A NA'OURA, ḤAMĀH
[CHAPTER X]
You do not see Ḥamāh until you are actually upon it—there is no other preposition that describes the attitude of the new comer. The Orontes at this point flows in a deep bed and the whole city lies hidden between the banks. The monotonous plain of cornfields stretches before you without a break until you reach a veritable entanglement of graveyards—the weekly All Souls' Day had come round again when we arrived, and the cemeteries were crowded with the living as well as with the dead. Suddenly the plain ceased beneath our feet, and we stood on the edge of an escarpment, with the whole town spread out before us, the Orontes set with gigantic Persian wheels, and beyond it the conical mound on which stood the fortresses of Hamath and Epiphaneia and who knows what besides, for the site is one of the oldest in the world. Two soldiers started from the earth and set about to direct me to a camping ground, but I was tired and cross, a state of mind that does sometimes occur on a journey, and the arid spots between houses to which they took us seemed particularly distasteful. At length the excellent Turk, who had not yet abandoned us, declared that he knew the very place that would please me; he led us along the edge of the escarpment to the extreme northern end of the city, and here showed us a grassy sward which was as lovely a situation as could be desired. The Orontes issued from the town below us amid gardens of flowering apricot trees, the golden evening light lay behind the minarets, and a great Na'oura ground out a delicious song of the river.
Ḥamāh is the present terminus of the French railway,[9] and the seat of a Muteserrif. The railway furnished me with a guide and companion in the shape of a Syrian station-master, a consequential half-baked little man, who had been educated in a missionary school and scorned to speak Arabic when he could stutter in French. He announced that his name was Monsieur Kbēs and his passion archæology, and, that he might the better prove himself to be in the van of modern thought, he attributed every antiquity in Ḥamāh to the Hittites, whether it were Byzantine capital or Arab enlaced decoration. With the Muteserrif I came immediately into collision by reason of his insisting on providing me with eight soldiers to guard my camp at night, a preposterous force, considering that two had been ample in every country district. So numerous a guard would have been an intolerable nuisance, for they would have talked all night and left the camp no peace, and I sent six of them away, in spite of their protestations that they must obey superior orders. They reconciled the Muteserrif's commands with mine by spending the night in a ruined mosque a quarter of a mile away, where they were able to enjoy excellent repose unbroken by a sense of responsibility.
THE ḲUBBEH IN THE MOSQUE AT ḤAMĀH
For picturesqueness Ḥamāh is not to be outdone by any town in Syria. The broad river with its water wheels is a constant element of beauty, the black and white striped towers of the mosques an exquisite architectural feature, the narrow, partly vaulted streets are traps to hold unrivalled effects of sun and shadow, and the bazaars are not as yet disfigured by the iron roofs that have done so much to destroy the character of those at Damascus and at Ḥomṣ. The big mosque in the centre of the town was once a Byzantine church. The doors and windows of the earlier building are easily traceable in the walls of the mosque; the lower part of the western minaret was probably the foundation of an older tower; the court is full of Byzantine shafts and capitals, and the beautiful little Ḳubbeh is supported by eight Corinthian columns. On one of these I noticed the Byzantine motive of the blown acanthus. When they grew weary of setting the leaves in a stereotyped uprightness, the stone-cutters laid them lightly round the capital, as though the fronds had drifted in a swirl of wind, and the effect is wonderfully graceful and fanciful. Kbēs and I climbed the citadel hill, and found the area on the top to be enormous, but all the cut stones of the fortifications have been removed and built into the town below. My impression is that the isolation of the mound is not natural, but has been effected by cutting through the headland that juts out into the valley, and so separating a part of it from the main ridge. If this be so, it must have been a great work of antiquity, for the cutting is both wide and deep.
The chief interest of the day at Ḥamāh was supplied by the inhabitants. Four powerful Mohammadan families are reckoned as the aristocracy of the town, that of 'Aẓam Zādeh, Teifūr, Killāni and Barāzi, of which last I had seen a member in Damascus. The combined income of each family is probably about £6000 a year, all derived from land and villages, there being little trade in Ḥamāh. Before the Ottoman government was established as firmly as it is now, these four families were the lords of Ḥamāh and the surrounding districts; they are still of considerable weight in the administration of the town, and the officials of the Sultan let them go pretty much their own way, which is often devious. An ancient evil tale of the 'Aẓam Zādeh is often told, and not denied, so far as I could learn, by the family. There was an 'Aẓam in past years who, like King Ahab, desired his neighbour's vineyard, but the owner of it refused to sell. Thereupon the great man laid a plot. He caused one of his slaves to be slaughtered and had him cut into small pieces and buried, not too deep, in a corner of the coveted property, and after waiting a suitable time he sent a message to the landlord saying, "You have frequently invited me to drink coffee with you in your garden; I will come. Make ready." The man was gratified by this condescension and prepared a feast. The day came and with it the 'Aẓam prince. The meal was spread under an arbour, but when the guest saw it he declared that the spot selected did not suit him, and led the way to the exact place where his slave had been buried. The host protested, saying that it was a mean corner dose to the refuse heaps, but the 'Aẓam replied that he was satisfied, and the entertainment began. Presently the guest raised his head and said, "I perceive a curious smell." "My lord," said the host, "it is from the refuse heaps." "No," said the other, "there is something more;" and summoning his servants he bade them dig in the ground whereon they sat. The quartered body of the slave was revealed and recognised, and on an accusation of murder the lord of the garden was seized and bound, and his possessions taken from him by way of compensation.