A strange, rambling old house it was into which we entered by a narrow winding passage from the left corner of the courtyard. First we found ourselves in a series of great gloomy apartments communicating with each other in a line east and west; then, turning to the right, we scrambled through a doorway, the broken threshold of which was some feet above the level of the floor; and, pushing forward, we entered a second courtyard, much smaller than the first, with rooms all round, on one side two stories high. Some remains of ancient ornamentation were still visible on the walls, and the pavement of the yard was evidently from of old. Here were our quarters for the night, the gentlemen having two little rooms, one of which served as dining-room, on one side, and the ladies a larger room on the other. The stair leading up to the gentlemen’s apartments had been failing for centuries, and now was nigh unto falling; but, observing great caution, we all escaped without accident.
Our host for this night formed a contrast in every respect to the dignified and magnanimous chief of Damet el-ʿAliâ. A short, thick-set man, with stubbly white beard, very red nose, and puffy cheeks, he bustled about with the air of a man who does a very great favour indeed. With evident pride he displayed his rooms, and fished for compliments, suggesting that they were beautiful and clean, mithl lokanda—“like a hotel.” Ideas of cleanliness differ, but we avoided controversy by gently turning the conversation to the subject of our entertainment This we were allowed to provide for ourselves, even to the coffee, of which he seemed glad to drink a share. He was one of the less noble sort; and, his people taking their cue doubtless from their chief, our servants found it difficult to secure all necessaries at reasonable prices. But as the night closed darkly around us, and the mountains were alternately lit up by sheets of blinding lightning and filled with loud rolling thunder, while the rain fell in torrents, and the wind whistled eerily among the ruins, we were thankful, even with all its drawbacks, to be under such substantial shelter. If, for reasons which need not be specified, we slept but little, we could all the more realise our good fortune, in that, on these high, open uplands, we were not exposed to the full fury of the tempest.
The morning broke clear and beautiful, and we were out betimes to make a rapid survey of the old remains. A few paces north of the chief’s house we struck the main street running east and west. It seems just possible, from the remains of bases here and there, that this may once have been a pillared street like that at Jerash, so striking even in its desolation; or that at Gadara, where the columns lie prone and broken along the whole length. Following this street eastward, it sinks rapidly, and passes under a long archway, which might almost be called a tunnel, strongly built of dressed basalt. This doubtless formed the substruction of some important public building. A blacksmith has his workshop in one of the deep cellars in the side of the archway, and his blazing fire sends cheerful gleams through the gloom. Beyond this archway eastward lie all the ruins possessing special interest for the visitor. To the south of the road stands the great amphitheatre. Carefully built of massive stones, the walls and tiers of seats are still almost entire. It is the best preserved of all such structures to be seen east of the Jordan, and it appears to have been one of the largest. Several poor Druze families were in possession of the lower parts of the building when we visited it, and very comfortable houses they made—superior certainly to any of the modern erections around.
We visited in succession a great sunk octagonal building, as to the use of which we could make no satisfactory guess; the ruins of several temples, one of which must have been of no ordinary splendour; and the remains of the tetrapylon which once graced the crossing of the two main streets. Now only three of the original four massive bases are to be seen, and the arches have entirely disappeared. We scrambled over rickety walls and scattered stones, and crawled into noisome crypts in search of sculpture and inscription. We saw enough to persuade us that a rich harvest may be gathered here by the patient explorer. Of the ancient baths which stood in the south-eastern quarter not far from this crossing, very large portions are still in a good state of preservation, and form, perhaps, the most interesting part of all the ruins.
The material employed in their construction, like that of all the buildings in the city, is basalt, and in parts the appearance is very fine; but no adequate idea of their original splendour can now be formed. The rows of gaping holes in the walls tell of the lining of marble with which they were once adorned. The destruction of this was doubtless dictated by the desire to possess the iron fastenings by which the marble slabs were held in position, and the lead by which these were fixed into the walls—a temptation which the cupidity of the Arabs would make it extremely difficult for them to resist The water channels are skilfully built into the walls, and from the points at which they project we may guess where the baths were placed; but the floors are now entirely heaped over with ruins. The walls are still over thirty feet in height, and of great strength. Most interesting of all, in connection with the baths, is the old aqueduct, by which the water was conducted across the low valley to the eastward from the hills beyond. Several of the substantial arches are still standing, and the line can be traced away towards the eastern uplands. Eleven or twelve miles was the water brought to minister to the comfort of the splendid, luxury-loving Roman.
These and other similarly great structures we owe to the ancients’ ignorance of the principles of hydrostatics. Only when we gaze upon such vast undertakings, where the channel was raised by artificial means, so that the water might flow along a regularly inclined plane, do we fully realise what an immense saving of labour the discovery of these simple principles has proved to the modern world.
The ancients appear to have spent their strength in the erection of public buildings. The houses of the common people seem to have had nothing special about them. Built of the ordinary black basaltic stone which abounds in the neighbourhood, they have long since gone to ruin, probably in the shocks of earthquakes. West of the town stand two beautifully formed conical hills. Some of our party who ascended them found them to be extinct volcanoes—one having a circular, cup-like crater in the top. Seen from a distance, these hills bear a striking resemblance to heaps of grain on a great threshing-floor. This resemblance has not escaped the sharp eyes of the imaginative Arabs, who call them “the grain-heaps of Pharaoh.” Local tradition associates them with the name of a notable oppressor of the people, the builder of the Qanâtîr Firʿaun (“the arches of Pharaoh”), the great aqueduct which stretches from the neighbourhood of Nowa past Derʿat to Gadara. Having exhausted the people with taxes for the completion of this work, he finally seized all the grain in the land and stored it here, ready for his own purposes. He sent a gigantic camel to fetch it, and just as the unwieldy animal drew near, the wrath of God was kindled against Pharaoh, and a bolt from the clouds blasted grain and camel together, leaving two blackened heaps as monuments of the impotence of all earthly tyrants before the King of heaven.
This town is believed by many to represent the ancient Philippopolis. True it is that “Philip the Arabian,” a native of this region, having been elected emperor by the army in Syria about the middle of the third century—244-249 A.D.—founded a city in his native country, and adorned it in Roman fashion. But so little is known with certainty on the subject, that almost any considerable site in Haurân may claim the honour, if honour it be. The modern name of Shuhba is said to be derived from the noble Moslem family of Shehâb, who in the early years of the Mohammedan era came northward from Arabia Felix, and in their wanderings, before settling in Mount Lebanon, made this city a temporary home. Relatives of the prophet of Arabia, they received distinguished honour, and assumed a leading part in the affairs of the Lebanon. The name of Emîr Beshîr Shehâb was well known in Europe in the earlier half of the nineteenth century. This prince of all the Lebanon fell in the year 1840; and the family, already shorn of much of its glory, went finally down amid the bloody revolutions of 1860.
There is a prevailing belief among the uninstructed in all parts of the country that the Franj—the name given to all Westerns—are literally loaded with gold. To this belief we owed a somewhat unpleasant experience. The avaricious old sheikh took counsel with a faithless one among our attendants, who evidently wished to smooth the road for his own return by satisfying the cupidity of the natives at our expense. He advised the sheikh to demand a most outrageous sum for our entertainment, in which demand the said faithless one should support him. The arrangement was at once agreed upon. Meantime a second attendant, who bore no love to the former, having overheard the plot, revealed the whole. We decided the amount and manner of payment, taking care that there should be no reasonable ground of complaint. Finding himself detected, the sheikh’s accomplice ignobly forsook him. When the money was put into his hand, with expressions of thanks for shelter afforded, the old man could not conceal his surprise, and it was some time ere he recovered sufficiently to hint that the sum was small. Just before we started, a few piastres extra were added, to save what little of dignity he possessed. He, as well as we, wished everything done in secret, knowing well that a report of his mean conduct spreading among his brother sheikhs in Jebel ed-Druze would prove fatal to his reputation, especially as Englîze were in the question. This was the only display of meanness or stinginess we met with east of Jordan; and for even this our own servant was chiefly to blame.