as guide either to Beisân or Damascus. He offered his services to take us even, if we pleased, as far as Bozrah.
Then came Shaikh Barakât el Fraikh with a large train. He is ruler over all the Jebel ’Ajloon, and has been residing lately on the summit of a high hill rising before us to the east, where there is a weli or tomb of a Moslem saint, the Nebi Hhood, who works miraculous cures. Barakât is in delicate health, and has twenty wives. His metropolis, when he condescends to live in a house, is at a village called Cuf’r Enji; but his district comprises fifteen inhabited villages, with above three hundred in ruins—so it is said.
As for the saint himself, he has a very respectable name for antiquity, too ancient for regular chronology to meddle with—it is only known that he preached righteousness to an impious race of men previous to their sudden destruction. The circumstance of his tomb being on the summit of a high hill is perfectly consonant with the sentiments of great heroes and chiefs, as frequently expressed in poems of the old Arabs. The restoration of health which he is supposed to bestow, must be that effected by means of the fine mountain air at his place. At ’Ammân, old ’Abdu’l ’Azeez had said that Jerash was built by the Beni ’Ad, a primitive race mentioned in the Korân.
A ridiculous figure appeared of a Turkish subaltern officer, who has come into this wild desert to ask the people for tribute to the Porte. A Turkish kawwâs in attendance on him, I observed to shrug up his shoulders when he heard nothing but Arabic being spoken among us. They arrived here in the company of Shaikh Yusuf, whose son is nominally a Turkish military officer, commanding three hundred imaginary Bashi-Bozuk, or irregular cavalry. By means of such titles they tickle the vanity of the Arab leaders, and claim an annual tribute of 218 purses, (about £1000,) and are thus enabled to swell out the published army list, and account of revenue printed in Constantinople. [58]
So that next to nothing is in reality derived from these few sparse villages; and from the tent Arabs less than nothing, for the Turks have to bribe these to abstain from plundering the regular soldiers belonging to Damascus.
The ’Anezi Shaikh Faisel was encamped at only fourteen hours’ distance from us.
Common Arab visitors arrived—from no one knew where: some on horseback, to see what could be picked up among us; even women and children. They must have travelled during the night. A handsomely-dressed and well-armed youth on horseback, from Soof, accosted me during one of my walks.
I bought two sheep for a feast to the Arabs that came about my tent; but they asked to have the money value instead of the feast. Alas for the degradation! What would their forefathers have said to them had they been possibly present?
Afternoon: a fine breeze sprang up, as is usual in elevated districts. I strolled again with an attendant—first outside the ancient wall on the east side of the rivulet, where it is not much dilapidated; it is all built of rabbeted stones, though not of very large size; then crossed over to the western wall, and traced out the whole periphery of the city by the eye.
In the great Corinthian colonnade, one of our party called me to him, and showed me some inscriptions about the public edifices along that line, and at the Temple of the Sun. There was one inscription in Latin, on a square pedestal; a similar one near it, broken across, had a Greek inscription. The rest were all in Greek, but so defaced or injured that seldom could a whole word be made out. However, we found, in a small temple beyond the city wall to the north, in a ploughed field, an inscription more perfect, containing the work Nemesis in the first line. There also I saw several mausoleums, with sarcophagi handsomely ornamented, and fragments of highly-polished red Egyptian granite columns, to our great surprise as to how they had arrived there, considering not only the distance from which they had been brought, and the variety of people through whose hands they had passed since being cut out roughly from the quarries of upper Egypt; but, moreover, the difficulty to be surmounted in bringing them to this elevation, across the deep Jordan valley, even since their disembarkation from the Mediterranean either at Jaffa or Caiffa.
The inscriptions that I had been able to collect were as follows:—
Among all the hundreds of fragments of fine capitals and friezes lying about Jerash, there was not one that was not too heavy for us to carry away. I found no ornamented pottery, although we had found some even at Heshbon; neither coins, nor even bits of statues. And remarkable enough in our European ideas, so little space appeared for private common habitations—as usual among ruined cities of remote antiquity—it seemed as if almost the whole enclosure was occupied by temples or other public institutions.
Yet there must have habitations for a numerous population. And, again, such a city implies the existence of minor towns and of numerous villages around, and a complete immunity from incursions of wild Arab tribes. These latter were unknown to a population who could build such temples, naumachia, and colonnades, and who were protected farther eastwards by the numerous cities with high roads, still discoverable in ruins beyond this—Belka and ’Ajloon. But of how different a character must have been the daily necessities of these old populations from the requirements of modern European existence. We should not be satisfied with the mere indulgence of gazing upon the æsthetic beauty of temples and colonnades. Climate, however, has much to do in this matter.
At night we had a general conference at the encampment respecting the future march, as we had now finished with the ’Adwân Arabs. [61]
The resolution was taken to proceed on the morrow to Umm Kais, under the guidance of Shaikh Yusuf of Soof, and proceed thence to Tiberias. He, however, would not ensure but that we might be met and mulcted by the Beni Sukh’r for leave to traverse their territory. He was to receive 500 piastres, (nearly £5,) besides 50 piastres for baksheesh; but whatever we might have to pay the Beni Sukh’r was to be deducted from the above stipulation.
Thursday, 17th.—Great noise of jackdaws under my vaulted roof at break of day, they having mustered up courage to return to their nests there during the night.
During the packing up of the luggage, I took a final and lonely walk along the colonnades to the Naumachia, and outside the wall S.W. of the Ammân gate, where I observed some columns, or portions of such, of twisted pattern; returned by the bridge. The thrush, the cuckoo, and the partridge were heard at no great distance, near the stream.
We left upon the meadow a parliamentary debate of Arabs gathered around the chief’s spear, all the men ranting and screaming as only such people can, and they only at the beginning or end of a bargain.
Slowly we defiled in a long line over rising ground, higher and higher, upon a good highway, bordered on each side by numerous sarcophagi; as along the Roman Appian Way; passed the well of Shaikh el Bakkar, and a sarcophagus with a long inscription in Greek, which I regretted not having discovered yesterday, so as to allow of copying it. From an eminence we took the last view of the pompous colonnades of Jerash.
Away through the green woods of broad-leaved oak, among which were to be found fine and numerous pine-trees, the air fragrant with honeysuckle, and the whole scene enlivened by sweet song of the birds, there were hills in sight all covered with pine.
Around Soof we found none of the druidical-looking remains mentioned by Irby and Mangles, but some romantic landscape and vineyards all over the hills.
Ten minutes beyond Soof we had a Roman milestone lying at our feet. Some of us set to work in clearing earth away from it, searching for an inscription, but could not spare sufficient time to do it properly. We found, however, the letters PIVS · PONTI … —indicating the period of the Antonines.
Next there met us a large party of gipsies—known, among other tokens, by the women’s black hair being combed, which that of the Bedawi women would not be. What a motley meeting we formed—of Moslems, Greek-Church dragomans, Protestants, and Fire-worshippers, as the gipsies are always believed in Asia to be.
Among the oaks of gigantic size and enormously large arbutus, the effect of our party winding—appearing and disappearing, in varied costumes and brilliant colours—was very pleasing.