97 Er Rohawah 100 Gherbit Sennit 101 El-Annab 102 El-Maezy 103 Gherbt-el-Sookh 104 El-Robbaheehāt. Here my informant grew tired of his task, and exclaimed," By the beard of the Prophet! there are three hundred and sixty-six ruined towns and villages about Assalt, and I know the names of all; but who could have patience to sit down and recite them to another, while he writes them in a book?" I said all I could to explain the utility of this; and added, that my chief object in taking this trouble was for the purpose of ascertaining what scriptural names were still retained and extant among the ruined cities here : but all my efforts were of no avail; the patience of my companion was exhausted, and there was no prevailing on him to resume his task. I had ascertained, however, by this means, at least one highly interesting fact, namely, that the whole of this region was, in a manner, studded with the ruins of ancient towns, and must have been once highly fertile and thickly peopled. On a reference to the division of the places given to the tribe of Judah, there appear only three names of places in this modern list corresponding with those of the cities mentioned there : - Assalt, for the city of Salt (Joshua, xv. 62.); El-Anab, for Anab (verse 50.); and ElJehennah, probably for Janum (verse 53.). I have no doubt, however, but a visit to the places themselves, and the comparison of names on the spot, might lead to the most interesting discoveries towards the elucidation of scriptural topography, and restore the lost knowledge of this interesting region, which appears, both from ancient testimony, and the existence of innumerable ruins up to the present time, to have been one of the most fertile and thickly peopled countries on the face of the earth, though it still remains a blank in our maps, and is considered by all who treat of these countries as a desert or a wilderness. In the evening we were visited by one of the Arab priests of Assalt; a fat, coarse, ignorant, vulgar, and haughty man, who made himself a sort of temporary deity among the party by which he was surrounded. In his endeavour to flatter me, by paying a compliment to the English nation generally, he said that the Christians of the East must be as glad to see any one from England as if the Madonna herself (the Virgin Mary) were to appear among them! Theological distinctions, and reprobation of heretical sects, formed the chief topics of conversation; and in the course of this it was admitted, that the Russians were the only truly orthodox people in matters of faith among the whole of the nations of Europe: although the English, it was allowed, were a much superior race, notwithstanding the general conviction that they had no religion whatever, and, consequently, none of its appendages neither churches nor priests;—a belief, in which they were so firmly rooted, that my most solemn asseverations to the contrary, accompanied by a long detail of our form of church government and worship, had no effect whatever in changing their preconceived notions. This Greek divine officiated, by leading the prayer of the evening, as the party was about to break up. In doing this he stood before the rest, who followed his motions, after the same manner as the Mohammedans follow those of the Imams; and, indeed, the ceremony itself very nearly resembled the Mussulman manner of prayer, except that there were not so many prostrations to the earth, and that the hands, instead of being elevated towards heaven, were almost constantly employed in marking the form of the cross on the head and breast. There was the same indecorous hurrying through the prayer, as among the Mohammedans; and, as with them also, the chief aim of the Greek priest seemed to be to say as many words as possible, by the most rapid utterance, without taking breath, making the last word louder than all the preceding ones, and hurrying forward again with all speed after drawing breath, without any regard to pause or emphasis, so that the whole resembled a barbarous mode of singing, rather than solemn breathings of the soul poured forth before the throne of the Supreme Being. To add to this revolting picture, there was neither solem ence; nity in the manner of the speaker, nor respect in that of the audifor some talked, others laughed, and the mistress of the house, to save time, took this occasion to spread out the mats for our beds, at the same time muttering her prayers in an under tone with the rest. The priest, when his hurried service was at an end, determined to sleep at the house, instead of going to his home in another part of the town as he had intended, and by this step most disagreeably added to the number of our already crowded party. Assalt, Tuesday, Feb. 27.-The heavy snow and intense frost which commenced soon after sunset on the preceding night, had continued until sunrise, and in the course of the forenoon we learnt that great destruction had been committed among the flocks and herds of the surrounding country; two persons indeed were said to have died from exposure to the cold, at a short distance from the town. This return of tempestuous and snowy weather created a new obstacle, or rather revived and strengthened the original hindrance to my prosecuting my intended journey from hence. I felt my stay here indescribably tedious, and would willingly have shortened it, had it depended on any exertions of my own: but we could not command the elements. It is true that there was no want of good and wholesome food, nor of shelter from the inclemency of the weather; but the first was disgusting, from the mode in which it was prepared, and the last was little better than the open air, from the myriads of vermin of every description which tormented me during the night. Had I been granted the enjoyment of a single day alone, I should not have regretted my detention so much; but during the daytime the house was filled with visitors and enquirers; and in the night, the crowded state of the room, in which we were all shut up together, rendered it difficult to enjoy even one hour's quiet and unbroken repose. It was only in the intervals between sleep that I could find time at night to commit any facts, or remarks on them, to paper, by the light of a dull lamp, which burnt while all but myself lay asleep on the ground. This, of itself, will sufficiently account for the unconnected and imperfect nature of many of the observations that appear; some in mere outline, others only half expressed; and others again, probably, unimportant and uninteresting, but still thought worthy of preserving, at the time they were first made. In the course of the conversation that passed among our visitors to-day, I learnt that the young men of Assalt invariably marry soon after their arriving at the age of puberty; and early marriages and a numerous offspring are accounted blessings to both sexes. Children, indeed, are sources of wealth in such a country; for the young sons are sent out to labour at an early age, and soon become capable of maintaining themselves, and even of bringing home a portion of their wages to the father, until they are twenty, when they are considered independent, and receive the whole. Young girls are also given in marriage for certain sums of money, varying from 500 to 1000 piastres, according to their connections or beauty; which sum being paid by the bridegroom to the bride's father, adds to his wealth, and makes girls as profitable as boys to their parents, particularly when they are handsome. Many of the inhabitants of Assalt have light-coloured eyes, and fine soft auburn hair, with fair complexions, like the inhabitants of northern climates. The women would be agreeable in their persons, if they did not so strangely disfigure themselves, after the manner of the Arabs, by staining their lips with the most repulsive of all colours for the flesh, a deep indigo blue, as well as marking spots and lines of the same colour on the chin, forehead, and cheeks. The dress of the men resembles that of Syrian Arabs on the coast, with the exception only of their wearing over their ordinary dress a short sheep-skin jacket, the woolly part on the inside, and the skin, of a reddish colour, and tanned, as well as it can be while the wool is on, outside. The women dress also like the Syrians, but are rather more profuse in their display of strings H of gold and silver coin, with which they decorate their heads, arms, and necks. * The manners of both sexes resemble those of the Bedouins more than of the citizens of Syria, although they are originally descended from the latter, and mix more frequently with them than with the people of the Desert. The language, though Arabic, differs in many respects so widely from the language of Egypt and the Yemen, that I had often much difficulty in following a person whose utterance was more thick or more rapid than usual; and I felt this inconvenience the more, as I was without an interpreter; for my guide Georgis spoke more after the manner of the people of Assalt than of Nazareth,-and there is a striking difference even in places so near to each other. The Bedouins of the neighbouring country are tall, well-made men, and have a prepossessing aspect and commanding exterior. They live on good terms with the inhabitants of Assalt, although their credit is so bad, that no trader of the town will trust them with any supplies, without having the purchase-money paid at the time. Assalt is the bazar or market for the supply of all the country as far as Karak, and this last place for the country east of it, which is said to extend a long way in that direction, before the sands of the Desert are met with. The Bedouins of these parts, however, though living in peace with the people of the town, on whom they chiefly depend for all supplies not raised within their own camps, are not in general esteemed by them; the common impression being that they are a barbarous and unjust race, and that no one, unless accompanied by an armed escort, or furnished with security, as well as pledges, from the sheikhs of the tribes, could with safety trust himself among them. From their character at present, as compared with the earliest accounts of them, it Rows of these coins, sometimes mixed with precious stones, bound round the temples and hanging over the cheeks, remind the scriptural reader of the verse, Thy cheeks are comely with rows of jewels, thy neck with chains of gold." Song of Solomon, i. 10. 66 |