Yabrûd is a large village of great beauty, situate in a plain as you emerge from a narrow pass between two ridges of rock, and having many orchards and gardens extending as much as a mile from the village, and watered by a stream which runs from a spring called Ras-el-Ayn.[13] Several sepulchres, excavated in the neighbouring rocks, denoted the antiquity of the place. The inhabitants are Mahometans, Greeks, and Christians. There are the ruins of a church of the middle ages: and it is the residence of a Greek bishop.
Osman Aga received me in his own house; of which however I saw nothing but the room where I was lodged, on the floor of which he caused a bed to be spread, his troublesome civility not allowing my own to be used. This receiving-room for strangers is generally the nearest to the door; and as many strangers as arrive sleep in it. A dish of rice, some soup, or a chicken, is commonly served up for supper, with a cup of coffee and a pipe on arriving, and the same after supper, and this makes up the entertainment of the evening. The master of the house keeps his guests company for an hour or two, and then leaves them to themselves. But, as my visit had his own health for its object, the evening was spent chiefly in conversation with him on this topic.
Next morning I left Yabrûd, accompanied still by Yahyah and by Osman Aga, and, after a ride of five hours, reached Carah. This is a poor and slovenly village. It seems to have formerly had very extensive gardens, but which now lie entirely waste.[14] There is a monastery of Greek caloyers. The situation of Carah is high, and the temperature of the air was many degrees lower than at the place we had come from. As a proof of this, all the houses which I entered had fireplaces, which are not seen at Damascus. There was no public bath in the place, and the absence of this very necessary article of cleanliness and religion is always a proof of the meanness of a Mahometan town.
We found in Masûd Aga a laughing, plethoric, unwieldy Turk, who gave himself airs of importance which almost imposed on my simplicity. He desired me to tell Lady Hester that, if she would put herself under his guidance, he would carry her safely to Palmyra; when, as we learned afterwards from the Arabs themselves, he himself did not dare to stir out of his own village for fear of them: and it was the assurance of the insufficiency of any solid protection which he could give that induced the Jews, Yusef and Rafaël, to dissuade us from going at all.
On the 18th, I took my leave of Masûd Aga and Osman Aga, having first taken coffee and a pipe with them. I cannot help expressing the astonishment I felt at observing the continued use that Masûd Aga made of the narkýly, a pipe by which the smoke is inhaled through water in the manner of the hooka; he was never without it for a moment, and it was the employment of one man to prepare it for him.
From Yabrûd towards Carah, the face of the country had assumed a more lonely aspect than hitherto; and, on leaving Carah, I could plainly perceive that we were on the skirts of the desert, if not in it. Cultivation, and the appearance of it, had ceased altogether. To the east of us, the eye wandered over plains bounded only by the horizon. We met few people, and those we did meet were generally in parties: there was a look of suspicion given and exchanged on both sides, and the salàm alëikûm was always muttered in a hollow tone, which, from the whistling of the wind across the desert, was scarcely audible: the ample abah, the kefféya tied over the bottom of the face, leaving, like the vizor of a helmet, the eyes alone visible, the long spear borne on the shoulder, all wore an air of defence and distrust, which rendered me, in spite of myself, thoughtful and cautious. On our left was a chain of barren mountains, which seemed to shut us out from the habitable world. This chain was about four or five miles off, and I conceived it to be a branch of the Antilebanon. At one place, we saw men employed in burning kali, which grows abundantly hereabout.
About two o’clock, we arrived at Hassyah, a village enclosed by a mud wall: it contained a large caravansery and a mosque: a hundred yards from the wall, there was likewise a detached caravansery with a well; but this seemed to be totally neglected. In the middle of the village, there was a large basin, supplied with water from a spring, brought to it in earthenware pipes from without: it was nearly dry just now, and looked like a stagnant pond; so that the water we had to drink was quite foul and bad tasted.
I made use of my buyurdy, or pasha’s order, with the shaykh of Hassyah, to obtain a better supper than I thought I should get of the villagers for money: but I was deceived, for I supped on treacle and dûrra bread;—and bread from dûrra, or Indian corn, is worse than that made from oats and barley, and is not to be eaten unless immediately after it is made.
There was a small caravan going the same road with ourselves, and it was thought prudent, for greater safety, to march with it. Accordingly, we departed the next morning, the 19th October, before one o’clock, by the light of the moon, and in the evening we reached Hems.
I was conducted to the house of Mâlem Skender, a gentleman well-known in those days to most English travellers for his hospitality. Yahyah had accompanied me thus far, and I rewarded him with a present of twelve piasters and a half. Mâlem Skender sent a guard forward with me, and about nine o’clock we reached Tel Byssy, a village on an eminence, the houses of which were for the most part exactly in the shape of a sugarloaf, and built of unbaked bricks.