Five villages are in sight; they are the homes of the people that cultivate portions of this plain. Wheat and barley are the principal products of the plain, and they find a market in Damascus. The inhabitants are peaceable, but their frequent encounters with Bedouin plunderers have made them acquainted with the use of weapons, and give them a rather warlike appearance. They dress much like the Bedouins, and a stranger finds it difficult to distinguish one from the other. The first night of the journey is usually spent at Jerud, a large village, which is the capital of the province and the dwelling place of a Turkish agha or petty governor. He has a company of cavalry at his command to resist the Bedouin Arabs, and not unfrequently has occasion to use them. It is hinted that he sometimes shuts his eyes while a foray is in progress, and begins the pursuit when the plunderers have reached a secure distance. Of course the robbers are expected to do the square thing under such circumstances, and make an honorable division of the spoils. But we should not listen to such calumnies, as we expect to stop over night in the governor’s house, and as long as we are under his roof we receive every hospitality. The assemblage is a mixed one, as there are Arabs from half-a-dozen tribes spending the night there, and we are expected to show no haughtiness in any way. The man who goes around with his nose in the air will run the risk of a snub from some of his fellow-guests.
Out of Jerud we go in the morning at a pretty early hour, and very soon we are in the Desert. We have left the fertile country behind us, and before and around we have the treeless and desolate waste. We are in a wide valley bounded by bleak and barren hills whose sides present an unvarying panorama of grey rocks and earth. The ground is not sandy, but is covered with fragments of limestone and flint, and now and then we see a little tuft of coarse grass struggling to maintain an existence, and evidently doubtful about keeping it up.
Birds and beasts are rare; in fact there is no inducement for them to stay there. When speaking of birds in such a locality, I am reminded of the story of a traveller at an unpromising place somewhere in Utah of Nevada. He entered the diningroom of the only hotel and asked for breakfast.
“Can give you beefsteak, fried ham, and curlew,” said the landlord, whose beard resembled an inverted sage-bush, and whose belt revealed a bowie-knife and revolver. And he added, “The curlew is very good.”
“What is curlew?” said the wayfarer.
“It is a bird that we shoot round here.”
“Has it got any wings?”
“You bet it can fly!”
“Then bring me some beefsteak,” said the traveller, emphatically. “I want nothing to do with a bird that would stay in this miserable country when he could fly away from it. No curlew in mine, if you please.”