Three or four miles from Jerud we pass a village where there is a fountain, and then for nearly thirty miles the road follows the desert valley as before.
A hot sky above, bleak mountains on either hand, before us an undulating plain, shut in by these mountains, and beneath our feet the gravelly, flinty, verdureless soil, and our caravan slowly winding onward, form the scene presented to our eyes. Can we believe that this route has had an existence for centuries?
Thousands and thousands of years—history does not tell us for how long—this way has been trodden by the feet of patient camels and less patient men. It was the caravan route from Damascus to the opulent East. Ages and ages ago began and flourished a commerce now greatly decayed; as we look from the backs of our beasts of burden we see here and there the ruins of castles and caravansaries which once formed the halting places of the merchants when night overtook them, protected them against robbers, and in turn, perhaps, protected the robbers and sent out predatory bands for purposes of plunder. Once this was the great road to India and Far Cathay, long before the sea routes were known, and when navigation was in its most primitive state. Steam and sail and the mariner’s compass have laid a destroying hand on the caravan traffic, and in place of the myriad trains of camels that once moved along this mountain-girdled valley we find now but a comparatively thin thread of commerce. The world is a world of progress.
We reach Kuryetein, a large village occupied by Moslems and Christians in the proportion of two to one. It is in the same valley we have traversed all the way from Jerud, which continues to Palmyra, forty miles further on. Here is an oasis in the Desert; a fountain bursts from the end of a low spur which juts out of the mountain range and touches one end of the village.
It is quite possible that the man who declared it remarkable that great rivers run by large cities might insist that there is a fountain near Kuryetein and dispute our assertion that Kuryetein is near a large fountain; but we wont be particular about words, as we are to stop here over night and want to have a peaceful time of it, to prepare us for the fatigues of to-morrow.
The water from the fountain is carried in little canals by a very careful system of irrigation over a considerable extent of ground, and creates fertility in what would otherwise be a barren waste. Kuryetein is in the country of the Bedouins, and these Arabs frequently come and camp near the village on account of the water that constantly flows there. They bring their flocks j and herds and constitute themselves a general nuisance, as they are not particular about camping grounds and take the first place they can find, without much regard for the owner’s rights. If I were obliged to live in a village situated as this is, and under all its disadvantages, I would move away at once.
The broken columns and large stones, hewn and squared, lying around, indicate beyond a doubt that a city of importance once stood here, but the most diligent inquirer can learn nothing of the inhabitants concerning the place. It stood there as far back | as they can remember, and that is all they know about it.