourer, I found after digging in the Wady a few hundred paces to the E. of the village, several small pieces of a metallic substance, which I took to be a native amalgam of mercury. According to the description given me, cinnabar is also found here, but we could discover no specimen of it after half an hour's digging. The ground all around, and the spring near the village, are
SOUK EL KAHN.
[p.34] strongly impregnated with iron; the rock is sandstone, of a dark red colour. The other mineral curiosities are, a number of wells of bitumen Judaicum, in the Wady at one hour below the village on the west side, after recrossing the bridge; they are situated upon the declivity of a chalky hill; the bitumen is found in large veins at about twenty feet below the surface. The pits are from six to twelve feet in diameter; the workmen descend by a rope and wheel, and in hewing out the bitumen, they leave columns of that substance at different intervals, as a support to the earth above; pieces of several Rotolas in weight each[The Rotola is about five pounds.] are brought up. There are upwards of twenty-five of these pits or wells, but the greater part of them are abandoned and overgrown with shrubs. I saw only one, that appeared to have been recently worked; they work only during the summer months. The bitumen is called