Travels in Syria and the Holy Land

by John Lewis Burckhardt

The Pehluvanlu are the most numerous tribe of the whole nation of Turkmans. They are governed by a chief, (Mahmoud Beg), who is tributary to Tshapan Oglu. A part of them have for a long period been cultivators, others are shepherds. They inhabit the country from Bosurk to near Constantinople, and pass the summer months at one days journey distance from the Ryhanlu. They are in possession of a very profitable transport trade, and their camels form almost exclusively the caravans of Smyrna and of the interior of Anatolia. They drive their sheep for sale as far as Constantinople.

The Rishwans are more numerous than the Ryhanlu, but their tribe is not held in esteem among the Turkmans. They were formerly tributary to Rishwan Oglu, governor of Besna, which lies at one days journey from Aintab; and they used then to winter in the neighbourhood [p.643] of Djeboul, on the borders of a small salt lake, five hours to the S. E. of Aleppo. They are at present dependent on Tshapan Oglu, and winter in the plains near Haimani in Anatolia; they pass their summer months in the neighbourhood of the Ryhanlu. Their principal tribes are Deleyanli (chief Ali Beg Oglu), Omar Anli (chief Omar Beg), Mandolli (Omar Aga), Gelikanli (Hassan Beg Mor Oglu). The Rishwans are noted, even among robbers, for their want of faith.

The great tribes of the Turkmans are often at war with each other, as well as with the Kurds, with whom they are in contact in many places. These wars seldom cause the death of more than three or four individuals, after which peace is concluded. In a late war between the Ryhanlu and the Kurds, which lasted five or six months, and brought on several battles, the whole list of deaths was only six Kurds and four Turkmans. In the mountains, the Turkmans are accompanied in their military expeditions by foot soldiers, armed with muskets; these are men of the tribe who cannot afford to keep a horse. Neither the lance, nor the bow is used among them. Some tribes of Kurds, on the contrary, have never abandoned the use of the bow.

The Tar, or blood-revenge, is observed among the Turkman nations, as well among themselves, as with respect to foreigners. They have a particular species of Tar which I have never heard of among the Arabs. It attaches to their goods; the following incident will best explain it: a caravan of Turkman camels laden with wood was seized last winter, just before the gates of Aleppo, by a detachment of Karashukly (a mixt tribe of Turkmans and Arabs, who inhabit the banks of the Euphrates, in the vicinity of Bir). One of the Turkmans was wounded, the loads were thrown down, and fifty camels driven away, worth about five hundred piastres apiece. The Turkmans immediately dispatched an old Arab woman as ambassadress to their enemies, to treat for the restoration of their camels, and she succeeded in recovering them at the rate of one hundred and sixty piastres apiece, or eight thousand piastres, for the whole. Thus, I was told by a Turkman chief, the Tar between us will not be for the whole sum of twenty-five thousand piastres, the real value of the camels, but only for the sum of eight thousand piastres, for which we shall, on the first opportunity take our revenge.

There are no Sherif families, or families claiming a descent from the prophet, amongst the Ryhanlu. But family pride is not unknown among them. Descendants from ancient and renowned chiefs claim, though poor, some deference from wealthy upstarts. In one of their late battles with the Kurds, a young man of noble extraction, but poor, and without authority, was crying out in the heat of action: Comrades, let us attack them on the left flank. Hayder Aga, who heard it, exclaimed: Who are you? hold your tongue. After the victory the young man, was seen thoughtful and melancholy in the midst of the rejoicings of his brethren; Hayder Aga, as proud a man as ever sat upon a throne, to whom it was reported, sent for the young man, and when he entered the tent rose, and kissed his beard, begging [p.644] him to forget whatever lie might have said in the heat of action, when he was not always master of himself.

Their ideas of decency appear singular, when compared with our own. A Turkman will talk before his wife, daughter, or sister upon subjects which are banished from our discourse; at the same time that he would be much offended if any friend should in the presence of his females speak in raptures or poetical terms of the charms of a beloved mistress.

Remains of Antiquity.

One of the principal motives of my visit to the Turkmans was my desire to visit some ruins near their encampments, particularly those of Deir Samaan, which at Aleppo I had heard compared to the temples at Baalbec. I therefore made it a condition with my Turkman host, that he should take me to Deir Samaan as well as to several other ruins whose names I had collected from different Aleppines. The day after my arrival under his tent, he set out with me towards the Deir, and we reached it after a ride of four hours over the rocky hills which encircle the mountain of St. Simon, called Djebel Samaan, or Sheikh Barekat. The Deir Samaan consists of the ruins of a church, monastery, or episcopal palace, built upon the top of an insulated hill, bearing from the top of the mountain of St. Simon, N. 20 E., about eight miles distant. It is now inhabited by several families of Kurds, who have their black goat hair tents pitched in the middle of the ruins. They received us with much hospitality; a sheep was immediately killed, and all the delicacies of the season were served up to us. After dinner and coffee, Tshay[FN#1] was served round, which the Aleppines and all Syrians esteem as one of the greatest dainties: it is a heating drink, made of ginger, cloves, rosewater, sugar and similar ingredients, boiled together to a thick syrup. Mursa Aga, the chief, a handsome young man, then took up his Tamboura or guitar, and the rest of the evening passed in music and singing.

The whole summit of the hill, which is six hundred paces in length and one hundred and seventy in breadth, was once covered with stately buildings. A thick wall of square hewn stones, is traceable all round. The principal ruins consist of two separate buildings, a palace, and a church, or monastery, which were separated from each other by a court- yard one hundred and ten paces in length. The palace, or perhaps the high priests habitation, is not remarkable either for its size or elegance. I could not enter it because it was occupied by the Harem of Mursa Aga. A colonnade led from the palace to the church gate; the broken fragments only of the columns remain. Of the church most of the side walls are still standing, ornamented with pillars and arches worked in the walls; it is divided into two circular apartments [p.645] of which the inner may have been the sanctuary. On the eastern side of the church is a dark vaulted room, which receives the daylight only from the door, and which appears to have been a sepulchre. A number of niches (if I recollect right, nine), not perpendicular like the Egyptian sepulchral niches, but horizontal, have been built around the wall. Into this chamber opens a subterraneous passage, which is said by the Kurds, to continue a long way under ground, in the direction of Antakia. I could not persuade any body to enter it with me. Adjacent to this sepulchre is another vaulted, open hall, which has been changed by its present proprietors into stables, and an apartment for receiving strangers in the heat of summer. The softness of the calcareous stone from the adjacent hills, with which the buildings are constructed, has caused all the ornaments of the arches and columns and even the shafts themselves to decay; enough remains however, of their clumsy and overcharged ornaments, to shew that the edifices are of an advanced period of the Greek empire. The columns are very small in proportion to the arches which they support, and I did not see any above eighteen or twenty feet high. The perishable nature of the stone has not left a single inscription visible, if there ever were any, with the exception of some names of Frenchmen from Aleppo, who visited the place eighty years ago. The sign of the cross is visible in several places. If these buildings were constructed in pious commemoration of the devout sufferings of St. Simon Stylites, who passed thirty-five years of his life upon a column, they are probably of the sixth century. St. Simon died towards the end of the fifth century, and in the seventh century Syria was conquered and converted to Islamism by the successors of Mohammed. The structures are certainly not of the date of the Crusades. On the eastern side of the building are the remains of an aqueduct, the continuation of which is again met with on the opposite hill. The Kurdine inhabitants of these ruins collect at present the rain water in cisterns.

Descending from the top of the hill on the western side, the remains of a broad paved causeway lead to an arch, which stands about ten minutes walk from the castle, and faces the ruins of a city, built at the foot of the hill, of which a number of buildings are still extant. These ruins, called Bokatur, are uninhabited, their circumference may be estimated at about one mile and a half. Amongst the many private houses a palace may be distinguished, surrounded by a low portico, at which terminates the causeway leading from the arch. At half an hours distance to the S.W. of Bokatur, are ruins resembling the former in extent and structure. I saw several houses of which the front was supported by columns, of a smaller size than those of the palace at Bokatur. This place is now called Immature, at three quarters of an hour to the W. of it, are other similar ruins of a town called Filtire, which I did not see. The two latter places are now inhabited by some poor Kurdine families. The style of building which I observed in the houses of these ruined cities approaches more to the European than the Asiatic taste. The roofs are somewhat inclined, and the windows numerous, and large, instead of being few and small, as in Turkish houses. The walls, most of which are still remaining, are for the greatest part without ornament, [p.646] from one foot to about one foot and a half thick, and built of calcareous squared stones, like Deir Samaan. The pillars which are still to be seen in some of the ruined buildings are none of them more than fifteen feet high. Their capitals, like those of the columns in the Deir Samaan, are rude and unfinished; if any order is discernible it is a corrupted Corinthian. The neighbourbood of these towns, at least for five miles round, presents nothing but an uneven plain, thickly covered with barren rocks, which rise to the height of two or three feet above the surface. A few herbs grow in the fissures of the rocks, which are scarcely sufficient to keep from starving half a dozen horses, the property of the present miserable inhabitants. There are several wells of good water in the neighbourhood of the ruins. To the S.S.E. of the Deir, at an hour and a halfs distance, stands a single pillar about thirty-five feet high, the base and capital of which are like those of the Deir. No inscriptions are visible. At a few yards from the column is the entrance to a spacious subterraneous cavern. I passed this spot on my way to the Deir, and purposed to examine the contents of the cave on our return; I returned however by another route.