Every Souk has a Sheikh or chief; the name of the present grand Sheikh is Ibn Deraa [Arabic]. It is about twenty years since they were converted to the Wahabi creed. Their grand Sheikh collects the tribute or Zika [Arabic], for Ibn Saoud, and lodges it in a particular house; after taking from it the necessary expense for entertaining strangers, or for provisions for Wahabi corps which pass by, he sends the remainder to Saoud. The people of the Djof are all armed with firelocks; they have no horses.
At Souk Mared is an ancient tower of remarkable structure. Its height, I was told, is greater than the Minaret near my lodgings at Damascus, which I should compute at about forty-five feet. Its basis is square, it rises in steps and ends in a point; I had already heard at Aleppo from some travelling Turks, that there were in the desert, towards Deraye, pyramids like those of Cairo; by which they probably meant the Souk Mared. The door of the tower is about ten feet high and eight broad; but it is half filled up. The Kasr gate of Salamia,[FN#2] which is of wood with iron bars, has been transported here by the Arabs to serve as a gate for the tower. [p.664] The inside is not paved. There are three floors, and staircases leading from one to the other. There are very small windows in the sides of the tower, which seem rather to have been destined for loop holes for musquetty. The walls of the tower are built of large square white stones, and are in good preservation. The two floors one over the other are not vaulted. On the top of the tower a watchman constantly resides, to give notice of the arrival of strangers. To the E. and somewhat to the S. from Djof, three hours, begins the plain called Eddhahi or Taous [Arabic], a sandy desert full of small hills or Tels, from which it derives the name of [Arabic]. Although there is no water in the plain, a tree is very abundant which the Arabs call Ghada [Arabic], about eight feet high; the people of Djof burn it as fire wood. Near the trees grows in spring a kind of grass, which in summer soon dries up, it is called Nassy [Arabic], and resembles wheat. Wild cows [Arabic] are found here. My man told me that they resemble in every particular the domestic cow. The Arabs Sherarat kill them, eat them, and make of the leather targets, which are much esteemed [Arabic]. Of their horns the people of Djof make knife handles. Wild dogs, Derboun [Arabic], of a black colour, are likewise met with here; the Arabs kill and eat them. It is principally in the Dhahy that ostriches breed, and great quantities of them are killed there. This desert is moreover inhabited by a large lizard called Dhab [Arabic], of one foot and a half in length with a tail of half a foot, exactly resembling in shape the common lizard, but larger. The Arabs eat them in defiance of the laws of their prophet; the scaly skin serves them instead of a goat skin to preserve their butter in. These Arabs likewise eat all the eagles [Arabic] and crows which they can kill. The plain of Eddhahi continues for three days camels march (with a caravan it would take six days), without any water, extending as far as the chain of mountains called Djebel Shammor [Arabic] which runs in an easterly direction five or six days journey. From where it ends to Deraye, the seat of Ibn Saoud, are ten days more. The Djebel Shammor is inhabited by the Arabs Shammor, many of whom have become Fellahs, and live in villages in these mountains. They are true and faithful Wahabis.
[FN#2] Salamia is a ruin eight or ten hours S.E. of Hamah.
[p.665] APPENDIX. No. V.
A Route to the eastward of the Castle El Hassa.
FROM Kalaat el Hassa, towards E.S.E. continues the already mentioned Wady el Hassa. Passing the Tel Esshehak, two days journey from it, you meet with a great number of Tels, in the midst of which there is a well of good spring water called Byr Bair [Arabic]; near it is a tombstone, said to be the burial place of the son of Sultan Hassan. From Bair eastwards the Wady and its vicinity are called the district of Hudrush [Arabic]; it is without water, with the exception of the rain water which collects in the low grounds. The Hudrush extends for two days, as far as the country called Ettebig [Arabic]. From the beginning of Hudrush the Wady makes a bend to the N. and describing a half circle, again returns in the Tebig to its original direction. To the N. from Hudrush and Tebig the plain takes the name of Szauan [Arabic], (i.e. flint) and extends for two days till it borders upon the Wady Serhhan. The plain Szauan is covered so thickly with small black flints, that the Arabs, whenever they are about to light a fire there, cover the ground with earth, which they carry with them, in order to prevent the splinters of the flint heated by the fire, from flying about and hurting them. There is but one spring in the Szauan: it is about two hours from Wady Serhhan, and at the same distance from Hudrush and Tebig, and is called Byr Naam el aatta Allah [Arabic], in honour of a Christian travelling merchant, who about sixty years ago lying upon the flint, heard the noise of the water under his head, and thus discovered the spring. On the western side of the Szauan, nearer to the Wady Serhhan than to the Hudrush, is a castle called Kaszr Amera [Arabic], and at a quarter of an hour from it, on the foot of a hill, the ruins of a village. Between the Kaszr and the village is a low ground where the rain water collects, and forms a small lake in winter half an hour in length. Before the castle is a well more than thirty feet deep, walled in by large stones, but without water. Over the well are four white marble columns, which support a vaulted roof or Kubbe, such as are often seen at wells in these countries. The castle is built of white square stones, which seem not to have been cemented together. Its dimensions are thirty-six or forty feet from W. to E. and twenty-five from S. to N. The entrance door, which is only about three feet high, is on the S. side, and leads into an apartment half the size of the whole building. In the middle of the western wall of this apartment is another door, as low as the former, leading to a second apartment of the [p.666] same size as the former, except that one corner is partitioned off to form a third chamber. Each of the two latter have a window in the western wall. The roof of the apartments are vaulted below, and flat above. The walls which divide the apartments are two yards in thickness; in the two first rooms there is a stone pavement, in the small room the Arabs have taken up the pavement to dig for treasures; but they found nothing underneath, except small pieces of planks and some rusty iron. The ceiling of all the three apartments is chalked over, and looks quite new. In the small room it is painted all over with serpents, hares, gazelles, mares, and birds; there are neither human figures nor trees amongst the paintings. The colour of the paintings is red, green, and yellow, and they look as bright and well preserved, as if they had been done a short time ago. There are no kinds of niches, bas-reliefs, or inscriptions in the walls.
From Hudrush branches out a Wady towards Wady Serhhan, called Chadef [Arabic]. Four days beyond Tebig you arrive at a Byr called El Sheben or Szefan [Arabic], situated upon a small ascent. According to my informant the Byr is two hundred yards in depth. To the north of that well the desert is called Beseita [Arabic]. For two days farther the earth is covered to the depth of six inches with small black gray stones, looking like flints. The plant Samah [Arabic] grows there, which is collected by the people of Djof. From the end of the Beseita to the Djof is one days journey farther, and the Beseita ends in the Dhahi.
All the Arabs along this road from El Hassa, are Sherarat, the Aeneze do not come this way.
Between Tebig, Szauan, Hudrush, and to the S. of these places, are a quantity of wild asses, which the Arabs Sherarat hunt, and eat (secretly). Their skins and hoofs are sold to the wandering Christian pedlars, and in the towns of Syria. Of the hoofs rings are made, which the Fellahs of eastern Syria wear on the thumb, or tied with a thread round the arm-pit, to prevent, or to heal rheumatic complaints. I may here make a general remark that there is an infinity of names of places in the desert. Every Tel, every declivity, or, elevation in a Wady, every extent of plain ground, where a particular herb grows, has its name, well known to the Arabs. The Khabera [Arabic], or places where the rain-water collects, winter-time, are generally distinguished by the name of some well known Sheikh who once pitched his tent near them; as Khabera Ibn Ghebein [Arabic], the watering places of Ibn Ghebein.
The side of a Wady where the Arab descends is called by him Hadhera
[Arabic], the opposite side, where he re-ascends Sende [Arabic].