Travels in Syria and the Holy Land

by John Lewis Burckhardt

NAEME.

[p.238]which they sell on their return to Damascus. They had about a dozen tents, and as many asses, and I saw a good mare tied before the tent of the Sheikh, who is a man of consequence among the thieves and vagabonds of Damascus. His name is El Shuhadein [Arabic]: he invited us to drink a cup of coffee, and take some refreshment; but my companions, who knew him, advised me to keep clear of him. At six hours and a quarter, we passed at a short distance to our left, the village Olma [Arabic], our route being N.W. About one hour S.W. of Olma lies the village El Kerek. Eight hours and twenty-five minutes, the village Naeme [Arabic]. Most of these villages stand upon, or near, low hillocks or Tels, the only objects which break the monotony of the plain.

It was at Naeme that I saw, for the first time, a swarm of locusts; they so completely covered the surface of the ground, that my horse killed numbers of them at every step, whilst I had the greatest difficulty in keeping from my face those which rose up and flew about. This species is called in Syria, Djerad Nedjdyat [Arabic] or Djerad Teyar [Arabic], i.e. the flying locusts, being thus distinguished from the other species, called Djerad Dsahhaf [Arabic], or devouring locusts. The former have a yellow body; a gray breast, and wings of a dirty white, with gray spots. The latter, I was told, have a whitish gray body, and white wings. The Nedjdyat are much less dreaded than the others, because they feed only upon the leaves of trees and vegetables, sparing the wheat and barley. The Dsahhaf, on the contrary, devour whatever vegetation they meet with, and are the terror of the husbandmen; the Nedjdyat attack only the produce of the gardener, or the wild herbs of the desert. I was told, however, that the offspring of the Nedjdyat produced in Syria partake of the voracity of the Dsahhaf, and like them prey upon the crops of grain.

SHEMSKEIN.

[p.239]Those which I saw in the Haouran, and afterwards in the gardens of Damascus, fly in separate bodies, and do not spread over a whole district. The young of this species are quite black until a certain age.

The Bedouins eat locusts, which are collected in great quantities in the beginning of April, when the sexes cohabit, and they are easily caught; after having been roasted a little upon the iron plate [Arabic], on which bread is baked, they are dried in the sun, and then put into large sacks, with the mixture of a little salt. They are never served up as a dish, but every one takes a handful of them when hungry. The peasants of Syria do not eat locusts, nor have I myself ever had an opportunity of tasting them: there are a few poor Fellahs in the Haouran, however, who sometimes pressed by hunger, make a meal of them; but they break off the head and take out the entrails before they dry them in the sun. The Bedouins swallow them entire. The natural enemy of the locust is the bird Semermar [Arabic]; which is of the size of a swallow, and devours vast numbers of them; it is even said that the locusts take flight at the cry of the bird. But if the whole feathered tribe of the districts visited by locusts were to unite their efforts, it would avail little, so immense are the numbers of these dreadful insects.

At eight hours and three quarters from Aaere, and at a short distance to the right, is the village Obta [Arabic]; our route N.W. by N. Nine hours and a quarter, we saw, at one hour to the left, the village El Kherbe [Arabic]. Nine hours and three quarters, Shemskein [Arabic], one of the principal villages in the Haouran. As we had rode at a very brisk pace, the above distance of nine hours and three quarters may be computed at nearly twelve hours of the common travelling. Shemskein, a village containing upwards of one hundred families, is situated on the Hadj road, on the side of Wady

[p.240]Hareir [Arabic], over which a solid bridge has been built on one side of the village: this Wady comes from the north-east at four or six hours distance, and flows south-west. It is one of the largest torrents of Haouran, and was at this moment full of water, while most of the other Wadys were nearly dried up. The Sheikh of Shemskein has the title of Sheikh el Haouran, and holds the first rank among the village Sheikhs of the country. In the time of Hadj he collects from the Haouran and Djolan about fifteen hundred camels, and accompanies them to Mekka. His income is considerable, as the peasants of the different villages of the Haouran, when engaged in disputes with neighbouring villagers, or with their Sheikhs, generally apply in the first instance to his tribunal.

We alighted at the Sheikh's house, in the court-yard of which we found almost the whole population of the village assembled: there had been a nuptial feast in the village, and the Nowars or gypsies, were playing music. These Nowar [Arabic], who are called Korbatt [Arabic] at Aleppo, are dispersed over the whole of Syria; they are divided into two principal bodies, viz. the Damascenes, whose district extends as far as Hassia, on the Aleppo road; and the Aleppines, who occupy the country to the north of that line. They never dare go beyond the limits which they have allotted to each other by mutual consent; both bodies have an Aga, who pays to the Grand Signior about five hundred piastres per annum, and collects the tribute from his subjects, which in the Damascus territory amounts annually to twenty piastres a head for every full grown male.

April 30th.—As I wished to visit from Shemskein the Mezareib, and to ascend from thence the mountains of Adjeloun, I set out in the company of an old acquaintance of Aleppo, a Janissary, who had entered into the service of the Pasha of Damascus, and was now stationed at Mezareib. Following the Hadj road, in a S.S.E. direction, in an hour and a quarter from Shemskein we crossed the