Near the bridge of Shayzer were several Arab encampments, but I did not learn the name of the tribe. They were shepherds, and paid tribute. Their huts were made of reeds, which they, however, principally occupy in winter, quitting them in summer for tents.
We did not leave this place until six o’clock, when the sun had lost its power, and the air was somewhat cooled. It soon grew dark, so that I saw nothing of the country through which we passed. At nine we arrived at Calât el Medýk; and, descending a hill into the valley below the village, we reached our station in about half an hour. As it was late, and the tents were already fixed, we dined immediately and retired to rest: but the musquitoes were exceedingly troublesome, owing to the low marshy ground which the tent-men had chosen for the encampment, and which made me dread, moreover, the worst consequences for the health of the party. The grooms, in the morning, said that the horses had been much bitten by the flies during the night.
Daylight enabled us to examine the spot where we were. About six or seven hundred yards to the north of us, and at the very extremity of the ridge of a jutting hill, stood Calât el Medýk, a village enclosed in a ruinous fortress. This hill is the termination of a chain of some loftier ones which seemed to run to the north: but the view was so bounded, that their direction and extent were uncertain. Between the encampment and the castle, at the foot of the hill, stood a large quadrangular caravansery, handsomely built, but falling, from neglect, into ruins. To the north and by west, and to the west, extended a spacious vale, bounded on the west by lofty mountains, which seemed about two leagues distant from us, and are inhabited, as we shall afterwards see, by the Ansárys. On the east the vale is shut in by the hills abovementioned. The valley near us, and as far as the eye could see, had now the appearance of a fenny marsh, full of small lakes, formed by the inundation of the Orontes.[61]
The Orontes could be seen at first running north-west, and then winding along the foot of the Ansáry mountains. The vale, where not overflowed, was highly verdant.[62] I walked up the road by which we had descended the preceding evening, and found it to be through a steep defile. At the top of the hill, I turned off to the left towards the castle. Calât el Medýk is a piece of indifferent masonry of no great antiquity, though built probably anterior to the use of cannon: it has been repaired at different times, and there are only patches of the original structure. By these it seems to have consisted of a vaulted rampart, surmounted by battlements, enclosing a space of sufficient size to contain, as it does at present, several habitations.
CALAT EL MEDYK.
On the north-east side of the castle I was fortunate enough to discover what I conjectured to be the ruins of the ancient city of Apamea.[63] The walls are in part still standing, and their extent might easily be measured. There are the remains of a long colonnade running nearly north and south, which must have been extremely grand. The pillars are of the Corinthian order, all fallen, but in several places lying in ranges as they stood. The stones of which the edifices were composed are of very large dimensions, but less so than those of Palmyra, and of an inferior quality of stone, seemingly quarried from the hills in the environs; for the effects of the atmosphere were strongly marked upon them, showing them to want hardness. There are several spiral fluted columns, which seem to have belonged to a temple. Within the walls are two small eminences, but too diminutive to have been the sites of fortresses. What buildings stood on them, or what purposes they served, I could only conjecture. Apamea was built by Seleucus Nicator, and named after his wife.
There are many bee-hives at Calât el Medýk, which resemble in shape our earthenware chimney-tops; they are made of clay, baked in the sun. I tasted the honey, but it was not particularly good.
We left Calât el Medýk at half-past two in the afternoon. On quitting Hamah, Muly Ismäel had assigned us a guard of two Delibashes.
The road now lay at the foot of the hills to the east of the vale;[64] for it would have been impossible to keep a north-west direction, the point of the compass towards which Latakia lay, owing to the many lakes there are in the vale; and, had not that obstacle existed, prudence forbade, at any time, the crossing the Ansáry mountains, unless by the usual road, as no security is afforded for the traveller out of it.[65]