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Gt. Erit, Admiralty
I. D. 1215. !
A HANDBOOK OF
SYRIA
(INCLUDING PALESTINE)
Prepared by the Geographical Section of the Naval
Intelligence Division, Naval Staff, Admiralty.
LONDON:
PUBLISHED BY HIS MAJESTY'S STATIONERY OFFICE,
To be purchased through any Bookseller or directly from
H. M. STATIONERY OFFICE at the following addresses:
IMPERIAL HOUSE, KINGSWAY, LONDON, W.C.2, and
28, ABINGDON STREET, LONDON, S.W.1;
37, PETER STREET, MANCHESTER;
1, ST. ANDREW'S CRESCENT, CARDIFF;
23, FORTH STREET, EDINBURGH;
or from
EASON & SON, LTD., 41, and 42, LOWER SACKVILLE STREET, DUBLIN.
1920.
Price 108 Net.
Printed under the authority of
HIS MAJESTY'S STATIONERY OFFICE
By FREDERICK HALL, at the University Press Oxford.
g18
Soth.
791
Geol, fers, lib,
2- 231 2923
glan
NOTE
This handbook deals with Syria (including Palestine)
to as far north as the River Orontes and a line Antioch-
Aleppo-Meskeneh. For details of the part of Syria beyond
this line reference must be made to the Handbook of Asia
Minor, Vol. iv, Part 2 (C.B. 847 C).
It was originally intended to issue a volume of Routes and
Communications, with a Gazetteer of Towns, but, in view of
the occupation of the country and the signing of the Armistice,
is has been thought undesirable for the present to proceed
with this.
The first nine chapters of this book deal with Syria as
a whole, under such general headings as Boundaries and
Physical Survey, Climate, Natural Resources, History,
Inhabitants, &c. The remaining chapters enter into much
fuller detail and treat separately, under much the same
headings as the general chapters, the districts into which the
region appears conveniently to fall. It should, however, be
noted that little attempt has been made (nor is it possible for
the moment) to fix precise geographical limits to the various
districts into which the region has here been divided.
Conventional spellings of certain names, sanctioned by long
usage, have been retained; for a list of these with their
correct equivalents, see p. 668.
It should be pointed out that, under the circumstances in
which the book has been compiled, the information cannot
be altogether complete and that conditions are constantly
undergoing change. The Admiralty will be glad to receive
corrections and additions.
418299
.
LIST OF MAPS FOR REFERENCE
SYRIA. 1:250,000. G.S.G.S. 2321. Sheets : Jerusalem, Haifa, Beirut,
Tripoli, Ladikiya.
SINAI PENINSULA. 1:250,000. G.S.G.S. 2761. Sheets 2 (Rafa), 4 (Akaba).
INTERNATIONAL MAP. .1 :1,000,000. Sheets : Beirut 1–36, Esh-Sham
1–37, Cairo H-36, El-Jauf H-37.
Asia MINOR. 1:500,000. Admiralty War Staff, I.D. Sheet 14:
EASTERN TURKEY IN ASIA. 1:2,000,000. Published by the R.G.S., 1910.
P.E.F. SURVEY OF PALESTINE. 1:63,360. 26 sheets.
PORTION OF EASTERN PALESTINE. P.E.F. Survey, by Conder and Mantell,
1881.
TOPOGRAPHICAL AND PHYSICAL MAP OF PALESTINE. 1:253,400. J. G.
Bartholomew.
· PALÄSTINA. 1: 700,000. Fischer and Guthe. Revised, 1913; Z.D.P.V.
Xxxvi.
SYRIA AND MESOPOTAMIA. 1:850,000. Kiepert.
KARTE VON ARABIA PETRAEA. 1:300,000. A. Musil.
KARTE DES OSTJORDANLANDES. 1:63,360. G. Schumacher. Plates :
A. 4, A. 5, B. 5.
KARTINSKIZZE DER BEITRÄGE ZUR KENNTNIS DES KARMELS. 1:63,360.
E. von Mülinen, 1907 ; 2.D.P.V. xxxi.
CARTE DU LIBAN. 1:200,000. Du Corps Expéditionnaire de Syrie, en
1860-1.
CARTE DE LA PROVINCE DU LIBAN. 1:100,000. R. Huber.
11
CONTENTS
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234
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318
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CHAP.
PAGE
I. BOUNDARIES AND PHYSICAL SURVEY
II. CLIMATË . . .
III. MINERALS, FLORA, AND FAUNA ..
IV. MILITARY HISTORY
V. INHABITANTS . . . . . . . . 175
di VI. TURKISH ADMINISTRATION
VII. AGRICULTURE . . . . . . . . 252
VIII. INDUSTRY AND TRADE . . . . . . . 276
IX. CURRENCY, WEIGHTS AND MEASURES , .
X. JEBEL ANSARIYEH . . . . . . . 325
XI. COUNTRY EAST OF JEBEL ANSARĪYEH . . . . 344
XII. LEBANON, ANTI-LEBANON, AND DAMASCUS PLAIN
XIII. RIVER SYSTEMS OF NORTHERN SYRIA
395
XIV. JUDAEA AND THE SOUTHERN DESERT . .
427
XV. SAMARIA (INCLUDING CARMEL) . . . . . 472
XVI. GALILEE . . . . .
515
XVII. HAURĀN AND JAULAN . .
XVIII. ‘AJLŪN AND NORTHERN BELQA . . . . . 580
XIX. SOUTHERN BELQA AND ARDH EL-KERAK :. . . 612
XX. EL-JIBĀL AND ESH-SHERA . . . . . . 636
XXI. THE GHOR (JORDAN AND DEAD SEA); AND WĀDI 'ARABAH 645
APPENDIX: CONVENTIONAL SPELLINGS . . . . 668
INDEX : . .
. . . . . 669
PLATES · · · · · · · · · · · 725
357
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556
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.
CHAPTER I
BOUNDARIES AND PHYSICAL SURVEY
SYRIA, in its broadest acceptation, is the country that lies
between the eastern shore of the Mediterranean and the
deserts of Arabia. In a narrower sense the name denotes that
part of Syria which is not included in Palestine. This is the
regular French usage. Under the Ottoman Government
Sūrīya (Syria) was the official name of the vilayet of Damascus,
which lay along the eastern border of the country from the
extreme south to as far north as latitude 35° 25'.
BOUNDARIES
Syria, in its broadest sense, has no fixed boundary on the
east. Its frontier on that side is the limit of cultivation, which
fluctuates according as the Bedouin or the sedentary popu-
lation is the stronger. In recent years the policy of the
Turkish Government and the advance of the sedentary
population have extended the limits of Syria to the eastward
and south-eastward. Starting from a point south of Akaba,
on the Red Sea, the line crossed the Hejaz railway, ran
northward near it on the east, turned further east so as to
encircle Jebel ed-Drūz, continued near long. 37° to the neigh-
bourhood of Hama, and then crossed diagonally to the eastward.
bend of the Euphrates, near Raqqah. After this the Euphrates
was the boundary to beyond Rūm Qal'ah. The best physical
boundary between northern Syria and Arabia, according to
Blanckenhorn, is formed by the ranges of Jebel et-Tawil and.
Jebel Bishri, which stretch from Damascus, past Palmyra,
and reach the Euphrates at Halebīyeh. This adds a broad
belt of territory to the foot of the triangle whose apex is.
Aleppo and whose base runs from Hama to Raqqah. The
building of a railway from Homs to the Euphrates would.
probably tend to establish some such frontier.
In the north the latest boundary of the vilayet of Aleppa
10
BOUNDARIES AND PHYSICAL SURVEY
gave a line which started from Jonah's Pillar, slightly north
of Alexandretta, ran eastward to the Giaur Dagh (the Amanus
range), followed the crest of the hills northward to a point
nearly due west of Rūm Qal'ah, and then struck on to the
Euphrates somewhat north of that place. Previous to 1910
the vilayet included territory east of the Euphrates (sanjaq
of 'Urfa, &c.), and previous to 1915 territory to the north also
(sanjaq of Marʻash). There is no good physical boundary
corresponding to the Turkish administrative line nor to
former political frontiers. One possible physical line runs
from the coast at the mouth of the Nahr el-Kebir (near
Lādiqiyeh) up the valley of this river and the valleys of the
Orontes and the ‘Afrīn by Killiz and ‘Aintāb to the Euphrates
at Rūm Qal'ah (Blanckenhorn). Another begins just N.
of the Orontes (El-'Asi) and runs along the crest of the
Amanus range to the head of the valley of the Gök Su,
then down this valley to the Euphrates opposite Adil Bazar.
Both these lines, however, exclude a considerable part of the
Syrian coast and the port of Alexandretta. On the other
hand, the further north the line is moved the greater is the
wedge of Syrian territory between Asia Minor and Mesopotamia
and the larger is the Turkish-speaking territory included in
Syria. An alternative view, favoured by Blanckenhorn, is
to treat Cilicia as part of Syria and to make the Taurus and
Anti-Taurus ranges its northern limit.
In the south the boundary between Egypt and Syria, as
drawn in 1906, was a nearly straight line from slightly west
of Rafah on the Mediterranean to slightly east of Tabah on
the Red Sea. The southern boundary was completed by
a line starting south of Akaba and running NE. towards
Ma'ān and the depression of El-Jafar, separating the vilayet
of Damascus from the vilayet of the Hejaz.
It may be noted that the Hamād, or Syrian desert, as it
is sometimes called, is excluded from Syria as here defined.
and assigned to Arabia. Both physically and ethnographically
this region may be regarded as a transition area between
Syria and Arabia.
BOUNDARIES
11
Palestine. In modern usage Palestine has no precise
meaning. No definition can be got merely by discussing or
attempting to follow the limits of the territory of the ancient
Hebrews. The expression is best taken to be equivalent to
Southern Syria and then defined in accordance with geographi-
cal and political conditions. On this assumption only the
northern boundary presents any special difficulty. On the
west side of the Jordan the Lītāni (Nahr el-Qāsimīyeh) from its
western bend to its mouth is a definite physical limit. This
boundary may be completed eastwards to the Jordan (Nahr
Hāsbāni) in several ways. For statistical purposes it is con-
venient to adopt the northern limit of the kaza of the Merj
'Ayūn.
The amount of country east of the line of the Jordan that
may be reckoned to Palestine depends chiefly on the political
situation of Damascus in relation to Palestine. If Damascus
itself be associated with southern Syria the difficulty dis.
appears. All that portion of middle Syria that lies to the east
of Jebel esh-Sharqi (Anti-Lebanon) may easily be separated
from northern Syria and associated with Palestine. If, on the
other hand, only a portion of the country along the Hejaz
railway line, south of Damascus, is to be united to Palestine,
a satisfactory line between the portion dependent on Damascus
and that associated with Palestine is not easily found. In
this handbook, merely for convenience of geographical treat-
ment, a line close to Damascus has been chosen as the boundary
between northern and southern Syria. Starting from the
Nahr Hāsbāni, it skirts the S. and SE. slopes of Jebel esh
Sheikh (Hermon) and follows the Wādi Zābirāni and the Nahr
el-‘Awaj as far as Lake Hijāneh, into which the N. el-Awaj
flows.
EXTENT
The area of Syria, as defined by the latest Turkish admini-
strative boundaries, has never been exactly measured. An
estimate based on the detailed figures of several authorities
gives 186,000 square kilometres, or about 72,000 square miles,
12
BOUNDARIES AND PHYSICAL SURVEY
A quite moderate extension of the borders would give 80,000
square miles. Cuinet's total of 237,600 square kilometres
(91,000 square miles) includes the sanjaqs of 'Urfa (7,000
square miles) and Mar'ash (5,800 square miles) and is other.
wise a maximum figure.
The area of southern Syria (Palestine) can be given more
exactly. Western Palestine, as far as Beersheba, has an area
of 6,040 square miles (15,655 square kilometres). The country
south of Beersheba as far as Akaba extends to 4,500 square
miles (11,660 square kilometres). The whole of western Pales-
tine, therefore, covers an area of 10,540 square miles. The
corresponding territory east of Jordan, and as far north as
Hermon, may be estimated to be of similar extent. The total
area of southern Syria is, accordingly, about 21,000 square
miles. This figure suggests that the 72,000 square miles of
all Syria is an over-estimate rather than an under-estimate.
The extreme length of Syria from N. to S. is about 550 miles
(from about lat. 37° 20' to 29° 30'). The distance from the
Red Sea to the Dead Sea, here included, is about 120 miles.
The width of the country from the sea to the desert is generally
less than 100 miles and seldom as much as 130 miles. If
Blanckenhorn's geographical boundary on the NE. were
followed (see above) the average width of the country from
Damascus northward would approximate to 150 miles. From
Raqqah, on the Euphrates, to the sea is 180 miles.
PHYSICAL FEATURES
The orographical system of Syria, though in appearance
rather complicated, is in reality very simple in its broad
lines. The salient physical features lie roughly N. and S. in
parallel belts. They run with little interruption from the
Anti-Taurus range which closes the northern end, to the Gulf
of Akaba on S. ; a distance of 500–600 miles. The western
or maritime belt consists of continuous mountain ranges and
broken stretches of coastal plain ; the eastern belt is plateau
and plain broken in the northern section by detached moun-
tain groups and, in Anti-Lebanon, by an extensive mountain
PHYSICAL FEATURES
13
system, then prolonged southward by a broad mountainous
plateau. These two parallel areas are separated for their
entire length by a great central depression which drains
their inner slopes and is the only water bed of great length
in the country. North of 36° lat. the cultivable region extends
to the Euphrates which marks part of the eastern boundary
of Syria; south of this line, it merges into the desert
which stretches eastward to the steadily receding river
frontier.
A general characteristic of the maritime range is that the
main watershed lies towards the central depression. The
western slopes are therefore, with a few exceptions, longer
and less steep than are those on E. The drainage of the
central depression is mainly effected by three great rivers-
the Orontes, Lītāni, and Jordan—the first two of which take
their rise in the lateral watershed in the central depres-
sion near Ba'albek. The Jordan rises much farther south,
at the base of Hermon. Of these rivers, the Orontes
flows northward at first and the Lītāni southward, and both
eventually break away westward by gorges through the chain
to the sea. The Jordan has a wholly southern course into
the Dead Sea. Two other gorges intersect the maritime
range, one north of the Orontes and the other south of it;
through the first the River Jihān finds its outlet and, through
the second, the N. el-Kebir (Tripoli). The upper course of the
Kebir is so nearly on a level with the bed of the Orontes at one
point that the upper waters of the latter river could with
little difficulty be diverted into the bed of the former. The
four gorges, almost equidistant from each other, constitute
the principal divisions of the maritime range in northern
Syria and they mark quite definitely the limits of the
sections known as the Amanus, Ansarīyeh, and Lebanon
mountains. Farther south, the Nahr el-Muqatta' marks the
only other break in the continuity in the chain, between the
mountains of Galilee and those of Samaria and Judaea.
14
BOUNDARIES AND PHYSICAL SURVEY
The Maritime Range.
The Amanus or Giaur Dagh 1 is separated from the Anti-
Taurus range by the Jīhān gorge. The most northern stretch,
in part, runs in a narrow strip along the verge of the central
depression and, to westward, it becomes broken mountain
country with lofty and partly isolated peaks. The chain
continues southward in several parallel lines, its average
alt. being some 3,000 ft., with bold and rugged peaks rising
to nearly 6,000 ft. S. of Beilān it sweeps SW. to the high
headland of Ras el-Khanzīr, then SE, to the Orontes gorge
which is its southern limit.
J. Ansarīyeh extends from the Orontes gorge southward
to the N. el-Kebir. Unlike the remainder of this section,
the ridge of the most northern part, with J. el-Aqra',
alt. 5,800 ft., as its highest peak, lies near to the coast and
swings round the verge of the gorge, sending several long
watercourses eastward to the central depression. South of
this it resumes its normal formation, the ridge lying close to
the depression as far south as the region of Hama. Here the
mountain base spreads eastward, the slopes towards Homs
falling gradually and merging into the plain. The western
slopes throughout are more or less uniform, intersected by
deep wādis with a meagre amount of perennial water except
in the southern part where water is plentiful. The lower
western slopes are fronted by a line of lower hills the bases
of which sweep inland between Lādiqiyeh and Marqab and
again recede south of the latter place leaving broad stretches
of intervening plain. Compared with Lebanon the range is
lower, less rugged, and is more adaptable to cultivation. The
main ridge runs more or less continuous and there are several
high peaks, most of which lie slightly west of the watershed.
The Lebanon is the highest, most rugged and imposing part
of the whole maritime range. Its northern limit is the N. el-
Kebīr (Tripoli) and its southern extremity is marked by the N.
1 This part of the range does not actually come within the scope of this
Handbooks. It is described in detail in the Handbook of Asia Minor, Vol. iv.
Part 2.
PHYSICAL FEATURES
15
el- Qāsimīyeh, the name given to the lower Lītāni. The main
ridge runs in general SSW. without break, reaching heights
of from 6,000 to 8,500 ft., and having a group of peaks near
its northern end rising to 10,000 ft. The crest of the ridge
lies uniformly close to the eastern side where the slopes
are short and precipitous, but are less abrupt in its northern
part where the base spreads towards the E. The western
slopes are the chief and, in fact, the only aspect of consequence
in the chain. They are intersected by wild and rugged.
gorges, and are watered by numerous copious fountains from
natural reservoirs in the heart of the mountain.
The coastal plains facing this part of the chain are of minor
importance. For the greater part of its length the mountain
base comes down close to the sea and the plains do not at
any part expand to great width.
South of the N. el-Qāsimīyeh, the range is continued by
the mountains of Galilee which fall into two regions, a northern
mountainous mass, virtually an outlier of the Lebanon
mountains, picturesque and well-wooded, and a southern
section showing somewhat different characteristics and
consisting of chains of comparatively low hills for the greater
part running E. and W. and enclosing a number of elevated
plains, the principal of which is the Sahel el-Buttauf. In the
north, the region attains a maximum alt. of 3,934 ft., in
J. el-Jermaq; in the south the highest points are J. et-Tõr
(Tabor), alt. 1,843 ft., an isolated mass of regular shape:
commanding the plain of Esdraelon and J. Tõr'an, alte
1774 ft., south of the Buttauf. The western flank of this
system spreads itself out in masses of rocky ridges intersected
hy deep valleys to the sea between the plain of Tyre and that
of 'Akka and, here, forms the promontories Ras el-Abyadh
and Ras en-Nāqūrah over which latter runs the Ladder of
Tyre; on the east it overlooks the upper Jordan valley by
a steep descent, especially in the northern part.
The continuity of the great mountain chain is now for
a time broken by the plain of Esdraelon and by the valley of
Jezreel (N. Jālūd), its extension eastward to the Jordan,
16
BOUNDARIES AND PHYSICAL SURVEY
which together form what has been recognized from the
earliest times as the easiest entrance to the interior of the
country. The Esdraelon plain, traversed by the Nahr el-
Muqatta', the most important river of Palestine south of the
Qāsimīyeh, is roughly triangular in shape with a breadth
at its widest eastern side not far short of 15 miles and is an
almost level tract of unsurpassed fertility.
South of the plain of Esdraelon, the country again rises
gradually into the mountain systems of Samaria and Judaea.
In the first, the hill ranges are separate and comparatively
open and appear to radiate from a centre at which lies the
Merj el-Ghuruq, a peculiar elevated depression, alt. 1,180 ft.
From this centre, towards the NW., runs off the ridge of
Carmel (maximum alt. 1,808 ft.), to terminate in a bold
promontory above Haifa; towards the N. returns the ridge
of J. Fuqū', (Gilboa), alt. 1,648 ft. ; while the main ridge
continues parallel with the Jordan valley and consolidates as
it approaches the confines of Judaea. The highest summits in
Samaria are in the neighbourhood of Nāblus and include
J. Suleimīyeh (Ebal), alt. 3,077 ft., and J. et-Tõr (Gerizim),
alt. 2,849 ft. The Judaean range prolongs the mountain
system of Samaria southward, at first in a long zigzag range,
known as J. el-Quds, the highest point of which, Nebi Samwil,
is 2,935 ft., and again to the south as a compact and rugged
mass known as J. el-Khalīl, around Hebron, and it is here
that the Judaean highlands attain their maximum elevation
(3,270 ft.), and compactness. South of Hebron the ridge
spreads out upon a region quite distinct in character and,
becoming more and more arid, descends gradually towards
the southern desert.
The range in this section varies in width from 14–17 miles.
On the east side of the watershed, throughout, the ground
slopes rapidly in terraces from an average height of about
2,500 ft. above sea-level to a maximum depth in the lower
Jordan and Dead Sea Ghör of 1,300 ft. below sea-level. In
the main, the eastern slope is a waste destitute of water, known
in the southern part as the Desert of Judaea. Its most
PHYSICAL FEATURES
17
exceptional feature is perhaps the great and abundantly
watered valley system of W. el-Fārʻah which falls to the Ghör
between the bluff of Makhrūd and the frowning promontory
of Qarn Sartabeh, alt. 2,400 ft. South of the latter a line of
rugged mountain cliffs skirts the valley extending to the Dead
Sea and far beyond, riven by profound gorges of which the
most notable are W. el-Qelt, W. en-Nār, and W. el-Ghār. On
the west side of the watershed, the range extends about half-
way to the sea and is broken by innumerable deep valleys
among which the two most prominent are W. Nāblus and
W. es-Sarār. Westward, along the entire length of the range,
extends the maritime plain, gradually increasing in breadth
from a few hundred yards at the Carmel promontory to some
20 miles or more in the south. This is the most extensive
plain of the whole Syrian sea-board : the northern half is
known as the plain of Sharon and the southern as Philistia ;
both sections are traversed by several stream-beds, small
in comparison with the rivers farther north, notably the
Zerqa, ‘Auja, and Rūbīn, outlets of the various intricate
wādi systems of Samaria and Judaea.
Between the mountain country of Judaea and the plain of
Philistia an undulating region composed of groups of hills
intersected by a network of small valleys anciently known as
the 'Shephelah’ must not be overlooked; it forms, as it were,
a transition zone between the plateau and the plain.
Continuing the high country of Judaea, the main range
runs in a generally NE-SW. direction, to traverse almcst
the whole of the Sinai peninsula. The crest, running 20-30
miles west of the W. ‘Arabah and 40-50 miles from the
Mediterranean coast, rises from an elevation of about 1,800 ft,
in the confines of Judaea to about 3,040 ft. at J. Maghāreh
near the Egyptian frontier. On the E. the range, very
barren in character, falls by broad steps to the ‘Arabah,
while on the W. it slopes away to the maritime plain, here
broader and more arid than farther N. and traversed by the
great Wādi Ghazzeh and its affluents.
i
SYRIA
18
BOUNDARIES AND PHYSICAL SURVEY
The Central Depression
The northern part varies considerably in width, from its
commencement as a wide plain below Mar'ash to its termina-
tion at the foot of a group of low hills which forms the water-
shed at Amir Mūsa Dagh. This stretch falls northward,
is marshy throughout, and has several lakes. Similar
characteristics prevail on the reverse side of the watershed
now falling southward. It carries the Kara Su to the marshy
lake of Antioch where the valley spreads out into a great
plain forming a basin at the meeting-place of the waters
draining from N., S., and E.
Next rising southward, the depression becomes constricted
between the flanking mountains and carries the central
Orontes. In parts, the bottom of the depression is little more
than the river channel, but' at Jisr esh-Shughr it opens out
into a long, marshy, and fertile plain, El-Ghāb, on the eastern
side of which there are several lakes ; here the river bed lies
close to the western side. In the region of Hama the continuity
of the plain is interrupted by the eastern spread of the mountain
base. The river takes a wide eastward bend, entering a gorge at
Qalʼat es-Seijar, and finally emerges upon the plain of Homs.
Here the depression ceases and is marked only by the shallow
marshy bed of the river and the artificial lake of Homs.
Between the parallel Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon ranges it
gradually resumes its natural axis and becomes a great valley
plain, the spurs from the mountains projecting in low trans-
verse undulations through which the river bed has cut
deeply
· The low swell, alt. 3,600 ft., which forms the watershed
at Ba'albek is the highest level of the depression and on it
are the most remote sources of the Orontes and the Lītāni.
From here southward the flat and fertile valley-plain spreads
out to its greatest width and is intersected by the steadily
deepening chasm of the Lītāni whose course lies close to the
western side. Farther S. it is reduced in width by the
spreading base of Hermion and becomes divided into two
PHYSICAL FEATURES
19
the E. t the southcaced plater the
parallel valleys by J. edh-Dhahr, a low ridge forced up into
the axis of the plain; that on the W. carries the Nahr Lītāni,
that on the E. the Nahr Hāsbāni. The plain reverts to its
former width at the southern termination of the ridge and
then falls in a series of terraced plateaus through which the
Hāsbāni, forming the upper waters of the Jordan, flows in
a deep chasm to the Bahret el-Hūleh (L. Hūleh).
The Hūleh basin forms the head of the great Jordan rift
or depression, known as the Ghör, perhaps the most remark-
able physical feature of Palestine. From a few feet below
sea-level at the outlet of L. Hūleh, the depression falls
rapidly to 682 ft. below the Mediterranean at L. Tiberias
(Sea of Galilee), the river running close to the eastern hills
and about 4 miles from those of the W., which latter rise
more than 3,500 ft. above the lake. South of L. Tiberias
the valley for some 12 miles is only 1-11 miles wide west
of the river and some 3 miles wide on the east where the R.
Yarmūk joins. Steep cliffs reaching an altitude of 1,800 ft.
rise above the stream on the W. The valley then receives
the Jālūd tributary and broadens at the plain of Beisān
to about 6 miles on the west and the river runs about
2 miles from the foot of the line of hills on the east. South
of the Beisān plain, the valley contracts to a total width
of only 2–3 miles and is here at its narrowest part, the river
flowing, for some 10 miles or so, near the base of the western
mountains. Farther south the depression again opens out
to å width of 6–8 miles; it is now flanked, on the west, by the
highlands of Samaria and Judaea and, on the east, by the
mountains of 'Ajlūn. Finally, the valley broadens to the
great basin of the Jericho plain where it measures more than
14 miles across in the widest part, with the Jordan about in
the middle. The Dead Sea, 50 miles long by 10 miles broad,
with a surface level of about 1,300 ft. below the Mediterranean,
fills the lowest section of the rift or Ghör and washes the bases
of the mountains that rise to an elevation of 2,000–3,000 ft.
on either shore.
South of the Dead Sea, the great depression is prolonged
B2
20 BOUNDARIES AND PHYSICAL SURVEY
to the Red Sea by the wide W. 'Arabah which suggests
a plain rather than a valley and is linked with the Dead Sea
by an extensive sabkheh, or marshy lowland. The ‘Arabah
is not a continuous trough with a slope in one direction, but
is divided by a lateral watershed near the middle part. The
valley is broadest in the north and rises some 2,000 ft. to the
watershed where it contracts, widening again down the
southern slope to the Red Sea, though less so than in the
northern section. The whole ‘Arabah depression is enclosed
on both sides by escarpments which are precipitous in places
but especially so on the east.
The Eastern Plateau
In northern Syria the country east of the depression
rises abruptly in broken and difficult acclivities to the
great plateau of Kurd Dagh which falls eastward to the
Euphrates in easy rolling downs; it is fertile in general,
but there is very little water. The western section is
partially isolated by the wide valley of the 'Afrīn Su and
S. of it, the verge of the plateau is marked by broken high-
lands which extend toward Aleppo, sending their slopes
southward to the lower level of the plateau. This southern
extension is lined along its western verge by isolated mountain
groups, and toward the E. is diversified by numerous tells ;
but all is treeless and practically waterless. In general,
however, this northern plateau is fertile, and, where it merges
into the desert, tongues of arable and barren lands inter-
penetrate along the irregular border.
: Beyond the Hama bend of the depression, the fine fertile
plain of Homs extends from the banks of the Orontes far
eastward to the desert and southward to the commencement of
the Anti-Lebanon mountains. This extensive mountain system
separates the plain from the depression and throws a series of
lofty limestone chains back upon the great abutment of Hermon
the lower slopes of which are basaltic. The chains in some
cases have peaks of over 8,000 ft., and are separated by fertile
PHYSICAL FEATURES
21
uplands, but in their northern parts they are barren. The
Hermon massif is the southern termination of the Anti-Lebanon
system and marks the northern limit of the plateau which
borders the Jordan valley. Along the eastern side of the range,
toward Damascus, low ridges shoot out in a north-easterly
direction across the plain to the desert which here and there
approaches close to the mountain base.
At Damascus the plain opens out in a fine fertile and
abundantly watered tract of irrigated gardens, as far east as the
desert lakes and south to the Nahr el-‘Awaj. The latter marks
the division between the calcareous country to the north and
the basaltic country to the south. Further S. the great wheat-
growing but scantily watered plain of Haurān extends treeless
and studded with conical tells. E. of it are the lava tract of the
Leja and the fertile, well-wooded Jebel ed-Drūz, a basaltic mass
with peaks rising to over 6,000 ft. Still farther E. an arable
tract lies against the western verge of the desert which is here
marked by barren lava tracts.
The section of the plateau known as Jaulān lies over
against the northern part of the Jordan valley and the Sea of
Galilee; it is, in fact, the western extension of what, in its
broadest sense, is called Haurān. It merges into the acclivities
of Hermon on the N. and is separated from 'Ajlūn on the S. by
the gorge of the R. Yarmūk. From an alt. of 3,625 ft. it steadily
descends southward to a level of 975 ft. close to the Yarmūk,
not including the line of volcanic peaks which run S. by E.
from Tell el-Ahmar and rise to over 4,000 ft. The formation
is basaltic and the surface is broken by numerous wādis falling
generally S. by W. The northern and middle parts are
thickly covered with boulders of basalt but the southern area
is smooth and more cultivated. It is in general fairly
well watered and is a fine pasture country. The western
face of the plateau falls abruptly to the Ghör. The oak
forests which at one time covered a great part of the plateau
have disappeared and there are now only a few isolated
woods and groups of trees. The Yarmūk roughly marks
the southern limit of the ' basaltic flow'; immediately S. of it,
22
BOUNDARIES AND PHYSICAL SURVEY
the formation of 'Ajlūn is limestone with some basalt on
the northern limit.
South of the Yarmūk, the mountains again rise rather
suddenly and maintain generally the character of broken
wooded country to as far south as Wādi Hesbān. At about
one-half of the distance, the system is divided by the deep
valley of the Nahr ez-Zerqa (R. Jabbok), which cleaves the
mountains almost to their base; the section north of the
Zerqa is known as Jebel 'Ajlūn. The northern part of 'Ajlūn
consists of a broad ridge of uneven tableland; farther south,
the mountains reach their greatest altitude beyond Jordan,
the highest summits attaining 4,000–5,000 ft. above the Ghör.
The western flank of 'Ajlūn, intersected by deep ravine-like
gorges such as Wādis Yābis and Kefrinji, falls by rather steep
slopes or steps with intervening terraces and fertile tracts to the
narrow plain of the eastern Ghör which is here some 2–3 miles
in width. Eastward, the country slopes down gently towards
the Hamād steppe. South of the N. ez-Zerqa, the mountain
range continues without marked interruption to W. Hesbān
and here embraces the whole district known as the Belqa;
it is still a high broken tract upon which lies the still higher
ridge of J. Osha' or Jel'ād extending NE. for some 7 miles
and having an elevation of about 3,600 ft. above the
Mediterranean Sea. For six or seven miles south of this
summit the country is (or was) richly wooded and is very
picturesque.
South of Wādi Hesbān the range spreads out to the high and
wide plateau of Moab, dotted with many isolated tells. This part
has an average elevation of 3,000 ft.above the sea, is apparently
on a level with the eastern desert, and is bordered towards it
by a chain of hills. North of W. Hesbān the western slope
of the range towards Jordan, like the section farther north,
is intersected by deep wādis with precipitous sides. Along
the valley of the Jordan to as far south as the Dead Sea
the slope rises somewhat gradually from the Ghör; but, farther
S., along the flank of Moab the mountains fall much more
abruptly and approach almost to the water's edge. The
PHYSICAL FEATURES
23
highest summit of the section is the ‘Atārūs ridge which rises
precipitously on the southern side of W. Zerqa Māʻīn, one of
the many deep and narrow chasms which cut their way down
to the Ghör.
The ridge is then prolonged through the district of Kerak
to Wādi el-Hesa, the general character of the region remaining
much the same—a solid flat-topped mass of wild mountains,
desolate in large part, rising precipitously from the very
edge of the Dead Sea water. One particularly notable
elevation in this section, J. Shīhān (alt. 3,470 ft.), rises above
the general level, not far south of W. Mõjib. Beyond the Hesa,
the range continues in a south-south-westerly direction,
falling down somewhat abruptly on the west side to the
‘Arabah depression and sloping more gently eastward to the
Jafar depression and the desert. The ridge maintains
a general elevation of about 3,500 ft. and then rises to about
4,800 ft. at J. esh-Shera. Thence it is prolonged southward
between W. ‘Arabah and W. Mudheifein, falling at first
gradually and then much more rapidly, to terminate at the
Gulf of Akaba, near the outlet of W. Yitm.
CHAPTER II
CLIMATE
GENERAL
FOR climate the country may be divided into three regions :
the north and mountainous parts, the coast, and the Jordan
valley. While the general climatic conditions are fairly
uniform over all three divisions, special differences will be
shown to exist between the regions mentioned. The principal
meteorological stations furnishing climatological data are :
(1) On the inland plateau between the sea and Jordan
valley-El-Qareya, Qsāra, Nazareth, Jerusalem, Hebron, and
El-Lātrūn.
(2) On the coast-Adana 1, Beirut, Haifa, Jaffa, Sarona,
Gaza, and El-Arīsh 1.
(3) In the valley of Jordan—'Ain et-Tābghah, Tiberias,
Melhamīyeh, Jericho, and Qasr Hajleh.
Air Pressure and Winds
In winter the eastern Mediterranean is normally an area of
low pressure which, as summer approaches, gradually travels
over the desert to the Persian Gulf which then becomes a low
pressure region. In consequence of this distribution of pressure
the prevalent winds in the winter--winter conditions begin in
October—are easterly, varying between north-east and south-
east. The change to summer conditions becomes manifest in
April, when west and south-west winds prevail with north-west
winds inland. From June to September, when the low pressure
system over the Persian Gulf is fully developed, westerly winds
1 These stations are not actually in Syria, but are sufficiently near to the
northern and southern frontier respectively—to give a fairly accurate indi-
cation of climatic conditions, and, in the absence of Syrian stations in these
parts, cannot be ignored,
GENERAL
25
with a tendency inland to north-west, are predominant. The
predominance of the westerly winds is indeed very marked
throughout the year; thus at Beirut 33 per cent. of the winds
of the year are south-westerly, at Haifa 38 per cent. arrive
from the west, and at El-Lātrūn 38 per cent. are north-westerly.
The least frequent wind, especially on the coast, is that which
blows from the north-east. The characteristic of the west
wind, the wind from the sea, is humidity ; that of the east
wind, the desert wind, aridity. Fortunately, the west wind is
predominant throughout the year, for the east wind-dry and
exhilerating though it be when it blows in the winter in the
summer causes the atmosphere to be dust-laden and the
temperature oppressive.
On the coast, almost throughout the year, there are daily
sea breezes ; these are most welcome in the summer, for the
west and north-west winds in particular bring comparatively
cool air. These breezes arrive about 9 a.m. and reach the
plateau west of Jordan about 5 hours later; at sunset they die
down, but soon start again, continue for a great part of the
night, and bring dew to the parched land. When the sea breeze
fails the nights are hot and relaxing, and there is no dew. The
sea winds do not always rise to the plateau country, and when
this is the case, though cool and refreshing conditions may
prevail at sea-level, it can be stiflingly hot even at an altitude
of 2,500 ft. As the breeze flows inland, moreover, it parts
with much moisture, therefore at some distance from the coast
it only exercises a cooling influence after it has blown for some
hours.
Temperature
The climate of Syria is generally warm and in the rainless
summer the temperature is high. A peculiarity of the climate
is the fact that, proceeding froin north to south and speaking
broadly, the temperature decreases both in summer and in
winter. This may be accounted for by the strength of the west
wind which fails in the more mountainous north.
The mean maximum temperature at sea-level for the whole
26
CLIMATE
country is 82–84° F.; at the high-level stations the values
are lower, while in the Jordan valley they are greater. The
mean daily minimum nowhere falls as low as freezing-point
and only at high-level stations such as El-Qareya, Jerusalem,
and Hebron may frosts be expected, in January. Frosts, how-
ever, have been recorded at all stations except on the coast and
in the Jordan valley. In the interior, where on the coldest days
the 32° F. isotherm is found at a height of 1,600 ft., frosts seem
to be more frequent : in each of the three years during which
records are available at Damascus frosts are recorded several
times.
Temperature falls slowly in the autumn, which is far warmer
than spring. September, it is found, is warmer than June
while the temperature of October exceeds that of May. It is
only in November that a decided fall of temperature begins.
Taking the fall of temperature with height into consideration
the coast has the lowest mean temperature, inland tempera-
tures rise increasingly with the distance from the sea and
reach a maximum in the Jordan valley. The mean tempera-
ture, in point of fact, is 6° F. higher in the Jordan valley and at
Damascus than on the coast. Great heat usually accompanies
the blowing of the south-east wind (Sirocco). The air then
becomes intensely dry, the relative humidity varying between
9 per cent. and 15 per cent. only. When the wind in autumn
turns towards this direction, the south-east, summer con-
ditions of heat and drought continue for a surprisingly long
period.
The maximum of change occurs in April, the minimum in
August. The change is about 50 per cent. greater on the
exposed highlands than on the coast, where even in summer
north winds are greatly feared and cause inflammation of the
respiratory organs. The variation is least on the coast, greatest
in the Jordan valley, and seems to increase still more in the
direction of Damascus. It is surprising that the hottest days
hardly ever occur in midsummer, but in May or June, although
the mean temperature in July and August is higher. This
seems to be caused by the prevalence of the hot-air currents
GENERAL
27
from south to east in the spring which are almost non-existent
in summer. The mean increase of the daily temperature from
7 hr. to 13 hr., amounts to 10° F. for the coastal stations; in
the mountains the difference is ļ3.5° F., and in the Jordan
valley about 16° F. Lowest temperatures occur sometimes
in December, but mostly in January with north-east and east
winds of considerable force, generally after snow has fallen in
the mountains.
The following list of extremes of temperature in 25 years
will be instructive :
Maxima.
Minima.
°F. Date. °F. Date.
| May 1900! 29.1
Haifa . . .
Jan. 1907
(Oct. 1904)
| Jan. 1897
Carmel
90.7 June 1896
29°3
29.3 }
| Jan. 1898
Gaza.
104:0 May 1900 39.2 Jan. 1905
Beirut. .
101.3 Oct. 1898 30.0 Dec. 1898
Nazareth .
110.5 June 1896 25.3 Dec. 1897
(Dec. 1897,
Jerusalem I.
108.0 June 1894 25:0
Jan. 1898
Jerusalem II. .
102.0 May 1903 21.2 Jan. 1907
Hebron . .
103.1 Aug. 1896 18.9 Jan. 1898
Tiberias
114.1 June 1899 34:0 Jan. 1896
Melhamīyeh.
107.2 July 1896 33.4 Jan. 1907
.
...
Precipitation
Precipitation, on account of the great yearly fluctuations in
periodicity, duration, and intensity, is the most important of
the climatic elements. The average rainfall of the country, as a
whole, is considerably greater than that of the eastern part of
the north coast of Africa, though in other respects there
is a general resemblance in the climate of both regions.
The mountain ranges parallel to the coast lie across the
track of the prevailing westerly winds, and furnish one
of the main causes of abundant rainfall enjoyed in the
north. On the coast the rainfall is moderate but it increases
with the rise of the land as far as the slopes of the western
range bounding the Jordan Valley, beyond which it rapidly
diminishes and is followed by a desert region with sparse and
irregular winter rains.
28
CLIMATE
The climate is sub-tropical with only two seasons of about
equal duration of six months each—the rainy season coincides
with the winter and the months immediately preceding and
following the same, and tủe dry season with the summer
months. Wet years occur in irregular sequence with dry
ones, to the prejudice of the harvest and the very existence
of the agricultural population. No definite law can be stated,
but, in general, the wet are low-pressure years, the dry high-
pressure years. It may here be mentioned that the winter
depression over the Mediterranean has a continuation to the
coast of Syria, and the farther east this depression spreads in
any year, the greater the chance is there of an increased rain-
fall, the moist air being carried from the sea by south-west
winds.
Rainfall shows a strongly marked seasonal distribution. In
a rainy season, the extreme limits of which lie between mid-
October and mid-May, the heaviest rainfall takes place in
December and January. The months from June to September
are nearly (and frequently quite) rainless. The heaviest rain-
fall occurs in the mountains of northern Syria. It rapidly
diminishes, both towards the west and the east, as lower levels
are reached, as is shown by the smaller amounts registered at
Sarona and Damascus. Farther south a belt of heavier rain-
fall extends along the high ground from Nazareth to Hebron,
but the amount rapidly diminishes towards the east until
desert conditions prevail. Along the coast, where the maxi-
mum rainfall occurs in the autumn in contradistinction to
that of the inner highlands where more rain falls in the
spring than at any other season, the diminution is gradual
and less.
The normal periods of the rainy season are : Jerusalem,
October 14 to May 6; Tiberias, October 24 to May 3; Sarona,
October 18 to May 12; and Beirut, October 3 to May 21. The
mean length in days of the rainy season is as follows, the
numbers in brackets, when given, denoting the differences
between highest and lowest number recorded : Beirut, 230 ;
· Haifa, 214 (65); Nazareth, 201 (87); Jerusalem, 204 (89);
GENERAL
29
Tiberias, 191(76); Gaza, 192 (95). The average percentage of
yearly rainfall in the different months is as follows :
Jan. Feb. Mar. Apr. May. June. July. Aug. Sept. Oct. Nov. Dec.
25.3 17.0 12:0 4.9 1.1 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.2 .2.4 12.3 24.8
showing that half the total falls in December and January.
The yearly period of rain fluctuates a good deal between the
limits given. There are three periods of precipitation : an
early period, known from biblical times as the “former 'rain ;
a second or middle period; and a third period, or 'latter' rain.
The start of the rainy season varies by some weeks. Should
the rain hold back until the middle of November great anxiety
prevails, for the early rains are eagerly awaited to moisten the
land and thus prepare it for cultivation and sowing. The
middle rains are violent, and by saturating the ground fill the
springs and yield the water-storage for the year. The latter'
rains fall in gentle showers which are essential to the full
development of the harvest. In taking means, the distinction
between these periods vanishes because their succession in
different years takes place at different times. Thus, at Hebron
9 times in 13 years, in Jerusalem 18 times in 27 years, there
was a recurrence of heavy rains between February and May.
Precipitation in the rainy season is not continuous, the rains
being frequently interrupted by one or more days of clear sky
which are the pleasantest in the year. On the other hand,
slight rains occur now and then in the dry season.
In the mountains the amount of precipitation is about the
same as in the United Kingdom but, as it is confined to half
the year, the density is much greater. Thus the mean density,
both in the mountains and on the coast, is about 0.39 in. per
rain-day, in the Jordan valley it is slightly less, i. e. 0.34 in.,
which compares with 0.14 in. at Kew.
Palestine is the transition zone from Northern Syria, with its
heavy rainfall in the Lebanon, to the almost rainless North
Egypt. This is shown by a comparison of the mean yearly
rainfall for the period 1896–1905 at the following stations :
Beirut. Haifa. Jaffa. Gaza. Alexandria.
34:6 in. 24:0 in 19.7 in. 16.5 in. 8.3 in.
30
CLIMATE
At El-Qareya, in the mountains, the rainfall is about 70
per cent. greater than at Beirut, bearing the ratio of about
7:1 to North Egypt.
From the agricultural point of view (1) the intensity,
(2) the frequency, and (3) the times of the beginning and
end of the rainy season are of paramount importance. As
instances of the great fluctuations in these points it is noted
(1) that the extremes of monthly precipitation in January at
Jerusalem varied in 46 years between 13.4 in. and 0.118 in.;
that (2) in 1894 Tiberias had 67 rain days, whereas in 1901 it
had only 26; that (3) the length of the rainy season varies
from 2 to 3 months ; thus the end of the rainy season can be
too early by 1-11 months and the beginning may be a month
late.
Of the rain-bearing winds the south-west is the most impor-
tant from the point of view of precipitation, as it brings with
it moist warm air from the sea. The importance of this wind
will be gathered from the results shown in the following table,
which illustrates the dependence of the amount of rainfall at
Gaza on the south-west wind :
February . . . 1899. 1900. 1901. 1902. 1903. 1904. 1905.
Rainfall in inches . . 1.77 4.53 0.32 1.26 1.97 0.51 2:40
No. of observations of SW.
wind. . . . 26 36 0 12 21 14 31
December . . : 1898. 1899. 1900. 1901. 1902. 1903. 1904.
Rainfall in inches . . 5 7.68 5.24 4:41 5.94 2.68 7.72
No. of observations of SW.
wind . . . . 9 22 19 15 22 18 32
Rainfall statistics show that year by year the variations of
the rainfall seem to correspond over the whole country (coast
and mountains), so that for estimating wet, medium, and dry
seasons the region may be taken as a whole.
Thunderstorms.-In the late autumn and at the end of winter
the rains are frequently accompanied by thunderstorms. They
average about ten annually, and occur mostly in November,
December, March, and April. The average at Beirut is as
high as 20:8 storms per annum, but at Bethlehem and Hebron
GENERAL
the average is not more than 4 and 6 respectively per annum.
At El-Lātrūn though lightning is seen on 33•4 days in the
year thunderstorms only average 8.1.
Snowfall.–Snow falls only on the northern mountains
and the highlands west and east of Jordan and is practi-
cally confined to the months of December to March. In
22 rainy seasons at Jerusalem 14 had snowfall, averaging
3 days of snow. The fall is often heavy. Thus at Hebron on
February 14–16, 1897, a heavy snowstorm, accompanied by
thunder, covered the ground to a depth of 10-13 in., while in
December 1879, at Jerusalem, 17 in., and in February 1874,
8 in. were measured. In the mountainous parts of Syria,
as at El-Qareya, snow is expected on ten days a year, six
of which occur in December and January, but at more
southerly towns, such as Bethlehem (alt. 2,549 ft.), snow
only falls on two days in the year, while at El-Lātrūn (656 ft.)
there is one fall in about ten years. As a rule snow only
lies for a day. East of the Jordan, according to Diener, snow
is more frequent and lies longer.
Hail.-Hailstorms are not uncommon. In 25 years an
annual average of 6.7 days of hail was observed at Beirut
while at Jerusalem the average is 2.7, and at El-Qareya 7.8.
As heavy hail is mentioned in the Bible it is interesting to note
that hailstones an inch in diameter have been measured in
Beirut. The storms occur from December to March and most
frequently in February and March.
Dew is heaviest in May, June, and July—the minimum
occurring in January. In the mountains west of Jordan the
summer dew is so heavy, that sleeping in the open means a
thorough wetting. This heavy fall is frequently caused by
the passage of the warm moist sea wind over the rapidly
cooling ground. Dew falls on an average about one day in
four throughout the year.
Fogs are comparatively rare, the annual average of days
of fog being 12 for the coast stations, and 15 for the highlands.
In the plains and in the neighbourhood of Jerusalem summer
ground fogs are not uncommon at night and in the early
A
32
CLIMATE
morning, but they dissolve as the sun gains power. At 'Ain
et-Tābghah on Lake Tiberias a total of ten days of fog in a
month has been recorded more than once.
Wind Strength
Although wind observations in Syria are as a rule only
approximations owing to the deficiency of wind-recording
instruments, the data given in Table XXIV will serve a useful
purpose for local comparison.
With respect to the coast stations the mean wind force is
not great, the mean yearly average being about 1.5 per annum,
as compared with 3-4 on the west coasts of the United King-
dom. The wind force at these stations is invariably stronger at
midday than in the morning, the strength increasing with the
daily rise of temperature. At Beirut the yearly mean force at
noon exceeds the yearly mean of the day by 15 per cent. At
Melhamīyeh, in the Jordan valley, similar conditions prevail,
but in summer the midday wind force is relatively much
stronger than the morning and evening, the afternoon mean
in July being as high as 4.3 as compared with 0.5 in the
evening and l•l in the morning.
Gales.-Gales are most violent in the north, but winds of
Beaufort scale (8 or more) are not of frequent occurrence;
at Sarona, for example, the mean number recorded is not more
than 4.5 days in the year, while at Beirut the average number
of stormy days is 6–7 and of gales 4-5 per annum. Gales occur
most frequently at Beirut in December and January, and are
almost unknown from May to August. On the Dead Sea
violent gusts and storms are said to prevail in the winter till
the end of April, coming mostly from the north. After April
a period of calm accompanied by intense heat prevails.
Evaporation
Evaporation is a subject of the greatest importance in this
dry land. At Jerusalem (station II) evaporimeters have been
employed, but the results though interesting can, owing to
difficulties of observation and the position of the instruments,
GENERAL
33
only be regarded as approximate, and even greater latitude
must be allowed for results shown at stations of less prominence.
The following table shows the total amount of evaporation
in certain months of the years 1899 and 1900 at Jericho,
Bethlehem, Jerusalem (II), and Haifa, and the mean evapora-
tion at Jerusalem for the period 1896-1905 and the 30-years'
average for London :
Jan. Feb. Mar. April. May. June. July.
.
Haifa . .
Jericho.
Jerusalem (II)
Bethlehem
•
in.
0.43
4:09
1.85
0.82
.
.
,
.
1900.
1899.
in. in. in. in. in. in.
0.78 - 0.94 1:02 1.38 1.60
3.19 (5.00) 11.90 16:30 18.70 17.50
1.02 2.09 4.53 5.40 5.20 4.80
0.71 1.46 1.77 3.66 4.76 4.96
.
.
Mean Monthly Evaporation at Jerusalem and London
Jan Feb. Mar. April. May. June.
in. in. in. in. in. in.
. . . . 1.14 1.38 2:13 3.50 5.04 5.32
. . . . 0.11 0.26 0.66 1.55 2.38 2.90
Jerusalem
London .
July. Aug. Sept. Oct. Nov. Dec. Year.
in. in. · in. in. in. in. in.
5.32 4.80 4:33 4.60 2.28 1.65 41.4
3.07 2.36 1.37 0.62 0.24 0.10 15.6
Jerusalem
London
:
.
:
.
The yearly evaporation at Jerusalem of 41.6 in. exceeds the
mean yearly rainfall by about 16 in. This heavy evaporation
means that if an empty reservoir was left to be filled by rain-
fall alone it would not hold an appreciable amount of water
before November and would be dry during the whole summer
till October. In the south, as the precipitation is less and the
evaporation greater, the conditions in respect to moisture are
worse. This is shown by the more or less constant level, during
any one year, of the Dead Sea, which shows that the inflowing
Jordan and other tributaries, notwithstanding the volume of
water they discharge into the lake, only suffice to compensate
for the loss by evaporation. On account of the excess of
evaporation over precipitation the problem of careful water-
storage is of paramount importance in this country. In
SYRIA
34
CLIMATE
Lake Tiberias mid-April is the time of high water-mean
, levels are said to be reached in February and July. In the
Dead Sea the highest level seems to be in February or March.
Y
Conclusion
The mountains arrest the westerly winds blowing from the
Mediterranean with the result that precipitation is greater on
the western than on the eastern slopes. Hence it follows that
springs on the eastern side are fewer and cultivation is con-
fined to isolated areas. As the rainfall drains off with great
rapidity the beds of the streams quickly dry up after the
rainy season. It has been held by some authorities that
precipitation in Syria has diminished in the course of centuries
through the disappearance of a great portion of the forests,
but this fact is disputed and it is certain that within historic
times the climate and cultivation of the country cannot have
appreciably changed.
West winds bring rain. The north-west wind moderates the
summer heat, but on the other hand, a depressing east or
south-east wind (sirocco), which parches up everything and
is hurtful to animal and vegetable life, is occasionally experi-
enced in the second half of May and just before the rainy
season.
On the whole the climate of Syria, with the exception of the
valley of the Jordan and some marshy districts, is not un-
healthy, though intermittent fevers are not uncommon in
these, among other, parts.
CLIMATOLOGICAL DATA
- Beirut
Lat. 33° 54' N., long. 35° 28' E., alt. 115 ft. Period of
observation (3 times daily) 25-30 years.
Beirut is situated on the north side of a small triangular
plain which projects towards the coast from the middle heights
of Lebanon, and has a low range of hills running along the
north side of the triangle from the Beirut river to Cape Beirut.
CLIMATOLOGICAL DATA
35
in.
Air Pressure.—The mean air pressure (with gravity cor-
rection) for 25 years is as follows :
Jan. Feb. Mar. April. May. June.
in. 1. in.
in.
in.
in. .
30.032 29.989 29.938 29.898 29.886 29.833
July. Aug. Sept. Oct. Nov. Dec.
Year.
in. in. in. in. in. in. in.
29.733 29.754 29.863 29.957 30.016 30.024 29.910
In 25 years the maximum occurs 19 times in January and
December. It may here be mentioned that the mean coastal
pressure of Syria and Palestine is high. The January mean is
30.040 in., as compared to Greenwich 29.98 in. ; July 29.725 in.
(Greenwich 29.985 in.); year 29.922 in. (Greenwich 29.96 in.).
It is not, however, as high as is the case in the depression of
the Jordan valley, where, at Tiberias, an absolute maximum
of 31·222 in. has been recorded, and the mean pressures are :
January, 30.772 in. ; July, 30-418 in.; year, 30.611 in., the
highest yearly mean on the earth.
Temperature. The mean temperature varies from 55.6° F.
in January to 81.5° F. in Aug., and does not differ much from
other coastal stations. The tables show that the four months
December to March are coolest, that the range is not great
and is least in the summer and early autumn. The mean
daily, mean monthly, and absolute maxima are : 89° F.
(August), 92-3° F. (August) and 102° F. (May) respectively
The mean daily, mean monthly, and absolute minima are :
49° F. (January), 41° F. (January), and 30° F. (December).
An average maximum of 86° F. may be expected as early as
April when the temperature rises to 'above 90° F. and remains
at this height till October. The average minimum is 68° F.
in July and 70° F. in August, and sinks to 41° F. in January.
In August the expectation of a maximum of 86° F. or more is
28 to 31. days. In January the temperature sinks on an
average to under 41° F. every second year, in February every
third year, and in March and December every fourth year,
Cloud.—The following table shows that the measure of
02
36
CLIMATE
cloudiness is greater at Beirut than the average of ten other
eastern Mediterranean coastal stations :
Jan Feb. Mar. April. May. June.
Beirut .
. 5.6 5.6 4.8 4.2 3.2 1.4
Mean of ten coastal stations on
Mediterranean . . . 4.6 4.6 3.8 3.7 2.8
Excess of cloudiness at Beirut . 10 1.0 1.0 0.5 0.4 0.1
July. Aug. Sept. Oct. Nov. Dec. Year.
Beirut: ... .. 1.5 1.7 1.9 2.6 4.2 5.3 3.5
Mean of ten coastal stations
on Mediterranean . 1.1 1.3 1.8 2.5 4.0 4.7 3.0
Excess of cloudiness at
Beirut . . . 0.4 0.4 0.1 0.1 0.2 0.6 0.5
This excess is due to the neighbourhood of Lebanon which
runs parallel to the sea and forms a barrier against the prevail-
ing south-west and west winds. The cloud difference is
greatest in the rainiest months, from December to March.
Defining a bright day as one in which cloudiness is equal to
or less than 1, and an overcast day as one in which cloudiness
is equal to or greater than 9, the following table has been
constructed :
Mean. Max. Min. Max. Min.
Over-
Bright. cast. Bright. Overcast.
January
3:3 4:1 11 0
February
3.1 3.7
March :
4.7 2.7
April .
5-2 1.7
May .
7.0 1.0 15
June
14.0 0.04 22
July .
0.08
August .
11.6 0.12 26
September
11.3 0.08 21
October
11.2 0.3 17
November
5.2 1.9 10
December
3.6 3.6 12 0 8 i
Year . . . . . 92.2 19.3 127 68 38 11
Precipitation.—The mean annual rainfall is 35.65 in. ; the
maximum 51.4 in.; the minimum 23.3 in. Seasonally pre-
cipitation is distributed as follows : winter 59.8 per cent.,
spring 18.5 per cent., summer 0.7 per cent., autumn 21 per
12
9
ܢ
12
ܐ
ܗ
............
11.5
OOCHA A O ON
ܙ ܘܬ ܢܕ ܢ ܝܕ ܘܬ ܗ ܣ
CLIMATOLOGICAL DATA
37
cent.—a distribution which holds good for the whole of Syria,
though the average rainfall of Beirut is about one-third
greater than the average of the whole country. .
The maximum rainfall recorded in any month is 15.8 in.
in February 1877; while the heaviest rainfall in 24 hours
during the period 1876–1900 occurred in January in 7 years,
in November and December in 5 years, in February in 4 years,
and in March, June, September, and October in one. The
greatest precipitation recorded on one day is 5.47 in. on
October 14, 1895. The rain is of subtropical character-
frequent in the winter, rare in the summer, months. From
Table XIII it is clear that, on the average, every other day
in January or February is a rain day, while in August it rains
on the average once in five years. In the course of 25 years
observations, there were 81 periods of rain lasting for 6 or
more successive days, 15 periods of rain lasting for 10 or more
successive days, and from January 31 to February 18, 1877,
rain fell on 19 consecutive days with a total precipitation of
15.46 in. Rainless periods are, of course, more extensive :
during the 25 years there were 37 periods when no rain fell
on 30 or more consecutive days.
Snow, Hail, Dew, Thunder.-Snow has not been recorded
at Beirut. Diener says 'While great falls of snow have been
recorded at Jerusalem as late as Easter week and in the
East Jordan country caravans have been overwhelmed,
Beirut on account of its maritime position is free from snow
which does not come nearer to it than the heights of Bêt Meri.'
Hail, however, is not uncommon. During the years 1876–
1900 there were, on an average, 6.5 days on which hail fell,
a maximum of 12 occurring in 1878 and a minimum of 0 in
1884. Hail storns are most frequent in February and March.
Dew occurs on the average 95 days in the year. While in
England dew is heaviest in spring and autumn, the maximum
falls at Beirut in May, June, and July, and the minimum
occurs in January. Thunderstorms occur on an average 20.8
times a year, the maximum recorded being 33 in 1894, the
minimum 11 in 1891, they are most frequent in November
38
CLIMATE
and December. Sheet lightning is observed on the average
on 25 days in the year.
Fog is extremely rare at Beirut; in 25 years it was
registered on 19 days, mostly in spring.
Winds. From Table XXII it will be seen that south-west
winds are dominant at Beirut; east and north-east winds
prevail in October, with a goodly proportion of windless days,
averaging about 44, throughout the year, November being
the calmest month. Northerly winds are most frequent in
the middle of the day, while the south-west wind is most
frequent in the early morning from April to October.
The mean wind force for the year is 1.36, which is small
compared with 3-4 on the west coasts of Great Britain : the
means at 81 hr., 141 hr., 201 hr., are 1.28, 1.60, 1.20 respec-
tively, showing that the wind force rises with the rise of
temperature. Calms are much more frequent in the morning
and evening than at midday. The wind force is greatest in
spring and late autumn.
Storms.--The average number of stormy days is 6.7 and of
gales 3.1, during the year. The gales are not of exceptional
violence, the greatest wind velocities recorded in twenty-five
years being 37 miles per hour on December 11, 1900, 32 miles
per hour on December 10, 1888, and 31 miles per hour on
January 23, 1891, none of which reach Beaufort scale 8.
Most of the gales occur in January and March, the directions
being from south to west and from north to north-east.
El-Qareya
Lat. 33° 49' N., long. 35° 40' E., alt. 3,330 ft. Period of
observation 10 years.
This station lies on the railway that runs over Lebanon
from Beirut to Damascus and furnishes data by which the
climate of the northern highlands can be determined.
Temperature. The mean temperature, 72° F,. is highest in
August and is then 1-2 degrees below other high stations
farther south, such as Jerusalem and Hebron. The lowest
mean temperature occurs in January, and is about 4 degrees
CLIMATOLOGICAL DATA
* 39
below the temperature of Jerusalem and Hebron. The highest
mean monthly maximum and the absolute maximum recorded,
87.3° F. and 97° F. respectively, are considerably below the
average, as also are the lowest mean monthly and absolute
minima, 27.1° F. and 21.2° F. respectively. The climate is
therefore cooler than that of the southern highlands and
much cooler than on the coast and in the valley of Jordan.
Rainfall.--The mean annual rainfall is more than twice
the average of the country as a whole being equal to 59.7 in.,
with an average of 85 rain days, and over one-third of this
rain falls in the two months January and December. It
will be useful to reinember that the average rainfall of Syria
is about equal to that of London, but, being confined to half
the year is more intense. A maximum monthly rainfall of
19.75 in. has been recorded at El-Qareya both in February
and March and 18.6 in. in December. :
Cloud.—As regards cloud there is not much difference in
winter between the various high stations, but in summer
it is much cloudier at El-Qareya than at Jerusalem or Hebron.
Relative humidity does not differ from the average of the
highlands, the maximum 75 per cent. occurs, as elsewhere,
in January, the minimum 57 per cent. in May.
Winds. In the winter and spring, winds prevail from
east to south-east and from south-west to west. In the
summer the easterly factor disappears, and west and north-
west winds prevail (the former being predominant). The
north-west wind diminishes in the autumn and easterly
winds reappear, the west wind being still the most prevalent.
Calms are frequent; in the summer they average 48 per
cent. of the wind observations and, in the other seasons,
30 per cent.
Jerusalem
Lat. 31° 46' 40" N., long. 35° 13' 30" E., alt. 2,200 ft. above
sea-level.
The following facts, which are taken 'from the publications
of the Palestine Exploration Fund, cover a period of 20-41
years.
40
CLIMATE
Air Pressure (at 32° F.). The highest reading during
the period 1882–1901 (inclusive) was 27.795 in. in January
1898, the lowest reading was 26.860 in. in March 1898. The
mean of highest readings for the period was 27.525 in. and
the mean of lowest readings 27.208 in. The greatest number
of highest readings occurred in January, of lowest readings
in July. The greatest monthly range was 0.730 in. in January
1887, the least, in July 1900, 0.094 in. The greatest monthly
range was observed 7 times in January, the least, 8 times in
July. The highest monthly mean reading in the 20 years
was 27.558 in., in December 1891 ; the least monthly mean
reading 27.217 in. in July 1889.
Temperature. The highest temperature observed in each
year from 1882 to 1901 varied between 97° F. and 108° F.
(June 18, 1894). In the same period, the maximum tem-
perature for the year occurred eight times in August,
five times in June, four times in September, once in July,
once both in June and August, and once both in June and
September. The maximum temperature reached, or exceeded,
100° F. in 9 years out of the twenty, while the total number
of days recording this high temperature was 25, of which
7 occurred in 1888. The temperature reached, or exceeded,
90° F. on an aggregate of 676 days in the twenty years, 1887
having the maximum of 73 days, and 1898 the minimum of
12 days ; the average per year was 33.8 days. The earliest
and latest days in the year on which the temperature was
as high as 90° were March 25, 1888, and October 23, in both
1887 and 1898. The lowest temperatures observed annually
varied between 25° F. (observed on January 31, 1897 and
January 1, 1898) and 36° F.
The minimum temperature of the year has occurred
10 times in January, 4 times in December, twice in March,
one year it occurred in each of the months January, February,
March, and December, one year in both January and De-
cember, and one year in both February and December. The
minimum temperature fell as low as or below 30° F. in 14
out of the 20 years, the total number of days of this low
CLIMATOLOGICAL DATA
41
temperature being 62. In 1894 (an especially cold winter all
over Europe) it fell as low as, or below, 30° F. on 14 nights.
The temperature was equal to, or below, 40° F. on a total of
1,019 nights in the twenty years, giving an average of rather
over 50 nights per annum. The earliest and latest nights in
the year on which the temperature was equal to, or less
than, 40° F. were May 25, 1882, and November 3, 1886.
The extreme range of minimum temperatures varied between
23° F. (February 1883) and 60.2 F. (April 1886). The smallest
mean range, 28.5° F., occurs in January, the greatest, 46.1°F.,
in May. The mean range for the 20 years was 39° F.
The monthly mean of the high day-temperatures varied as
follows during the 20 years 1882–1901: January, from
46.6–53.9° F.; February, 49–65.1° F.; March, 58–68.7° F. ;
April, 64.9–75.2° F.; May, 74.2-84.2° F.; June, 81:7–88.6° F. ;
July, 84.1–93.2° F. ; August, 82.8-93.8° F. ; September, 80.9–
88.6° F. ; October, 75.9–89° F. ; November, 56.9-71.2° F.;
December, 51-61•3° F. It is noteworthy that the temperature
decreases very slowly in autumn till the great drop from
October to November is reached, also that the mean
temperature varies most in February and least in June.
The highest monthly mean high day temperature in each
year has varied from 84.7° to 93.8°. This maximum
occurred once in June, three times in July, twelve times in
August, twice in September, and twice both in July and
August in the course of twenty years. The yearly mean
high day temperature has varied between 69.4° and 74.3º.
The mean high day temperature of the 20 years was 72º.
The monthly mean of the lowest night temperatures varied
in January from 32.3–43° F.; February, 35.7–49.3° F.; March,
39.4–51.3° F. ; April, 44–54.3° F. ; May, 50-8–59.9° F. ; June,
58.5–67° F.; July, 58.2-69° F.; August, 58.4-69.5° F. ;
September, 56.8–67-3° F.; October, 51.9–64.3° F.; November,
42.8–54.1° F.; December, 36.7-49.7° F. The drop from
October to November is again noticeable. The lowest:
monthly mean low night temperature in each year has
varied between 32-3° F. and 43° F. This minimum occurred
42
CLIMATE
13 times in January, 4 times in February, 3 times in December.
The lowest yearly mean low night temperature varied between
48.2° F. and 55.7° F. The mean low night temperature of
the 20 years was 52.9° F.
The three coldest months of the year are January, February,
and December; their mean value for 20 years was 47.4° F.,
being 15° F. below the mean temperature (62-4° F.) of this
period. The three hottest months are July, August, and
September, their mean value for 20 years was 75.1° F. being
12.7° F. above the mean temperature of the same period.
The mean annual temperature was lowest in 1894 with
60° F. and highest in 1901 with 64.4° F., the mean annual
value for the 20 years being 62.4° F.
The coldest month for the period 1882–1901 was January
with a mean of 44.7° F. The mean temperature increases
monthly from January until August, which with a mean
temperature of 76-2° F. is the hottest month of the year.
From August onward the mean temperature decreases, the
greatest change from month to month being from October to
November (12° F.) and the next greatest 7.7° F. from
November to December.
Precipitation. During 41 years (1861–1901) the heaviest
monthly rainfall in the year has varied between 16.5 in. in
December 1888 and 3.99 in. in March 1870. The heaviest
monthly fall of rain has occurred 18 times in January, 8 times
in February and December, and 7 times in March. The range
in the amount of rainfall for the same month in different
years is extraordinary :
w0
12:35
May
In January it has varied from 14:46 in. in 1897 to 0.13 in. in 1873
„ February
12-59 , 1882
, 1901
» March
» »
1893
0.42 ,
1865
,, April
6.54 ,
?
65 0.00
1889
1897
"
»
1.26 · 1887 , 0.00 » 13 years
» June
0.20 , 1885 , 0.00 39
,, July no rainfall in 41 years
„ August 0.08 in. in 1890, no rain in the other 40 years
,, September it has varied from 0·79 in. in 1878 to 0.00 in. in 36 years
, October
2.28 „ 1878 , 0.00 , 15 ,,
„ November > >
7.99 , 1888 , 0.01 „ 1870
„December „ „ 16.50 » 1888 , 0:49 „ 1876
»
CLIMATOLOGICAL DATA
43
It will be noticed that an aggregate fall of less than one inch
of rain has been recorded at some time for every month in
the year.
On 16 occasions in the period of 41 years the monthly rain-
fall exceeded 10 in. ; of these 6 were in January, 4 in February,
3 each in March and December. The heaviest fall registered
in three consecutive months was 32.23 in. in the 3 months
ending February 1878.
January has the largest average, 6.496 in., followed by
December with 5.87 in. and February with 5 in. The
average annual fall is 26.04 in., nearly the same as London,
but it is concentrated in half the year and is subject to greater
yearly fluctuations which have ranged between 41.62 in. in
1897 and 13.39 in. in 1870.
The mean average yearly fall, which shows a steady increase
throughout the period, is as follows : 1861-70, 21:84 in ;
1871–80, 24:61 in; 1881-90, 27.69 in.; 1891–1901, 29.03 in.
In reference to the foregoing a long succession of years of
deficient rainfall ended in 1873. It will be interesting, as time ..
goes on, to note whether these years were the lowest in a
cycle or whether the climate is undergoing a great secular
change.
The mean number of raindays in the year is 56 ; of these
January has 12, February and December have each 10,
March 9, November 6, April 5, and May and October 2 each.
These numbers, as the following table indicates, fluctuate
considerably from year to year :
Minimum
Maximum
.
.
Jan. Feb. Mar. April. May.—Oct. Nov. Dec. Year.
3 1 2 0 0 0 1 2 36
19 18 20 13 5 7 13 17 72
By taking the mean of the first half of the period (1861–81) we
get an average of 52 rain days for the year; for the second half
(1882–1901) an average of 59, showing an increase of rain days
in the latter as well as of rainfall.
Thunderstorms are infrequent: on the average there are
7.4 days, occurring mostly in the late autumn and spring.
44
CLIMATE
59
33
45
Snow.–Jerusalem has an average of 2.9 days of snow, of
which January averages 1.4 and December 0.70.
Relative Humidity.--The following means of relative humi-
dity, showing the small percentage at 2 p.m., especially in
summer, are interesting :
7 hr. 14 hr. 21 hr.
%
%
Winter . ·
79
51
77
·
May-July.
65
Year. .
71
Cloud.-Cloud, measured from 0–10, is five times greater in
intensity in winter than in summer : thus in winter the mean
cloud is 5.0; spring, 4.0; summer, 1.0; autumn, 2.5; and
the yearly mean, 3.1. The cloudiness in summer is less at
Jerusalem than on the coast and greater than in the Jordan
valley.
Wind.—There are few reliable observations of the strength
of winds owing to want of proper instruments. In the winter
easterly and westerly winds predominate, with about 25 per
cent. of calm days. In May the easterly wind begins to die
down and the north-west wind increases in intensity, with the
result that, until the end of September, the winds are practi-
cally west and north-west with about 20 per cent. of calm days.
In October the north-west winds begin to die down, the east
wind gains strength, and winter conditions set in with the
start of the rainy season.
Southern Coastal Stations (Haifa, Jaffa, Sarona,
and Gaza):
· Temperature. --Temperature on this portion of the coast is
rather lower than at Beirut and higher than at Jerusalem, but
notwithstanding this fact the heat is more bearable in summer
owing to the westerly sea-breezes which start between 9 hr.
and 10 hr., but do not reach Jerusalem till the afternoon and
frequently not at all. These breezes diminish at sunset, but
soon start again and blow through most of the night deposit-
ing copious dew in summer. It may thus happen that it is
comparatively cool at Jaffa while the heat on the inland
CLIMATOLOGICAL DATA
45
plateau is extreme. The temperature on the coast hardly
ever falls below freezing-point; only isolated cases of frost
have been observed during a series of many years.
Precipitation. Proceeding southward along the coast both
the amount of rainfall and rain days steadily diminish as the
following table shows :
Station . . . Beirut. Haifa. Jaffa and Gaza. El-'Arīsh.
Sarona.
Latitude . . .
..
33°54' 32°48' 32°3 3 1°30' 3107
Mean annual rainfall. 35.7 in. 27 in. 23 in. 16.5 in. 4.2 in.
No. of rain days . . 82 61.
6 5 9.0 40.6 20.9
Thunderstorms, varying in number from 7 to 10 per annum,
occur during the late autumn and early spring rains.
Cloud. - The cloudiness in winter and autumn is about the
same on the coast as at Jerusalem, but the summer months
are cloudier on the coast than inland. Relative humidity follows
more or less the same variation ; it is notably greater on the
coast during mid-day.
Winds.- In spring, summer, and autumn westerly winds are
most, prevalent. In winter the more northerly parvif the
coast has easterly, and the southern, westerly winds : thus,
at Haifa, the mean number of easterly winds is nearly four
times as great as at Gaza. This is due to the winter distribu-
tion of pressure which has already been explained. Southerly
and south-east winds are rare at Haifa, but at Gaza south-west
winds are exceptionally frequent in winter, and at El-Arīsh
throughout the year. Wind force is less than in other parts of
Syria ; on an average it reaches gale strength at Gaza on about
8 days in the year.
Jordan Valley
The stations which supply data in this region are :
Height
below
Latitude. Longitude. sea level.
'Ain et-Tābghah
. 32°52' N. 35°32' E. -- 682 ft.
Tiberias
. .. 32°48' N. 35°34' E. -653 ft.
Melhamīyeh
32°39' N. 35°33' E. - 770 ft.
Jericho
. 31°52' N. 35°27' E. --879 ft.
Qasr Hajleh
. 31°50' N. 35°30' E. -984 ft.
46
CLIMATE
IT
Apart, perhaps, from Tiberias and Melhamīyeh the data
available are somewhat intermittent, and too much reliance
cannot be placed on the records furnished by 'Ain et-Tābghah,
Jericho, and Qasr Hajleh. It would, indeed, be as well to
consult the ' Key to References and Periods 'when regarding
the climatological information of the Jordan Valley, as the
periods available are, in some instances, too short to give
satisfactory normals.
Air Pressure.—The air pressure, owing to the depression of
the country below sea-level, is abnormally. high, the mean for
Tiberias being 30.6 in. (Greenwich, M.S.L., 29.96 in.). Only
isolated observations at Jericho are available, and these
show that the air pressure there lies between 30.32 in. and
31.49 in. The pressure is higher in the morning than in the
afternoon and highest in winter, especially in January.
On the shores of the Dead Sea, the mercury barometer is
useless, the mercury being inoperative (except on rare occa-
sions). At a depression of 1,284 ft., aneroid observations gave
a means of 31.47 in.
Temperature.—To understand the difference of temperature
between the highland plateau and the Jordan valley the
following table compares the mean temperatures in degrees
F. at Tiberias and Jerusalem :
Jan. Feb. Mar. April. May. June.
Tiberias .
55.8 58.4 62.5 69.2 77.3 83.5
Jerusalem
. 45.5 47.8 52.6 59.0 67.1 70.9
July. Aug. Sept. Oct. Nov. Dec. Year.
Tiberias. . . . 87.3 87.8 84.1 79.6 69.5 60.9 73.3
Jerusalem . . . 73.2 73.9 70.9 67.5 58.7 49.6 61.2
It will be noted that all through the year the temperature in
the Jordan valley is from 10–14 degrees higher than on the
plateau, the difference in the yearly mean being 12.1°F.
The maximum temperatures recorded are very high 'at
Tiberias and Jericho, viz. 114° F. and 110-3° F. respectively in
June; at Melhamīyeh 107.6°F. in May. The minimum tempera-
tures, all recorded in January, at Tiberias, Jericho, and
Melhamīyeh are 34° F., 46.4° F., and 33.4° F. respectively.
CLIMATOLOGICAL DATA
47
.
Variations in temperature are greatest in April and May, the
extremes amounting to as much as 45° F. to 59° F.
Three daily observations are available for a short period at
Jericho from which approximate daily variations can be esti-
mated. From these it is found that the evening temperatures
are lower than the morning in summer, while in the other
seasons the mornings are cooler. At noon there is an average
increase of about 15° F. above the morning; this varies
slightly from month to month, but is about the same both in
winter and in summer.
It is difficult to obtain reliable shade temperatures on the
shores of the Dead Sea, owing to the absence of shelter ; the
high temperatures registered must therefore be accepted with
réserve. Lynch records an April temperature of 106º and
compares the air to that of an oven.
Records of the temperature of the water in the Dead Sea are
only available for the period from November to May, and they
vary from 61° to 91.4° F.
Precipitation.--The yearly precipitation in the Jordan valley
is considerably below the mean of Syria. The total fall averages
20-2 in. and 17.3 in.at Tiberias and Melhamīyeh respectively, as
compared with 26 in. at Jerusalem. The number of rain days is
from two to three less at Tiberias than at Jerusalem. December
and January, here as elsewhere, have the heaviest rainfall.
Evaporation is intense in the lower Jordan valley ; observa-
tions at Jericho are said to show that it is ten to thirteen times
as great as on the coast and about four times as great as at
Jerusalem. In specially dry weather it is said to amount to
0.79–0.98 in. per day.
Cloud.-Cloud is less prevalent at Melhamīyeh and much
less at Jericho than on the coast, the mean for January being
3.7 and 2-4 respectively as compared with 4.6 on the coast as
a whole and 5.6 at Beirut. Similar conditions obtain through-
out the year, the figures for July being Melhamīyeh 0.4,
Jericho 0.01, coast 1.1, and Beirut 1:5; this shows that the
lower Jordan Valley, due to the small rainfall and intense
evaporation, is practically cloudless in midsummer.
48
CLIMATE
During south winds and calms, mists frequently roll up the
valley from the Dead Sea which the sun disperses in the after-
noon.
Wind:-The wind observations in the Jordan valley are very
scanty. As far as may be judged at Melhamīyeh west winds
predominate throughout the spring and summer, attaining a
maximum of frequency in July and changing to north-west in
August. In winter and spring north winds are fairly common,
and windless days, especially in winter, are frequent all through
the year. The average wind force at noon is much greater
than during the morning and evening. The morning and
evening forces are about equal. In summer the noon wind
force is on the average three to four times greater than in the
morning and evening. As in other parts of the country, the
maximum wind force observed is from 5–7 (Beaufort scale).
At Jericho conditions are somewhat different. While the
average noon wind force is much greater than the morning,
the evening wind is on the average 50 per cent. greater, thus
increasing the means of the three observations and making
the average wind force at Jericho greater than at Melhamīyeh.
Calms are also fewer, north and south winds more prevalent,
south-west rare, and the west winds change to north-west in
the spring instead of in autumn as at Melhamīyeh. On the
Dead Sea in the winter months, as already noted, sudden and
violent gusts and storms prevail till the end of April when
calmer weather accompanied by intense heat sets in. In the
calmer weather, from 9 hr. to 15 hr., it is generally windless or
a slight south wind may blow which after that time to sunset
changes to a north wind. Easterly and westerly winds are
rare.
Nekhi
Lat. 29° 54' N., long. 33° 45' E., alt. 1,300 ft.
This station is not in Syria but on the plateau of North Sinai
sufficiently near the frontier to give an idea of the climate of
the southern region in the absence of a station in Syria proper.
Temperature. The main characteristic of this region is the
CLIMATOLOGICAL DATA
mild winter and the hot summer, the latter lasting from May
to September. At Nekhl, owing to its high situation, the
range of temperature is very great, varying between a recorded
absolute maximum of 108° F. to an absolute minimum of 18° F.
The range of temperature is accentuated by the high nocturnal
radiation which not infrequently causes sharp frosts to occur
here. The mean summer temperature is about the same as that
of Alexandria, the mean winter temperature about 10° F. below
it; the mean maximum temperatures, both daily and monthly,
are greater by 4-6° F. in spring, summer, and autumn than at
Alexandria. The mean daily minimum temperature in January
is only just above freezing-point (32.7° F.) compared with
50:4° F. at Alexandria, and 59.9° F. in July compared with
72.9° F. at Alexandria, showing, as might have been expected,
that the nights are much colder. The mean monthly range
of temperature is greatest in April (59° F.) and least in August
(46° F.), while the corresponding ranges at Alexandria are
42.5° F. and 18.7° F. respectively. This likewise shows that on
the whole it is hotter by day and colder at night at this station
than in the lower-lying parts:
Precipitation. The rainfall at Nekhl is extremely small, the
mean precipitation of the wettest month (January) being only
0.3 in., and the average annual rainfall only 1.2 in., the months
from June to November being practically rainless. The mean
number of rain days recorded is 7.6, which shows a small
density of precipitation of about one-third to one-quarter of
the density at Jerusalem.
No data as regards Relative Humidity or Evaporation are
available ; this is unfortunate as the comparisons which would
have been possible between the climatic conditions of the hot
high tableland of Sinai and those of the torrid depression of the
Ghör, the latter locality being as much below the sea-level as
the first is above, would have proved interesting.
Winds.-As regards winds only one observation per diem has
been made for the 5 years available, so that the results given
in the table can be accepted merely as generalizations. It
appears, however, that right through the year west winds
SYRIA
50
CLIMATE
prevail--in the winter, on two days out of three, while in the
other seasons on every other day the wind is westerly. The
next most prevalent wind is south-west and between them
they cover about 90 per cent. of the days in winter and
70 per cent. in the summer : north, north-east, and north-west
winds make up the remainder. Southerly winds are almost
unknown, and calm days extremely rare.
TABLES
TABLE
52
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
56
.
.
.
56
.
.
58
.
.
.
58
.
.
.
60
.
.
.
60
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
64
.
.
SUMMARY
PAGE
I. Mean Temperature
II. Mean Daily Minimum Temperature :
III. Mean Daily Maximum Temperature ..
IV. Mean Monthly Minimum Temperature.
V. Mean Monthly Maximum Temperature .
VI. Monthly Range of Temperature . .
VII. Absolute Minimum Temperature . .
VIII. Absolute Maximum Temperature . .
IX. Mean Monthly Rainfall
X. Maximum Rainfall in Month and Year .
XI. Minimum Rainfall in Month and Year.
XII. Maximum Rainfall in 24 hours . .
XIII. Mean Number of Raindays . . . .
XIV. Relative Humidity (Mean of the Day).
XV. Relative Humidity (Morning, Afternoon and Evening) 66
XVI. Cloud. Mean of Day . . .
XVII. Mean Number of Days with Hail . . . .
XVIII. Mean Number of Days with Thunderstorms.
XIX. Mean Number of Days with Fog . . . .
XX. Mean Number of Days with 'Storm' . . .
XXI. Mean Number of Days with Snow
XXII. Wind Direction. Percentage of Observations. .
XXIII. Wind Directions per 1,000 Observations per Annum
XXIV. Strength of Wind at (a) El-Qareya
(6) El-Lātrūn
(c) Sarona . .
(d) Tiberias .
(e) Melhamīyeh ..
(f) Jericho .
(g) 'Ain et-Tābghah
XXV. Latitude, Longitude, and Altitude of Meteorological Stations
Key to References and Periods . . . . . Sacing page 92
. .
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
. . . . .
91
97
91
D 2
CLIMATE
· ·
• 46.3
. 55.6
·
·
.. ·
TABLE I. MĐAN TEMPERATURE
Jan. Feb. Mar. April. May. June
°F. °F. °F. F. °F. °F
Coast :
adana
49.0 55.8 64.1 71.2 79.0
Beirut
56.5 59.9 64.8 70.3 76.1
Haifa
. 54.0 576 60.4 65.8 70.5 75.9
Sarona
. 52.9 54.7 58.1 63.1 69-6 72.9
Jaffa
55.3 56.9 59.8 64.6 70.2 74:0
Gaza
. 53.1 55.9 59.7 64.9 70.7
El-'Arish.
. 52.3 54.5 58.1 63.5 69.6 73.8
Inland :
El-Qareya
• 41.2 45.5 47.7 56.0 64.5 68.2
Qsāra
. 39.6 42.5 48.2 57.8 62.8 70-3
Damascus
. 43.5 46.2 53.8 56.8 68.5 78.8
Nazareth,
· 49.3
53.5 55.7 62.8 68.1 73.8
El-Lātrūn
54.4 57.2 59.6 67.1 73.5 77.2
Jerusalem
• 45.5 47.8 52.6 59.0 67.1 70.9
Hebron .
44.7 47.6 51.1 58.4 65.6 69.1
Nekhl
· 47.3 50.9 55.9 63.9 72.0 74.7
Jordan Valley :
'Ain et-Tābghah
. 56.3 59.0 62.4 71.6 78.8 85.3
Tiberias
. 55.8 58.4 62.5 69.2 77.3 83.5
Melhamīyeh .
. 54.9 58.3 61.9 68.7 77.9 83.1
Jericho
60.3 64.9 748 82.0
Qasr Hajleh . . . 67.3 68.5 71.8 77.4 87.0 92.5
•
• 54:1
TABLE II. MEAN DAILY MINIMUM TEMPERATURE
Jan Feb. Mar. April May June.
°F. °F. °F. F. F. °F.
Coast :
Adana
. 38.9 41.7 46.8 54.1 60.4 67.8
Beirut .
. 490 50.0 53.0 58.0 63.0 69.0
Sarona .
. 45.9 46.4 49.0 52.8 57.3 62.7
Jaffa
· 46.8 47.8 50.1 54.3 59.9 64.1
El--Arīsh.
. 43.9 45.3 48.7 53.2 57.4 61.9
Inland :
El-Qareya
37.4 40.6 42.3 48.9 56.8 59.9
Qsā : ; .
30.9 34.0 38.8 46.3 50.5 56.]
Damascus
36.5 36.3 41.5 45.5 55.0
Nazareth.
41.4 43.3 46.2 51.6 57.0 61.7
El-Lātrūn
46.4 47.8 49.3 54.7 59.4 63.0
Jerusalem
38.9 41.2 44.6 51.1 56.8 61.3
Hebron .
36.6 38.5 40.8 45.9 51.2 54.7
Nekhl
• 32.4 35.8 40.1 46.9 53.6 56.5
Jordan Valley:
Tiberias
. 47.2 49.3 524 57.8 64.6 70.0
Qasr Hajleh . . .48.4 49.1 54.9 60.1 66.7 74.3
TABLES I, II
July.
..
Aug.
F.
Sept.
F.
Dec.
F.
Year.
F.
62.3
68.8
68.5
66.4
67.5
66.6
58.0
58.8
61.6
65.8
69.3
612
60.4
64.2
Coast :
Adana.
Beirut.
Haifa.
Sarona.
Jaffa,
Gaza.
El-'Arīsh.
Inland:
El-Qareya.
Qsāra.
Damascus.
Nazareth.
El-Lātrūn.
Jerusalem.
Hebron.
Nekhl.
Jordan Valley:
'Ain et-Tābghah.
Tiberias.
Melhamīyeh.
Jericho.
Qasr Hajleh.
62.6
60.9
59.2
74.2
73.3
(72-3)
72.8
82.4
Dec. Year.
°F. ·°F.
Coast :
Adana.
Beirut.
Sarona.
Jaffa.
El-'Arīsh.
Inland :
El-Qareya.
Qsāra.
Damascus.
Nazareth.
El-Lātrūn.
Jerusalem.
Hebron.
Nekhl.
Jordan Valley:
Tiberias.
Qasr Hajleb.
Oct.
°F.
Nov.
°F.
81.
9
80.4
79.9
774
77.6
79.0
76.9
7704
81.5
81.5
78.6
79.2
79.7
78.4
73.6
79.3
79.9
76.5
77.2
77.0
75.8
71.0
75.0
75.0
71.8
72.0
73.4.
71.8
59.0
66.6
64.6
63.7
64.6
64.8
63.0
51.0
60.1
58.3
57.0
58.6
57.4
55.8
71.4
73.0
83.3
77.9
80.4
73.2
71.6
76.8
72.0
75.4
77.2
78.6
81.7
73.
9
73.0
77.5
67.5
70.9
71.1
77.1
79.1
70.9
70.9
741
62.8
64.1
66.2
75.0
75.4
67.5
66.9
69.1
53.5
55.4
55.8
64.7
67.2
58.7
58.7
56.8
58.8
46.1
45.7
46.4
53.8
59.
2
49.6
49.3
49.5
89.1
87.3
86.7
85.1
94.5
88.5 86.2
878 84.1
(88.5) (84.4)
88.9 86.9
92.8 90.8
79.9
79.6
78.3
71.5
69.5
66.6
88.7
84.2
July.
Aug.
Sept.
°F.
Oct. Nov.
°F. °F.
72.3
72.0
67.2
68.1
66.9
63.1
74.0
69.4
69.3
68.2
59.5
72.0
66.3
67.3
66.0
60.6 50.4
68.0 60.0
62-5. 54.4
61.5 55.0
61.9 53.4
43.3
54.0
49.0
49.5
46.9
50.5
62.0
56.9
57.8
56.7
51.8
46.9
63.5
58.6
64.7
66.6
66.4
64.6
57.1
59.9
64.4
60.6
59.8
67.5
67.9
64:6
58.7
60.6
61.0
55.6
56.1
65.1
66.0
61.9
56.5
58.3
56.3
51.1
50.8
62.2
63.0
59.5
53.6
54.0
48.9
43.3
44.4
53.1
57.0
50.2
46.2
42.6
42.3
36.7
40.6
45.7
51.0
43.3
40•4
33.4
55.0
57.6
53.1
48.2
47.9
74.4
77.0
75.5
77.0
72.2
74.3
68.6
70.9
60.2
65.5
52.7
53.1
62.7
64.3
54
CLIMATE
TABLE III. MEAN DAILY MAXIMUM TEMPERATURE
Jan
OF.
Feb. Mar. April May
F. F. F. °F.
June.
F.
. 54.0
. 62.0
. 63.2
. 63.9
. 63.7
56.3
64.0
63.
9
66.0
66.
9
64.9
67.0
69.8
69.6
70.0
74.1
72.0
74.9
74.8
75.6
82.0
78.0
79.1
80.4
80.2
90.1
83.0
83.3
83:8
83.5
76.6
84.6
Coast :
Adana
Beirut
Sarona ,
Jaffa
El-Arīsh.
Inland :
El-Qareya
Qsāra :
Damascus
Nazareth.
El-Lātrūn
Jerusalem
Hebron .
Nekhl
Jordan Valley:
Tiberias.
Qasr Hajleh
85.8
91.3
83.8
83
92.8
9700
110.7
TABLE IV. MEAN MONTHLY MINIMUM TEMPERATURE
June.
°F.
60.4
63.0
64.9
58.3
58.3
66.7
55.2
Coast :
Adana
Beirut
Haifa
Sarona
Jaffa
Gaza
El-Arīsh .
Inland :
El-Qareya
Qsāra
Nazareth.
El-Lātrūn
Jerusalem
Hebron .
Nekhl .
Jordan Valley:
'Ain et-Tābghah
Tiberias .
Melhamīyeh .
52.0
48.0
55.2
58.5
52.7
46.0
50.4
. 450 50.3
. 48.6' 51.1
. 50.2 54.5
. 57.2 61.7
. 62.4
66.6
. 50.7 54.9
• 51.
9 56.4
. 60.1 65.8
53.1
57.7
63.1
65.3
70.0
61.9
60.7
71.8
63.1
69.3
70.5
71.1
79.5
70.5
10.6
80.8
72.1
75.2
80.8
79.2
87.6
78.4
79.6
90.1
. 64.5
. 86.2
67.5
88.0
72.6
88.7
80.7
94.8
901
107.4
Jan
OF.
Feb.
°F.
Mar. April May
°F. F. F.
. 27.0
. 41.0
. 39.9
. 39.2
37.1
. 42-6
. 35.2
32.4
42.6
42.4
41.8
411
45.7
39.2
38.1
43.9
45.5
41.4
43.0
48.2
42.1
46.4
49.8
50.9
46.0
45.3
54.3
45.5
534
55.6
55.9
51.1
51.6
61.0
51.3
· 27.1
. (13.8)
. 333
. 35.6
. 31.5
. 284
. 23.2
33.6
26.2
36.1
41.8
33.4
31.4
27.9
33.8
30.7
38.3
43.0
34.3
31.4
28.2
38.5
35.3
43.2
45.9
40.5
34.2
36.9
46.2
40.8
49.1
52.3
46.0
39.6
45.1
. 44.8
. 38.9
. 39.2
48.9
43.0
46.0
51.1
43.0
49.3
59.0
50.1
52.5
65.5
56.2
62:8
74.7
64.1
70.2
.
TABLES III, IV
Year.
°F.
74.1
76.0
76.9
772
77.0
64.2
70.8
Coast :
Adana.
Beirut.
Sarona.
Jaffa.
El-'Arish.
Inland :
El-Qareya.
Qsāra.
Damascus.
Nazareth.
El-Lātrūn.
Jerusalem.
Hebron
Nekhl.
Jordan Valley:
Tiberias.
Qasr Hajleh.
76.6
81.0
71.8
72.0
80.4
84.0
100.5
Coast:
Adana.
Beirut.
Haifa.
Sarona.
Jaffa.
Gaza.
El-'Arish.
Inland :
El-Qareya.
Qsāra.
Nazareth.
El-Lātrūn.
Jerusalem,
Hebron.
Nekhl.
Jordan Valley:
'Ain et-Tābghah.
Tiberi
Melhamīyeh.
July. Aug.
°F F.
Sept. Oct.
°F. °F.
Nov. Dec.
°F. °F.
91.4
88.0
86.1
87.1
85.8
91.8
89.0
88.0
89.1
86.5
876
86.0
87.1
87.1
84.0
81.3
820
85.0
82.6
80.8
67.3
73.0
74:6
74.3
75.4
58.6
66.0
67.5
67.8
67.6
58.1
67.6
50.0
54.7
79.3
87.4
95.0
89.2
94.5
86.5
85.9
93.9
79.5
90.3
84.1
89.8
95.4
87.6
87.4
94.5
74.7
86.2
77.4
89.1
92.2
84.9
84:8
90.0
69.3
77.0
71.1
87.8
87.8
79.9
79.8
84.2
76.3
77.4
65.5
66.6
75.2
61.9
67.5
56.3
57.2
66.2
100.3
112.1
100.2
108.7
96.)
107.4
90.6
106.5
78.8
102.9
69.2
92.5
July.
Aug.
Sept.
Oct.
Nov.
Dec.
67.5
68.5
70.7
63.8
62-4
72.0
60.4
68.5
70.0
71.7
66.5
65.3
73.2
63.7
63.0
67.1
67.2
61.5
61.7
67.1
60.1
53.6
60.6
58.8
56.4
55.0
61.0
56.1
39.9
52.2
50.9
49.7
45.9
51.6
44.1
35.4
43.3
43.5
42.5
41.9
45.7
38.7
57.9
52.2
62.2
62.8
58.3
49.8
54.9
59.4
53.1
63.9
64.9
59.2
50.6
54.9
54.9
48.4
57.4
62.2
55.9
47.7
49.3
48.9
42.4
54.5
57.2
50.9
44.
5
44.1
39.9
36.0
45.3
49.3
41.5
37.3
33.1
33.1
25.3
36.0
42.3
33.6
31.8
24.8
81.9
70.1
78.1
83.3
71.7
78.6
65.8
68.9
62.3
65.3
58.1
52.8
54.3
53.4
44.1
44.1
CLIMATE
TABLE V. MEAN MONTHLY MAXIMUM TEMPERATURE
Jan
°F.
Feb. Mar. April May
°F. °F. F. .
June.
°F.
.
.
.
. 642
. 700
. 67.8
. 71.0
• 76.3
. 66.9
. 76.5
65.3
72.5
76.1
75.7
80.1
73.0
84.4
74.1
81.7
85.
2
88.3
86.9
85.8
88.7
85.5
86.4
95.1
94.2
94.5
92.1
100.8
94.3
89.8
96.0
93.6
94.3
93.0
99.3
101-1
90.9
94:2
91.9
88.4
86.7
94:1
.
.
.
:
Coast:
Adana
Beirut .
Haifa
Sarona
Jaffa
Gaza
El-'Arish.
Inland :
El-Qareya
Qsāra
Nazareth.
El-Lātrūn
Jerusalem
Hebron .
Nekhl .
Jordan Valley:
'Ain et-Tābghah
Tiberias.
Melhamiyeh .
. 57.0
• 64.4
. 68.4
• 77.9
. 59.9
. 68.0
. 76.5
62.8
66.9
73.0
81.5
673
69.5
80.2
66.9
69.3
82.4
85.7
79.5
75.8
84.6
83.3
82.0
91.9
99.9
85.3
88.8
95.9
86.2
91.9
97.7
105.8
92.1
95.0
102.9
86.2
94.6
99.1
103.5
97.5
96.7
103.8
.
. 67.8
73.1
. 72.3
72.9
77.2
71.1
77.9
88.4
81.3
89.4
95.8
94:1
98.6
103.4
103.5
99.0
108.0
104.0
.
TABLE V1. MONTHLY RANGE OF TEMPERATURE (MEAN
Jan Feb. Mar. April. May. June.
°F. °F. °F. OF. F. °F.
.
.
37.2
. 29.0
· 27.9
· 31.8
· 39.2
· 24.3
• 41.3
.
32.9
29.9
33.7
33.9
39.0
27.3
45.2
360
37.8
39.7
46.9
43.9
376
46.6
39.1
36.6
44.2
48.2
49.2
37.8
55.3
40.9
34.2
40:1
42-5
42.7
32.0
48.0
40.7
27.9
29.3
33.6
30:1
.
.
20.0
.
38.9
.
.
Coast:
Adana
Beirut
Haifa
Sarona
Jaffa
Gaza
El-'Arīsh.
Inland :
El-Qareya
Qsāra
Nazareth.
El-Lātrūn
Jerusalem
Hebron . .
Nekhl
Jordan Valley:
‘Ain et-Tābghah
Tiberias . .
Melhamīyeh .
.
.
. 29.9
• 50.6
. 35.1
. 42.3
. 284
39.6
. 53.3
29.2
40.7
36.
9
36.9
39.7
33.9
38.1
56.3
33.1
38.6
44.1
42.7
45.2
44.4
56.4
44.8
46.7
48.7
54.0
45.0
54.6
59.0
40.2
51.1
48.6
53.5
46.1
55.4
57.8
34.2
46.6
43.9
45.0
44.8
50.7
53.4
.
.
.
.
.
.
, 23.0
. 34.2
. 33.1
24.0
34.2
25.1
26.
8
44.8
32.0
30.4
45.7
41.6
33.1
47.2
40.7
24.3
43.9
33.8
TABLES V. VI
July.
OF
Aug.
F
Sept.
F.
Oct.
"F.
Nov.
F.
Dec.
°F.
97.0
91.4
92.4
88.4
91.4
87.6
94.8
99.3 95.
9
92.3 90.9
93.3 92.8
90.3 90.3
91.
2 90.0
88.0 85.5
92.1' 89.6
90.
1
90.3
96.8
94.4
91.8
88.0
89.
2
78.1
82.2
85.8
87.7
83.3
84.6
87.1
67-3
74.8
72.6
77.6
77.2
74.1
76:3
86.0
97.7
97.3
102.0
96.3
94.4
102.2
87.3
101.1
94.8
101.6
970
95.8
100.9
83.8
96.6
100.0
99.7
96.3
94.2
98.8
80.
1
90.7
99.1
98.4
89.8
90.8
91.9
70.5
79.9
88.2
92.5
77.7.
80.1
85.1
59.5
65.3
77.0
79.7
67.5
70.6
75.6
Coast :
Adana.
Bcirut.
Haifa.
Sarona.
Jaffa.
Gaza.
El-Arish.
Inland :
El-Qareya.
Qsāra.
Nazareth.
El-Lātrūn.
Jerusalem.
Hebron.
Nekhl.
Jordan Valley:
'Ain et-Tābghah.
Tiberias.
Melhamīyeh,
100.9
107.5
104.7
101.3
106.5
-
97.5
105.9
-
93.0
101.0
99.5
87.6
92.4
84.2
74.3
81.5
77.5
MONTHLY MAXIMUM LESS MEAN MONTHLY MINIMUM)
Coast :
Adana.
Beirut.
Haifa.
Sarona.
Jaffa.
Gaza.
El-Arīsh.
Inland :
El-Qareya.
Qsāra.
Nazareth.
El-Lātrūn.
Jerusalem.
Hebron.
Nekhl.
Jordan Valley:
'Ain et-Tābghah
Tiberias.
Melhamīyeh.
July.
Aug. Sept. Oct. Nov. Dec.
OF OT OF OFF. °F.
29.5
22.9
21.7
24.6
29.0
15.6
34:4
30.8
22.3
21.6
23.8
25.9
14.8
284
32.9
23.8
25.6
28.8
28.3
18.4
29.5
36.5
29.7
37.8
38.0
36.8
27.0
33.1
38.2
30.0
34.9
38.0
39.2
33.0
43.0
31.9
31.5
29.1
35.1
35.3
28.4
37.6
28.1
45.5
35.1
39.2
38.0
44.6
47.3
27.9
480
30.9
36.7
37.8
45.2
46.0
28.9
48.2
42.6
37.5
40.4
46.5
49.5
31.
2
483
44.6
41.2
38.9
30.6
43.9
42.9
43.2
36.2
42.8
52.0
26.4
40.0
41.0
37.4
33.9
38.8
50.8
46.3
19.0
37.4
26-6
18.0
34.8
18.9
40.1
47.8
24.1
38.7
34.2
29.5
39.6
29.9
20.9
37.4
33.4
CLIMATE
......
TABLE VII. ABSOLUTE MINIMUM TEMPERATURE
Jan Feb. Mar. April. May Junes
°F. °F. °F. F. °F. °F.
Coast :
Adana . .
. 19.4 23.5 32.2 39.9 52.2 57.4
.
Beirut . .
. 35.1 35.8 35.8 43.0 49.8 55.9
Haifa
. 29.1 -
Sarona .
32.0 32.0 34.0 40.0 45.0 51.0
Jaffa
. 32.4 38.8 39.2 43.7 48.2 56.8
Gaza
. 39.2
El-'Arish.
29.3 35.6 40.1 41.0 48.2 50.0
Inland :
El-Qareya
. 21.2 28.4 25.9 32:2 40.1 44.6
Qsāra .
. 0.9 19.2 28.8 34.9 38.1 46.8
Damascus
. 27.5 26.0 26.6 32.0 48.2
Nazareth.
28.0 31.3 35.1 39.9 45.9 50.4
El-Lātrūn
. 266 37.4 39.6 42.8 48.6 56.5
Jerusalem
. 25.0 28.0 28.5 30.0 38.5 47.8
Hebron .
18.9 26.0 25.3 31.
0 34.2 45.3
Nekhl
19.9 25.7 21.9 34.0 41.7 45.7
Jordan Valley :
'Ain et-Tābghah . . 39.2 45.5 46.4 52:7 63.5 73.4
Tiberias ,
. 34.0 37.0 40.0 43.0 50.0 59.0
Melhamīyeh . . . 33.4 42.8 46.4 48.2 58.1 69.4
Jericho
. 464 52.7 — 55.4 66.2 77.9
Qasr Hajleh .
. 45.5 41.0 44.6 50.0 59.0 69.8
.......
...
-
TABLE VIII. ABSOLUTE MAXIMUM TEMPERATURE
Jan Feb Mar April May June.
°F. °F. °F. F. °F. °F.
Coast :
Adana
. 69.8 71.4 84.9 87.8 99.9 104.4
Beirut
. 79.0 83.0 970 972 102.0 99.5
Haifa
104.0
Sarona .
. 80.0 82.0 98.0 102.0 103.0 112.0
Jaffa
. 85.8 86.9 93.4 97.5 101.8 91.4
Gaza
— 104.0 -
El-'Arish.
. 86.0 88.7 95.9 109.4 106.7 98.6
Inland :
El-Qareya
.63.0 76.1 85.5 86.5 95.4 92:8
Qsāra .
. 69.3 73.0 70.
9 86.0 93.6 96.4
Damascus
. 57.2 65.3 80.6 86.0 89.6 ---
Nazareth.
. 74.7 79.3 92.5 95.7 105.3 110.5
El-Lātrūn
. 84.9 91.4 91.0 104.4 109.4 111.6
Jerusalem
74.8 79.0 90.5 94.8 103.0 108.0
Hebron .
76.0 77.9 84.0 91.4 101.0 103:1
Nekhl .
. 86.0 84.0 91.9 100.0 106.0 107.1
Jordan Valley:
'Ain et-Tābghah
. 71.6 75.2 84.2 93.2 100•4 103.1
Tiberias:
• 78.0 82.0 97.0 101.0 1090 114.0
Melhamīyeh
. 75.2 75.6 86.0 96.1 107.6 106.7
Jericho .
. 73.4 74.3 - 100•4 106.7 110.3
Qasr Hajleh :
. 89.6 95.0 100.0 109.4 112.1 111.2
TABLES VII, VIII
July.
OE
Aug.
OE
Sept.
O.
Oct.
OF.
Nov.
F.
Dec.
OF.
66.6
63.9
65.8
62.1
60.8.
60.4
50.9
520
32.2
41.4
32.7
30.0
32:0
37.0
37.9
60.0
59.2
63.
0
63.3
57.0
59.9
51.0
53.4
40.0
39.7
56.3
59.9
57.2
53.6
34.7
35.6
53.6
51.1
59.0
59.2
60.8
49.0
45.0
51.1
56.5
50.2
58.0
62.8
62.2
52.5
48.1
53.6
50.9
48.4
48.0
54.1
60.4
42.0
45.2
45.0
44.8
41.4
48.0
50.0
51.4
32.0
42.2
39.9
27.1
32.4
41:0
35.2
42.1
34.0
32.0
23.0
24.8
21.9
34.0
25.3
36.3
27.5
27.0
18.0
Coast :
Adana.
Beirut.
Haifa.
Sarona.
Jaffa.
Gaza.
El--Arīsh.
Inland :
El-Qareya.
Qsära.
Damascus.
Nazareth.
El-Lätrūn.
Jerusalem.
Hebron.
Nekhl.
Jordan Valley:
80.6
67.0
77.0
80.6
73.4
824
67.0
81.5
77.9
50.0
-
66.2
57.0
64.4
53.6
48.0
49.5
50.0
39.0
39.2
74.3
70.7
68.0
54.5
48.2
July.
OF.
Aug.
°F.
Sept.
TT.
Oct.
F.
Nov. Dec.
°F. °F.
100.9
98.1
102.2
99.3
97.7
99.1
-
102.0
91.4
96.0
96.8
106.0
93.2
103.1
95.0
95.9
89.1
99.5
99.5
100.0
113.7
106.0
102.3
108.0
95.2
106.2
89.0
99.9
108.7
103.0
103.1
105.1
97.0
99.0
85.0
110.1
108.7
101.0
101.6
105.1
104.0 104.0
111.0 112.0
107.2 105.1
104.0
1130 113.0
102.
2
111.0
-
'Ain et-Tābghah.
Tiberias.
Melhamīyeh.
Jericho.
Qasr Hajleh.
82.0
94.0
70.5
83.7
92.3
101.3
104.0
105.0
95.5
96.0
87.8
82.0
83.5
99.5
91.8
83.3
79.0
82.6
66.7
66.2
86.0
92.7
76.0
107.8
106.5
96.5
98.2
98.1
Coast :
Adana.
Beirut.
Haifa.
Sarona.
Jaffa.
Gaza.
El-Arīsh.
Inland :
El-Qareya.
Qsāra.
Damascus.
Nazareth.
El-Lātrūn.
Jerusalem.
Hebron.
Nekhl.
Jordan Valley:
'Ain et-Tābghah.
Tiberias.
Melhamīyeh.
Jericho.
Qasr Hajleh.
97.9
99.0
89.2
84.9
88.0
84.6
86.7
73.6
76.9
80.1
99.5 91.4
1040 100.0
102.2 91•4
77.0
88.0
80.6
111.2
113.0
107.6
106.7
CLIMATE
TABLE IX. MEAN MONTHLY RAINFALL
Jan
ins.
Feb
ins.
Mar April May
ins. ins. ins.
June.
ins.
.
:
4.1
7.32
7.01
6.61
5.61
4.33
1.15
4.8
6.34
3.70
3.27
3.88
1.97
0.72
3.5
3.9
2.40
1.46
2.69
1.46
0.72
1.7
2.09
1.18
0.67
0.89
0.28
0.48
2.1
0.59
0.32
0.23
0.10
0.32
0.13
0.9
0.22
0.03
0.03
0:03
0.04
0.0
•
Coast :
Adana
Beirut
Haifa
Sarona
Jaffa
Gaza
El-'Arīsh .
Inland :
‘Aintāb
El-Qareya
Qsāra
Damascus
Nazareth.
El-Lätrūn
Jerusalem
Hebron .
Nekhl
Jordan Valley:
'Ain et-Tābghah
Tiberias .
Melhamīyeh
Qasr-Hajleh ..
1.30
1.93
0.53
0.24
0.11
0.0
. 3.23
. 12.8
6.48
2.09
6.34
6.46
6.50
6.17
0.30
3.54
10.9
5.49
2.68
4.57
3.30
5.00
4.57
0.22
2.76
9.17
3.80
1.22
3.70
2.81
4.09
3.42
0.26
2.36
4.02
4:37
0.63
1.02
1.34
1:58
2.01
0.24
0.24
0.28
0.24
0.28
0.05
0.0
0.02
0.0
0.07
0.0
3.9
4.69
3.82
1.00
3.07 2.76
3.21261
3.98 2.79
2.00 00
1.10
1.09
0.71
1.10
0.33
0.15
0.16
0.50
0.008
0.0
0.0
TABLE X. MAXIMUM RAINFALL IN MONTH AND YEAR
Jan
ins.
.
· 9
9.04
. 15.0
• 12.1
. 1132
. 8.6
. 1.8
Feb. Mar. April. May. June.
ins. ins. ins. ins. ins.
9.05 4.97 4.17 4:45 2.36
15.8 8.5 6.26 2.56 2.72
10.5 5.95 3.50 2.05 0.55
Coast :
Adana
Beirut . .
Haifa
Sarona .
Jaffa
El-'Arīsh .
Inland :
El-Qareya
Qsāra
Nazareth.
El-Lătrūn
Jerusalem
Hebron .
Nekhl .
Jordan Valley:
'Ain et-Tābghah
Tiberias . .
. 16.2
: 7.17
• 14.2
• 8.94
• 14.5
. 13.87
. 0.57
.
.
.
. 5.91
. 11.21
7.22 2.55 4.17 0.95 0.56
5.9 7.6 1.95 0.55 0.16
1.9 2.1 1.8 0.5 0.0
19.8
6.02
10.3
7.72
12.6
12:37
0.40
19.8
4.82
5.91
6.85
12.4
8.64
0.70
10.7
5.20
2.76
4.02
6.54
8.30
0.66
5.87
0.82
0.98
1.61
1.26
2.19
0.30
0.63
0.0
0:0
0.16
0.20
1.29
0.0
5.28
6.50
5.78
4.95
1.86
3.04
0.47
0.90
0.0
0.0
TABLES IX, X
July. Aug. Sept. Oct. Nov. Dec. Year.
ins. ins. ins. ins. ins. ins. ins.
Coast :
0.1 0.0 0.2 0.8 3.6 3.1 24.9 Adana,
0.024 0.024 0.32 1.89 5.24 7.64 35.7 Beirut.
0.0 0.0 0.08 0.91 4.21 7.13 27.0 Haifa.
0.0 0.17 0.35 0.60 3.85 6.22 23.0 Sarona.
0.0 0.0 0.2 1.41 3.18 5.60 23.6 Jaffa.
0.0 0.0 0.04 0.83 3.15 4.13 16:53 Gaza.
0.0 0.0 0.0 0.06 0.49 0.45 4.2 El-'Arīsh.
Inland :
0.08 0.0 0.0 1:06 3.35 4.13 22.1 'Aintāb.
0.01 0.004 0.28 2.44 7.42 10.6 59.68 El-Qareya.
. 0.24 0.0 0.08 1.56 1.81 4.90 29.26 Qsāra.
4.90
Damascus.
0.0 0:0 0.0 0.75 3.39 7.09 27.10 Nazareth.
0.0 0.0 0.008 0.91 2.44 5.19 22.76 El-Lātrūn.
0.0 0.0 0.04 0.39 2.32 5.87 26.04 Jerusalem.
0.0 0.0 0.02 0.53 2.13 5.05 24:25 Hebron.
0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.12 1.19 Nekhl.
Jordan Valley:
0.001 0.001 0.08 0.831 1.89 3.15 17.12 'Ain et-Tābghab.
0.0 0.0 0.003 0.56 2.86 5.05 20:22 Tiberias.
0.0 0.0 0.0 0.16 2.09 3.62 1733 Melhamīyeh.
2.68
Qasr Hajleh.
WS
July.
ins.
0.17
0.39
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
Aug. Sept.
ins. ins.
0.0 0.34
0.28 2.40
0.04 0.47
0.35 0.33
0.0 1.10
0.0
0.0
Oct.
ins.
1.1
7.36
3.27
1.67
3.89
0.3
Nov. Dec. Year.
ins. ins. ins.
Coast :
6.89 7.36 30.6 Adana.
15.3 13.6 51:4 Beirut.
13.55 13.85 39.5 Haifa.
8.14 11.53 30.6 Sarona.
552 12.50 28.4 'Jaffa.
1.1 1.0 5.4 El-Arīsh.
Inland :
19.0 18.6 77.95
El-Qareya.
1.90 9.5 35.00 Qsāra.
9.06 12.8 37.9 Nazareth.
6.97 12:45 32.5 El-Lātrūn.
7.99 16.5 41.6 Jerusalem.
6.10 14.05 39.76 Hebron.
0.0 0.40 3.03 Nekhl.
Jordan Valley:
3.42 5:31 - ‘Ain et-Tābghah.
6.65 8.75 27.72 Tiberias.
0.12
0.74
0.04
0.0
0:0
0.02
0.0
0.0
0.0
1.02
0.12
0.04
0.06
0.79
0.19
0.0
8.03
3.03
2.48
4.52
2.28
2.47
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.004
0.0
0.004
0.0
0.34
0.05
1:70
2.06
CLIMATE
TABLE XI. MINIMUM RAINFALL IN MONTH AND YEAR
Jan
ins.
Feb. Mar. April. May. June.
ins. ins. ins. ins. ins.
:
1.26
1.02
0.67
0.47
3.98
0.30
2.20
1.38
0.20
0.66
1.03
0.04
2.26
1.42
0.86
0.28
0.07
0.04
0.47
0.04
0.04
0.07
0.05
0.0
0.86
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
.
Coast :
Adana
Beirut .
Haifa
Sarona .
Jaffa
El-'Arīsh.
Inland :
El-Qareya
Qsāra
Nazareth.
El-Lātrūn
Jerusalem
Hebron .
Nekhl .
Jordan Valley:
'Ain et-Tābghah
Tiberias . .
.
0.0
0.0
0.0
9.13
5.78
1.22
3.42
0.12
1:57
0.14
0.79
4.96
1.73
0.0
0.16
0.23
0.0
1.46
2.87
0.04
0.59
0.43
0.23
0.0
0.32
3.54
0.0
0.20
0.0
0.03
0.0
0.0
0.39
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
:
.
0.0
0.0
.
.
.
1.93
0.45
2.99
0.08
0.75
0.39
0.39
0.0
0.004
0.0
0.0
0.0
TABLE XII. MAXIMUM RAINFALL IN 24 HOURS
Jan
ins.
Feb. Mar. April. May. June.
ins. ing. ins. ins. ins.
.
.
3.54
3.07
1.97
1.22
2.84
1.69
1.38
1.49
. 3.54
. 2.80
2.17
. 0.55
2.36
0.0
0.62
0.83
0.71
0.22
0.0
0.43
Coast :
Beirut . .
Haifa
. .
Sarona .
El-'Arish.
Inland :
El-Qareya
Qsāra (1912)
El-Lātrūn
Jerusalem
Hebron . .
Nekhl . .
Jordan Valley:
‘Ain et-Tābghah
Tiberias.
Qasr Hajleh .
2.60
2.08
1.85
2.28
0.17
0.47
3.19
0.52
1.61
3:39
.
.
.
.
.
0.0
3.98
1.56
4.57
3.42
4.30
0.26
3.90
1.42
2.13
3.35
2.92
0.22
.
0.65
0.40
0.30
0.0
.
1.69
2.72
0.40
1.42
1.16
0.79
1.38
2.00
0.0
0.71
1.48
1.10
0.47
0.40
0.50
0.0
0.0
:
TABLES XI, XII
: 63
July.
ins.
Aug.
ins.
Sept.
ins.
Oct
ins.
Nov
ins.
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.18
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.63
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.71
0.0
0.04
0.15
0.35
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
Dec Year.
ins. ins.
Coast :
1.34 23.55 Adana.
0.24 23.3 Beirut.
0.0 16.8 Haifa.
0.45 13.5 Sarona.
1.90 17.3 Jaffa.
0.06 2-6 El-Arīsh.
Inland :
2:48 51.18 El-Qareya.
1.30 32-1 Qsāra.
0.67 18.5 Nazareth.
1.89 15.8 El-Lātrūn.
0.47 13.3 Jerusalem.
1.10 16.25 Hebron.
0.0 0.83 Nekhl.
Jordan Valley:
1.97
'Ain et-Tābghah.
1.65 14:37 Tiberias.
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.004
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.68
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
1.00
1:73
0-32
0.0
0.04
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0:0
0.0
0.004
0.0
0.91
0.0
July.
ins.
0.39
0.0
0.0
Aug. Sept.
ins. ins.
0.28 2.09
0.0 0.32
-
0.0 0.0
Oct.
ins.
5.47
1.54
0.16
Nov.
ins.
3:74
2.20
3.13
0.85
Dec.
ins.
4.29
3.31
2.95
0.30
0.02
0.06
0.45
0.0
0.59
0.01
0.30
2.24
1.02
1.42
0.0
4:06
0.57
1.57
2.44
Coast:
Beirut.
Haifa.
Sarona.
El-'Arīsh.
Inland :
El-Qareya.
Qsāra (1912).
El-Lätrūn.
Jerusalem.
Hebron.
0.0
4:11
1.49
3.07
4.68
4.08
0.32
1.02
2.35
0.98
Nekhl.
Jordan Valley:
'Ain et-Tābghah.
Tiberias.
Qasr Hajleh.
0.0
0.004
0.0
0.004
0.0
0.0
0.31
0.05
0.0
1.46
0.48
0.0
1.73
1.62
64
CLIMATE
0.8
6.6
0.2
.
8.9
1.7
TABLE XIII. MEAN NUMBER OF RAIN DAYS
Jan Feb Mar April. May. June.
Coast :
Adana
. 6.8 11.6 9.6 5.5 5.8 2.5
Beirut .
15.6 14.5 10.9 6.5 3.2
Haifa
. 13:3 9.6 8.3 3.0 2.4 0.1
Sarona .
• 12.4
9.2
3.6 1.0 0.2
Jaffa
15.2 10.0 7.4 5.0 1.2
Gaza
6.4 4.9 1.4 1.5 0.1
El-'Arish.
5.6 3.6 3.2
1.2 0.0
Inland :
El-Qareya
• 14.5 11.8 13.8
13.8 7.3 5.0 2:0
Qsāra
• 15.0 16.0 14.0 11.5 5.7 0.0
Damascus
. 14.0 9.5 6.5 6.5 1.0
Nazareth
. 12.4 12.0 9.9 4.5 1.9 0.0
El-Lātrūn
. 14-2 9.0 9.6 6.5 2-3 0.4
Jerusalem
. 12.0 10.3 9.1 5.0 1.6 0.0
Hebron .
. 12.9 10.6 9.4 5.4 1.4 0.1
Nekhl
. 2.2 2.0 1.2 1.4 0.2 0.0
Jordan Valley:
‘Ain et-Tābghah
12:0 9.0 9.0 6.0 2.5
Tiberias . .
. 10.9
10.3 8.8 3.8 1.3
Melhamīyeh
120 12.2 - 9.8 4.5 3.3 0.0
Qasr Hajleh . . . 3.0 5.0 0.0 1.0 1.0
0.8
UV
.
.
.
.
TABLE XIV. RELATIVE HUMIDITY (MEAN OF THE DAY)
Jan. Feb. Mars April May June.
Coast :
Beirut .
Haifa
: 72 71 69 69 70 72
Sarona .
71 71 71
Gaza
El-'Arīsh.
Inland:
El-Qareya
Qsāra .
Damascus
El-Lātrūn
Jerusalem
Hebron .
Jordan Valley:
Tiberias . .
.
.
9
.
.
.
.
.
.
TABLES XIII, XIV
Oct
3.8
0.2
1.4
4.6
July. Aug. Sept.
1:0 0:0 1:0
0.3
0.0 0.0 0.1
0.0 0.1 0-2
0.0 0.0 1.0
0.0 0.0 0.2
0.0 0.0
Nov
8.5
10.2
8.6
8.3
7.5
6.9
2.3
Dec.
5.8
13.8
13.4
11:7
10.6
7.6
3.7
Year.
61.7
82.0
61.6
55.5
62.5
40.6
20.9
Coast:
Adana.
Beirut.
Haifa.
Sarona.
2.2
4.4
2.7
0.8
0.2
0.5
21
5.9
7.3
10.5
8.7
11.6
11.0
85.2
91.6
0.7
0.0
1.7
-
n.2
2.5
0.0
0.3
0.8
0.0
0.1
0.0
0.0
0.0
3.3
1.8
0.0
8.1
7.3
6.4
6.8
0.0
11.8
10.5
9.7
8.9
0.6
63.3
64.3
56.0
58.4
7.6
Gaza.
El-'Arīsh.
Inland :
El-Qareya.
Qsāra.
Damascus.
Nazareth.
El-Lātrūn.
Jerusalem.
Hebron.
Nekhl.
Jordan Valley:
‘Ain et-Tābghah.
Tiberias.
Melhamīyeh.
Qasr Hajleh.
0.3
2.6
0.0
0.0
0.0
-
0.3
0.3
0.0
0.0
0.8
0.0
0.0
3.5
1.6
1.5
6.0
6.4
5.0
8.0
10.4
8.3
70
58.1
53:5
56.6
0.0
July.
Aug. Sept.
Nov.
Dec.
Year.
6ð
66
69
72
73
Coast:
Beirut.
Haifa.
Sarona.
Gaza.
El-Arīsh.
YO
69
72
74.
64
68
74
66
55
61
57
El-Qareva.
Qsāra.
Damascus.
El-Lātrūn.
Jerusalem.
Hebron.
Jordan Valley:
Tiberias.
50
49
57
66
CLIMATE
TABLE XV. RELATIVE HUMIDITY, MORNING, AFTERNOON
AND EVENING
MORNING
Jan. Feb. Mar. April. May. June.
76
74
82
82
Coast :
Beirut, 81 hr.
Haifa, 7 hr. .
Sarona, 7 hr. .
Gaza, 7 hr..
El-'Arīsh, 8 hr.
Inland :
El-Qareya, 71 hr. .
Qsāra, 7 hr..
El-Lātrūn, 6 hr. .
Jerusalem, 7 hr. .
76
80
80
77
67
HA CO
·
.
·
.
76
74
67
90
58
72
72
58
AFTERNOON
•
66
67
67
697
66
58
60
ho
.....
57
Coast :
Beirut, 14 hr.
Haifa, 14 hr. .
Sarona, 13 hr.
Gaza, 14 hr..
El-Arīsh, 14 hr. .
Inland :
El-Qareya, 13 hr. .
Qsāra, 13 hr. . .
El-Lātrūn, 12 hr. .
Jerusalem, 13 hr. ..
. 65
65
.
. 72
63
59
40
44
IX
75
•
EVENING
Coast :
Beirut, 20 hr.
74
Haifa, 22 hr. .
Sarona, 21 hr.
Gaza, 21 hr. .
El-Arish, 20 hr. .
Inland :
El-Qareya, 191 hr. . .
Qsāra, 19 hr.
El-Lātrūn, 18 hr. .
Jerusalem, 21 hr.
Jordan Valley (no evening record):
.....
9%B4% 任归的8
•
56
57
66
Tiberias, 8 hr.
16 hr.
. 73
65
60
.
.
. 66
62
59
52
41
35
TABLE XV
Dec. Year.
olo
68
74
任​%B8%仍n
%%任39
Coast :
Beirut, 81 hr.
Haifa, 7 hr.
Sarona, 7 hr.
Gaza, 7 hr.
El-'Arish, 8 br.
Inland :
El-Qareya, 71 hr.
Qsāra, 7 hr.
El-Lātrūn, 6 hr.
Jerusalem, 7 hr.
Coast :
Beirut, 141 hr.
Haifa, 14 hr.
Sarona, 13 hr.
Gaza, 14 hr.
El-'Arish, 14 hr.
Inland :
El-Qareya, 13 hr.
Qsāra, 13 hr.
El-Lātrūn, 12 hr.
45. Jerusalem, 13 hr.
75
Coast:
Beirut, 203 hr.
Haifa, 22 hr.
Sarona, 21 hr.
Gaza, 21 hr.
El-Arīsh, 20 hr.
Inland :
El-Qareya, 194 hr.
Qsāra, 197 hr.
El-Lātrūn, 18 hr.
Jerusalem, 21 hr.
Jordan Valley (no evening
record):
Tiberias, 8 hr.
16 hr.
64
50
66
E 2
CLIMATE
4.8
3.7
zory
TABLE XVI. CLOUD (0-10), MEAN OF DAY
Jan. Feb. Mar. April. May. June.
Coast:
Adana . .
4:3 5.6 4.8
1.8
1.3 1.3
Beirut . .
5.6 5.6
4.2 3.2 1•4
Haifa .
5.2 4.6 4.7
3.0 2.5
Sarona .
5.1 5.0 4.6 4.2 3.0
Jaffa (7 a.m.) .
4.6 40 3.7 3.4 2-3 1:4
Gaza
3:1 3.3 2.6 2-4 1.7
El--Arish
2.7 2.2 2.0 1.4 0.9
Inland :
El-Qareya
5.2 5.7 5.0 3.8 2.6
Qsāra . . . .
5.9 4.5 4.9 4:0 0.8
Nazareth.
4.6 5.4 4.3 3-5 2.2
El-Lātrūn
3.4 3.6 2.8 1.5 0.6
Jerusalem :
9 a.m. 16 yrs., to 1882 . 4.4 4.8 5.0 3.7 2.4 1.1
Mean of day, 10 yrs., to
4.8 5.1
2.9
1905
Hebron . . . : 5.9 5.5 5.3. 4:0 1:6 0.6
Jordan Valley:
'Ain et-Tābghah ..
3.3 3.3 3.3
1:3
Tiberias .
. . . 6.2 4.6 4.3 3.1 1.2
0.5
Melhamīyeh . .
3.7 4:0 4.1 3.0 1.8 0.9
Jericho . . . .
2.4
4.1
0.8
# #
o
How
1•1
1:1
TABLE XVII. MEAN NUMBER OF DAYS WITH HAIL
Jan. Feb. Mar. April. May. June.
Coast :
Beirut . . . . 1.2 1.6 1.6 0.4 0.1 0.1
Sarona ,
. . 1.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0
Inland :
El-Qareya
. . 0.6 0.6 3.6 0.6 0.6 0:0
El-Lãtrūn
: 0.3 0.7 0.6 0.3 0.0 0.0
Jerusalem
: 0:3 0.8 0.6 0.1 0.1
Bethlehem
: 0.4 0.6 0.8 0.2 0.0 0.0
0.0
TABLES XVI, XVII
69
Oct.
1.3
2.6
Dec.
2.4
2-4
1.9
5.3
July. Aug. Sept.
1.3 0.6 1.6
1.5 1.7
2:6 2.5 2.1
1.9 2.1
2:2 2.3
1.6 1.8 1:8
0.9 1:0 1.2
2.6
Nov.
2:7
4.2
4.2
4:1
3.0
3.2
2.1
5.1
2:1
4.7
2.5
2:4
2:1
1.7
3.6
3.5
2:4
2.3
0.6
3.5
2.0
0:3
3.6
0:4
2.2
1.0
2.3
0.8
3.5
3.3
2.5
1.8
4.6
3.7
4.5
2.7
5.6
5.3
5:1
3.4
Year.
Coast :
Adana.
3.5 Beirut.
3.6 Haifa.
3.4
Sarona.
2.9 Jaffa.
2.6 Gaza.
1.8 El-'Arīsh.
Inland :
4.0
El-Qareya.
3.4 Qsāra.
3.9 Nazareth.
El-Lātrūn.
Jerusalem :
9 a.m. 16 yrs.,to1882.
Mean of day, 10
1 yrs., to 1905.
2.1
Hebron.
Jordan Valley :
2.6 'Ain et-Tābghah.
2:7 Tiberias.
Melhamīyeh.
Jericho.
0:4
0:9
1.2
2.3
3.5
4.6
0.6
0.8
0.6
1•3
3.7
4.9
2.5
2.8
0.5
1.4
4.1
4.6
7.3
1.8
3.1
2.4
0.6
0.5
2:1
1.0
0.6
0.4
1.1
4.1
1.6
4.0 -
4.5
4.2
0:1
July. Aug. Sept.
Oct.
Nov.
Dec.
Year.
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.1
0.0
0.4
0.3
1.2
1.3
2.6
Coast :
6.7 Beirut.
Sarona.
Inland :
7.8 El-Qareya.
2.6 El-Lātrūn.
2.7 Jerusalem.
2.2 Bethlehem.
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.2
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.2
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.1
0.1
0.0
1.4
0.6
0.7
0.2
CLIMATE
TABLE XVIII. MEAN NUMBER OF DAYS WITH
THUNDERSTORMS
Jan.
Feb. Mar. April. May. June.
.
2.7
2.0
....
....
2.7
1.4
0.8
0.9
2.4
1.0
1.2
0.9
1.2
0.3
1.2
0.3
1.1
0.3
0.7
0.2
0.2
0.0
0.0
0.2
0.7
0.0
004
Coast :
Beirut . ..
Sarona . .
Wilhelma .
Gaza
Inland :
El-Qareya
Damascus
El-Lātrūn
Jerusalem
Bethlehem
Hebron .
Jordan Valley :
'Ain et-Tābghah
1.0
0.4
1.6
6.0
0.7
1.0
4.0
0.7
0.6
0.0
......
3.2
2.0
0.7
1.2
0.6
1:0
......
0.7
1:0
.0.1
.
0.2
0.8
2.0
0.6
0.8
1.0
0-8
1.5
0.2
0-2
0.6
1.4
3.0
0.0
0.0
.
. 2.5
2.5
1.0
0.0
TABLE XIX. MEAN NUMBER OF DAYS WITH FOG
Jan.
Feb. Mar. April. May. June.
.
.
.
0.04
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.80
0.70
0.08
1.80
0.40
0.20
2.20
1.10
0.30
2.00
1.50
0.08
1.20
2.50
.
Coast:
Beirut . .
Sarona ,
Gaza
. .
Inland :
El-Qareya
El-Lātrūn
Jerusalem
Jordan Valley :
'Ain et-Tābghah
0.00
0.10
2.40
0.40
0.60
1.70
0.20
0.30
1.40
0.60
2.10
0.60
0.20
2:40
0.40
0:40
2.60
0.80
.
4.00
3.50
4.00
3.70
3.50
2.00
TABLES XVIII, XIX
Nov.
Dec.
Year.
Coast:
20.8 Beirut.
12:3 Sarona.
6.3 Wilhelma.
7.2 Gaza.
Inland :
16.8 El-Qareya.
Damascus.
8.1 El-Lätrūn.
7.4 Jerusalem.
4:0 Bethlehem.
6.0
Hebron.
Jordan Valley :
18.5 'Ain et-Tâbghah.
Year.
Coast :
0.74 Beirut.
12.10 Sarona.
12.90 Gaza.
Inland :
4.40 El-Qareya.
16.70 El-Lātrūn.
15.20 Jerusalem.
Jordan Valley :
32.80 'Ain et-Tābghah.
4.2
3.4
2.8
1.0
July. Aug. Sept. Oct.
*0.04 0.0 0.2 2.4
0.0 0.0 0.0 1.0
0.0 0.0 0.0 0.2
0.0 0.0 0.0 0.7
0.0 0.0 0.4 2.8
0.0 0.0 0.0 2.0
0.0 0.0 0.0 0.8
0.0 0.0 0.0 0.7
0.0
0.0 0.8
1.4
2.4
2.1
3.6
1.6
1.4
0.7
1.3
2.2
1.4
1.0
0.0
0.2
0:0
0.0
0.0
0.2
2.5
3.0
July. Aug. Sept.
0.00 0.00 0.00
0.80 0.30 0.00
2.60 0.90 0.70
Oct. Nov.
0.00 0.00
1.00 0.00
2.10 0.30
Dec.
0.04
2.00
0.10
1
0.00
0.10
1.60
1.00
3.30
0.60
0.80
3.30
1.40
0.60
0.70
2.10
0.20
0.60
0.80
0.00
0.60
1.40
1.30
1.30
3.30
1.00
1.50
3.70
72
CLIMATE
TABLE XX. MEAN NUMBER OF DAYS WITH STORM
Jan.
Feb. Mar. April. May, June.
-
0.0
0.2
2.0
1.2
...
Coast:
Beirut
Sarona
Wilhelma
Gaza
(nland :
El-Lātrūn
Jerusalem
0.8
2.0
2.6
2.1
0.6
3.2
1.5
0.6
0.1
1.5
3.5
0.5
0.0
0.8
3:0
0.0
.
1.8
4.7
0:1
.
.
1.6
..
.
8.4
1.5
9.1
3.8
5.3
0.8
.
6.0
4.2
3.6
0.6
0.8
-
TABLE XXI. MEAN NUMBER OF DAYS WITH SNOW
Jan. Feb. Mar. April. May June.
Inland:
El-Qareya
. . 3:2 2:0 1.6 0.2 0.0 0.0
Damascus . . . 2.0 1.0 0.0
.....
0.0 0.0
El-Lātrūn
0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0
Jerusalem . . . 1.4 0.5 0.2 0.0 0.0 0.0
Bethlehem . . . 1.2 0.4 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0
0.1
TABLES XX; XXI
73
July. Aug.
Sept.
Oct
Nov
Dec.
Year.
1
0.1
0.6
1.5
0:0
0.0
1.3
0.2
1.5
1.6
0.1
0:1
0.5
1.8
0.4
0.4
1.5
0.4
0.4
0.6
4.0
0.0
2:0
3.
20.1
24.2
7.8
1.8
0.0
Coast:
Beirut.
Sarona.
Wilhelma.
Gaza.
Inland :
El-Lätrūn.
Jerusalem.
0.1
0.1
1:3
4.4
0.3
6.4
0.8
10.4
3.3
58.1
19.7
0.1
July · Aug.
0.0 0.0
0.0 0.0
0.0 0.0
0.0 0.0
29:18
Sept.
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
Oct.
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
Nov.
0.6
0.0
0.1
0.0
Dec.
2.4
0.0
0.7
0.4
Year.
10.0
0.1
2.9
2.0
Inland :
El-Qareya.
Damascus.
El Lătrūn.
Jerusalem.
Bethlehem.
CLIMATE
TABLE XXII. WIND DIRECTION
JANUARY
11
Direction.
SE. S. SW. W. NW. C.
18.7 10:2 20.5 6.4 3.2 13.4
Station.
N. NE. E.
Coast :
Beirut . : 7.8 9.6 10.2
Haifa
8.1 2.3 48.2
Sarona .
4.5 7.7 7.7
Jaffa
4.8 4.0 12.1
Gaza
1.1 1.1 10.7
El-'Arish. 5.4 5.0 5.4
Inland :
El-Qareya
5.7 1.4 14.2
Qsāra
4.8 9.1 · 8.6
Nazareth. 4.5 19.3 27.3
Jerusalem
2.3 1.0 24.3
El-Lātrūn 3.8 2.8 17.1
Hebron . - 6.9 6.6 9.9
Nekhl
. 1.6 1.6 0.8
Jordan Valley :
'Ain et-Tābghah 7.3 4.7 17.7
Tiberias . . 6.0 0.0 3.0
Melhamīyeh . 10:1 3.4 10.1
Jericho . . 13.9 0.0 5•1
OLUN
9.5
1.3
5.7
5.6
0.2
7.2
8.1
35.0
3.5
24.0
12.1
4.0
FEBRUARY
Coast:
Beirut .. 8.5
Haifa
. 122
Sarona
. 4.2
Jaffa
2.1
Gaza .
3.8
El-'Arish. 7.0
Inland :
El-Qareya . 3.9
Qsāra .
. 1.2
Nazareth. . 112
Jerusalem . 1.1
El-Lātrün . 1.9
2.6
8.2
212
1.1
1.5
6.3
0.0
8.2
5.8
22.5
21.6
11.2
6.5
0.8
Hebron ·
5.7 13.8 5.6 14.3 1.2 0.8
14.9 31.6 7.1 2.3 4.2 20.0
6.5 18.5 17.0 6.5 5.6 25.0
1.5 0.9 23.9 9.
0 0 .6 51.2
1.5 18.3 28.8 15.2 5.8 14.8
9.0
1.1
13.6
1.6
13.8
9.5
1.6
9.5
4.8
9.1
1.4
5.9
3.
2
0.8
12.8 13.5
15.6 19.4
6.8 10.2
10.6 30.4
17.3 11.0
6 .1 30.4
25.8 67.0
2.9
9.7
9.2
4.1
17.1
27.1
0.8
30.9
26.9
0.0
24.3
11.2
0.4
0.0
3.0
0.0
6.7
0.0
8.7
0.0
7.9
19.0
6.0
0.0
12.4
1.4
18.7
10.0
6.7
36.7
3.7 30.3
0.0 81.0
1.1 41.6
2.5 21.5
13.0
1.9
16.3
12.7
3.6
2.2
8.9
15.1
23.3
14.1
1.0
14:7
25.9
5.6
13.8
15.5
19.6
31.7
5.4
23.0
4.6
6.3
8.0
12.6
5.4 15.3
1.5 4.4
1.8 26.8
4.2 15.5
2.1 49.6
5.4 15.2
. 7.4
Nekhl . . 0.0
Jordan Valley :
'Ain et-Tābghah 4.4
Tiberias . . 0.0
Melhamiyeh .15.1
Jericho . . 11.9
16.3
2.3
10.0
2.1
15.4
11.3
1.8
10.9
5.8
6.3
0.8
7.1
3.6
2.6
11.9
12.3
8.8
6.8
17.7
3.9
36.0
17.4
35.1
11.2
39.1
19.6
31.8
57.0
5.3
9.4
8.8
4.3
15.5
29.2
1.8
23.5
19.9
0.0
23.1
10.2
0.0
0.0
2.5
0.0
0.7
0.0
17.2
11.0
2.7
10.2
1.3
0.0
4.8
3.4
6.6
0.0
11.0
23.7
6.6
0.0
9.6
0.0
21.0
7.0
21.9
37.3
3.1
0.0
11.0
0.0
37.3
82.0
23.3
13.6
TABLE XXII
PERCENTAGE OF OBSERVATIONS
Reinit
MARCH
Station.
N. NE. E.
Coast:
. 10.4 11.8 7.1
Haifa . . 15.1 0.3 30.4
Sarona .
. 3.2
5.2 3.2
Jaffa
1.3 3.2 24.6
Gaza
5.8 0.6 8.8
El-'Arīsh
7.9 7.6 6.2
Inland:
El-Qareya 5.1 1.5 10.2
Qsāra . 3.2 4.3 2.7
Nazareth. 10.3 12.6 17.2
Jerusalem
1.1 2.1 13.9
El-Lātrūn 4:0 0.7 10.4
Hebron . . 6.2 5.2 7.8
Nekhl . . 1.6 6.5 0.8
Jordan Valley :
'Ain et-Tābghah 5.2 3.3 6.1
Tiberias . . 6.0 0.0 0.0
Melhamīyeh . 14:0 1:2 3.5
Jericho . . No records.
11.3
3.8
11.4
2.6
16.1
12.0
0.8
13.6
0.8
2.7
0.7
0.5
11.5
5.3
19.8
2.0
33.3
12.0
8.7
APRIL
Coast:
Beirut . . 9.3
Haifa . . 19.4
Sarona . , 2.3
Jaffa . . 1.3
Gaza
3.5
El-'Arish . 9.0
Inland :
El-Qareya . 3.8
Qsāra . . 3.9
Nazareth.
. 11.7
Jerusalem . 1.3
El Lātrūn . 3.
9
2.9
Hebron .
1.9
7.2
10.4
1.8
1
1.7
5.6
5.0
19.5
16.4
8.5
18.9
2.8
9.1
2.6
17.2
17.2.
11.
Direction.
SE. S. SW. W. NW. C.
6.1 5.0 31.5 6.9 4.5 16.7
2.3 10.1 4.3 30.1 4.6 2.8
9.4 18.7 15.5 11.6 5.2 28.0
7.0 18.1 25.6 5.2 1.3 13.7
4.1 0.9 21.3 13.8 1.3 43.4
0.9 16.8 24.8 16.7 12.8 6.5
9.7
4.3
3.4
1.2
6.
3
3.4
3.1
12.1
17.2
15.0
6.3
9 .9
3.5
15.2
22.1
32.3
18.5
42.1
18.1
30.1
67.7
7.1
9.7
11:6
7.1
25.4
31.6
4:3
21.0
22.6
0:0
23.6
9.0
0.0
0:0
0.3
0.0
0.6
6.4
10.0
8.2
7.2
0.0
4.7
36-4
0.0
16.4
2.5
0.0
12.9
38.7
78.0
38.6
3.4
2.4
4.0
7.3
1.4
2.1
3.5
7.5
12.0
18.7
0.7
7.9
36.3
5.9
19.3
18.0
11:8
24.8
8.7
36.3
19.3
4:0
22.9
10.9
5.3
4.9
9.0
0:0
3.0
10.4
14.6
3.0
29.4
16.7
44.2
14.8
9.8
Nekhl . 7.5
Jordan Valley :
'Ain et-Tābghah 3.6
Tiberias .. . 0.0
Melhamīyeh .27.9
Jericho. . 9.1
.7
4.7
10:0
8.5
10.5
5:0
2
1.7
7.7
9.4
1.3
1.4
4.9
4.9
3 .8
10.0
7.7
25.0
10.4
2.8
6.8
6.8
3.1
15.0
23:0
23.9
22.1
37.8
13.8
22.9
45.7
7.8
6.7
15.5
11.5
30.6
33.6
5.0
23.6
16.1
0.0
24.4
12.8
0.4
0.0
0.3
0.0
7.0
1.1
8.9
0.0
1.2
11.4
0.3
0.0
2.3
3.4
6.8
0.0
7.0
9.1
4.2
0.0
2.3
0.0
33.6
33.0
18.6
9.1
5.4
0.0
7.0
38.6
36.9
67.0
26.7
18.2
CLIMATE
Direction.
SE. S. SW.
NE.
E.
W. NW.
C.
14:3
0.8
2.3
1.1
0.0
14.4
3.8
13.2
2.3
21.0
17.8
10.7
El-'Arīsh
MAY
Station,
N.
Coast :
Beirut . . 11.9
Haifa ..
. 14.4
Sarona .
. 4.5
Jaffa
. 0.0
Gaza
. 5.9
. 15.0
Inland :
El-Qareya . 7.3
Qsāra .
3.9
Nazareth. . 22.1
Jerusalem . 4.4
El-Lātrūn . 3.9
Hebron . 11.7
Nekhl . . 3.1
Jordan Valley :
'Ain et-Tābghah 2.2
Tiberias .. . 0.0
Melhamīyeh 18.2
Jericho . . 11.2
3.7
1.4
9.3
2.0
1.8
4.4
9.7
6.4
5.0
5.8
11.7
4.3
7.5
6.5
2.7
0.0
3.6
3.4
5.7
0.0
2.4
12.4
7.3
0.5
1.3
0:0
0.0
6:2
1.2
2.9
1.3
5:0
17.1
3:1
JUNE
Coast :
Beirut . . 7.4
Haifa . . 10.5
Sarona . . 1.7
Jaffa
. 00
Gaza
: 4.9
El-'Arīsh .24.2
Inland :
El-Qareya . 8.8
Qsāra
4.4
Nazareth.
. 13.1
Jerusalem . 3.4
El-Lātrün . 3.1
Hebron'. 12.1
Nekhl . . 6.7
Jordan Valley :
'Ain et-Tābghah 1.5
Tiberias .. . 0.0
Melhamīyeh . 7.5
Jericho . . 10.6
2.8
2.6
6.0
6.0
1.3
0.4
2.9
14.2
IN
3.2
2.2
3.6
2.6
2.8
1.2
2.9
3.3
0.4
0.0
0.0
3.5
10.2
0.0
2.5
5.9
l.1
0.8
1.0
5.3
2.7
3.8
2.9
8.0
3.2
20.0
0.5
9.2
33.6
6.6
24.2
24.7
9.4
15.2
10.4
42.7
25.8
1.6
29.3
8.9
8.2
8.9
19.3
0.0
3.5
10.4
13.8
4.6
174
26-3
30.9
12.4
13.7
2.5
10.4
1.8
14.1
10.2
1.6
6.9
4.3
2.3
1.0
5.1
4.8
0.8
4.2
21.1
22.1
3.0
3.3
4.5
15.3
21.1 10.9
35.8 14:0
15.2 12.8
37.3 18.4
8.9 41.9
16.3 - 40.6
55.7 7.3
25.8
11.8
0.0
20.4
16.8
0.1
0.0
0.8
0.0
1.8
10.1
4:3
0.0
9.7
14.6
7.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
42.0 7.8
71.0 0.0
18.2 19.4
7.9 31.5
27.5
29.0
26.7
9.0
0.1
0.9
1.0
10.5
0.7
1:2
2.7
5.1
2.6
33.3
1.3
4:4
50.5
8.2
33.6
26.1
1.3
13.8
14.2
60.2
32.6
2.8
30.5
9.9
4.9
7.0
13.6
0.5
2.0
20.6
11.7
4.7
12.3
21.8
42.2
16.7
3.9
0.7
2.4
0.3
11.7
2.2
1.7
2.6 1.0 23.9 15.5 37.9
41 14.4 30.0 22.6 18.9
0.0 23.8 28.2 24.9 0:0
0.2 0.8 48.1 26.8 16:3
5.4 2.6 9.2 51.1 15.3
1.5 2.1 17.7 58.5 0.1
1.7 13.3 53.3 5.8 0.0
3.8 6:0 41-0 8.3 28.2
0.0 0.0 93.0 0.0 7.0
11.2 3.8 27.5 21.2 23.8
30.6 1.2 14:1, 23.5.7.1
0.8
0.0
2.5
3.5
TABLE XXII
E.
0:3
1.8
1.3
0.8
16.7
0.5
Direction.
SE. S. SW. W. NW. C.
0:1 4:4 602 15.9 3.3 9.8
0.9 9.1 19.2 62:1 2:0 3.5
0.3 0.3 56.3 30.4 3.3 8.1
9.7 30.6 37.9 2.4 7.2 10.6
0.5 0.5 4.8 29.0 1.1 45.2
0.1 2.8 30.4 15.9 18.2 12.7
pued or
N
JULY
Station.
.N. NE.
Coast :
Beirut . 44 1:6
Haifa
. 1.4 0.2
Sarona
. 0.0 0.0
Jaffa
0.0 0.8
Gaza
1.6 0.6
El-'Arīsh . 16.6 2.9
Inland :
El-Qareya
9.1 1.9
Qsāra . . 50 1.1
Nazareth. 7.3 0.0
Jerusalem
1.8 0.0
El-Lātrūn . 1.1 0.1
Hebron. 10.6 1.3
Nekhl . . 8.1 10.5
Jordan Valley :
'Ain et-Tābghah 2.9 1.2
Tiberias . A . 0.0 0.0
Melhamīyeh . 0.6 0.0
Jericho . . 14.4 1.1
1.9
1.8
2.4
0.5
1.1
1.1
4.8
10.4
0.0
0.6
17.8
•
•
•
•
AUGUST
Coast :
Beirut . . 5.7 3.9 0.7
Haifa . . 5.4 0.3 2.0
Sarona . 0.3 0.0 0.3
Jaffa
0.0 0.0 1.1
Gaza
. 3.5 0.0 18.5
El-'Arīsh . 13.1 1.4 0.3
Inland :
El-Qareya . 8.7 1.6 1.2
Qsāra . .. 5.4 2.5 1.1
Nazareth. . 10.8 1.2 0.0
Jerusalem . 2.2 0.5 0.5
El-Lātrūn . 6.2 0.1 2.2
Hebron . . 14.3 1.5 0.7
Nekhl
5.6 13.7 1.6
Jordan Valley :
'Ain et-Tābghah 3.5 1.4 11.0
Tiberias . . 0.0 0.0 0.0
Melhamīyeh . 3.3 0.0 1.1
Jericho. . No records.
0.8
2.2
0.0
0.0
13.8
0.7
1:6
2.9
0.4
0.0
0.1
5.
2
1.0
0.0
1.8
13.3
40.3
1.0
3.4
1.2
8.9
19.1
31.7
31.7
51.9
11.4
17.1
61.3
15.8
26.6
18.3
30.7
49.1
88.8
4:8
47.0
18.0
0.0
14:0
14.8
0.1
0.0
1.2
0.0
0.0
3.3
1.2
0.0
4.2
28.9
6.6 46:5
0.0 100.0
7.3 43.6
0.0 5.6
8.3 21.6
0.0 0.0
10.9 32.6
10:0. 18.9
0.1
1.4
1.3
16.1
0.4
0.0
5.4
8.7
4.5
47.3
1.3
4.0
44.9
15.7
48.2
20.4
1.9
24.1
18.9
58.2
23.2
1.1
24.5
18.2
6.8 13.6
4.6 3.7
8.0 14.2
0.0 14.0
8.2 41.7
19.7 19.1
2-3
0.4
1.2
0.2
18.0
1.6
0.8
4.3
2.2
0.0
0.1
2.2
1.4
0.0
1.5
11.5
21.4
0.6
0.9
0.9
13.7
17.4
30.1
39.3
44.9
8.5
10.5
54.8
14.4 48.7
24.7 22.2
26.1 0.0
35.2 15.8
49.2 12.8
68.4. 0.7
7.2 0.0
0.4
0.0
1.1
3.2
0.0
1.1
6.4
0.0
7.6
37.6
58.0
5.4
6.7 29.8
0.0 42.0
39.1 41:3
CLIMATE
SEPTEMBER
Station.
Direction.
N. N E. SE. S. SW. W. NW. C.
Coast:
Beirut .
. 16.5 11.5 1.6 0.3 2.7 29.7 15.3 9.0 13.4
Haifa . . 19.7 0.8 7.5 1.4 1.4 4.9 46.7 9.5 8.1
Sarona .
. 5.7 2.0 0.3 0.7 5.4 35.4 13.0 12.4 25.1
Jaffa
0.0 1.6 3.3 6.0 23.3 22.5 10:
0 0 .0 33.3
Gaza
. 2.0 0.0 25.0 0.4 0.0 2.9 27.2 4.0 38.5
El-'Arīsh • 12.8 4.1 1.3 0.4 4.8 23.7 11.7 21.2 20.0
Inland:
El-Qareya . 5.8 4.8 3.7 4.1 6.8 9.6 18.2 7.8 39.2
Qsāra
: 3:0 1.5 1.1 1.5 3.3 15.6 30.4 15.9 27.8
Nazareth. • 22.2 6.2 6.2 2.4 1.2 14.7 23.6 23.5 0.0
Jerusalem : 5:0 1.9 4.8 1.3 0.0 1.7 34.9 30.0 20.4
El-Lātrūn . 9.6 1.4 4.4 15.7 2.1 1.1 5.7 47.1 12.9
Hebron. 158 2.5 2.6 3.1 1.9 1.2 11.6 61.0 0.2
Nekhl . . 13.3 30.0 3.3 0.8 0.0 8.3 39.2 5.0 0.0
Jordan Valley:
'Ain et-Tābghah 1.4 0.8 14:0 1:1 1:1 5:0 36.0 3.1 37.4
Tiberias . . 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 23.0 0.0 77.0
Melhamīyeh . No records.
Jericho . No records.
2.5
2.3
5.5
11.3
5.1
0.9
4.4
2.9
9.7
20.2
0.8
13.1
19.7
2.3
14.5
17.7
2.4
17.1
6.4
32.1
4.5
2.4
25.5
15.4
5.2
9.5
8.4
0.0
4.9
13.0
17.6
5.9
42.6
28.3
35.0
12.7
OCTOBER
Coast:
Beirut . . 20-2 19.4 4.6
Haifa
. . 18.
9 1.3 24.8
Sarona
. 5.8 4.
2 4 .8
Jaffa
. 0:0 1.6 18.5
Gaza
. 3.0 0.5 22.8
El-'Arīsh • 16.2 8.3 3.3
Inland:
El-Qareya
: 4:4 0.9 10.8
Qsāra .
3:2 6:1 3.9
Nazareth. · 31.2 21.2 13.7
Jerusalem . 2.9 3.1 18.7
El-Lātrūn . 10.2 1.5 11.0
Hebron .. . 14.3 8.3 8.3
Nekhl . . 7.2 23.4 1.6
Jordan Valley:
13.9
1.8
7.5
1.5
15.6
7.5
3.1
10.0
2.9
2.5
0.7
3.4
1.7
0.0
8.0
14.0
3.8
1.9
4.0
2.2
13.7
20.0
28.3
6.2
27.0
7.8
13.6
48:5
5.6
10.8
13.9
13.0
35.5
42.2
24
26.4
29.3
0.0
31.2
11.0
2.1
0.0
'Ain et-Tābghah 2.7 l.1 16.3
Tiberias . : 0.0 0.0 0.0
Melhamīyeh . No records.
Jericho . . No records.
0.5
0.0
2.7
3.0
3.5
0.0
18.4
42.0
5.1
0.0
49.6
55.0
TABLE XXII
79
Direction.
SE. S. SW.
W. NW.
C.
10.4
3.0
11.7
7.2
4.8
1.6
9.
2
7.5
22.0
14.4
0.9
13.3
19.2
5.2
12.3
18.3
10.5
31.8
7.5
24.9
2.3
4.4
21.7
12.4
3.4
4.6
2.0
2.2
0.7
7.1
18.9
-4.3
37.4
21.8
42.0
12:4
NOVEMBER
Station.
N. NE. E.
Coast:
Beirut . . 11.0 12.1 8.3
Haifa . . 13.2 0.2 37.1
Sarona .
. 1:0 6:3 5.0
Jaffa
. 5.0 8.3 19.4
Gaza
1.6 0.9 16.9
El-'Arīsh . 6.2 11.4 3.7
Inland:
El-Qareya . 5.2 0.7 11.7
Qsāra . . 4.1 6.3 5.9
Nazareth. . 12.0 28.8 22.8
Jerusalem
. 2.4 1.8 23.0
El-Lātrūn . 5.3 1.4 16.1
Hebron , 11.0 7.9 11.9
Nekhl . . 3.3 3.3 4.2
Jordan Valley:
‘Ain et-Tābghah 3.7 2.3 14;6
Tiberias . : 0.0 0.0 10.0
Melhamiyeh . 12.6 2.3 1.1
Jericho. . No records.
10.1
1.1
8.4
3.5
15.0
7.9
3.3
12.8
5.9
6.
0
0.6
5.3
2.4
0.0
13.7
16.7
7 .2
4.0
10.0
3.0
17.5
16.4
20.7
6.0
28.9
11.9
21.7
60.0
4.0
6.7
8.8
5.0
20.6
34.1
8.3
25.4
32-6
0.0
30.8
14.4
0.3
0.0
1:1
0.0
0.0
5.1
0.0
4.6
2.6
0.0
0.0
13.1
13.0
1.1
2.9
0.0
4.6
54.6
77.0
73.6
16.1
3.4
16.8
7.5
2.6
1:2
12:2
8.
4
25.5
14.5
2-6
15.5
20.1
6 .1
8.4
16.7
22-8
38.5
5.7
15.6
3.6
1.1
11.6
15.7
3.0
3.8
0.6
1.1
0.9
4.7
14.4
2.7
28.7
22.6
44:3
11.8
DECEMBER
Coast:
Beirut . 8.0 8.9 11.6
Haifa . . 5:0 1:4 53.6
Sarona .
1.6 8.7 6.1
Jaffa
3.2 8.6 24.7
Gaza
. 1.3 0.2 13.7
El-'Arīsh
5.3 4:0
Inland:
El-Qareya 6.8 1.0 15.5
Qsāra .
2.5 9.7 9.0
Nazareth. 3.4 18.2 28.5
Jerusalem 0.8 0.8 25.2
El-Lātrūn . 3.6 2.3 21.8
Hebron.
7.4 7.4 13.0
Nekhl . . 3.1 4.8 1.6
Jordan Valley:
‘Ain et-Tābghah 3.1 5.6 24.8
Tiberias . . 0.0 0.0 29.0
Melhamiyeh . 8.2 24 2:4
Jericho . . No record.
7.8
3.2
20.5
3.6
15.2
10.9
1.6
9.7
5.4
6.8
0.8
4:0
3.1
0.0
11.8
13.6
14.8
7.1
19.2
5.2
17.0
16:1
21:
1
2.2
32.1
10.1
27.0
63.0
3:0
9 .7
5.6
2.5
13.7
26.1
8.9
28.3
25.8
0.0
27.1
10.1
0.0
0.0
2.8
0.0
10:6
4.7
3.0
15-3
5.8
0.0
15.3
9.5
0.0
8.2
2.5 41.2
0.0 68.0
8.2 29.4
CLIMATE
TABLE XXIII. WIND DIRECTIONS PER
An asterisk denotes less than 0.1.
JANUARY
Station.
N.
NE.
E.
Direction.
SE. S. SW. W. NW.
C.
.
6.6
7.0
4:1
0.9
4:0
8.1
2.0
3.4
0.9
4:0
8.6
41.0
10.2
9.1
4:0
15.9
5.0
5.5
1.3
1:0
8.6
11.0
15.6
0.8
13.0
17.3
4.0
14.5
20.4
21.0
5.4
12.0
5.5
7.
6
11:0
2.7
1.0
4.8
.5
4:0
11.5
1.0
21:3
43.5
11.0
0
Coast:
Beirut .
Haifa .
Jaffa
Gaza
El-'Arish.
Inland:
El-Qareya
Nazareth.
Jerusalem
El-Lātrūn
Hebron .
Nekhl .
.
.
5.9
4.0
2:0
3.2
5.0
1.6
1.3
17.0
0.8
2.4
6.2
1.6
13.0
24.0
20.6
14.5
7.9
0.5
7.0
12.0
1.4
11.8
8.8
1.6
7.6
8.0
1.2
.50
3.0
0.5
14.5
6.0
8.9
14.7
5.6
22.6
14.0
9.0
25.7
9.4
26.1
58.0
2.6
8.0
3.5
14.5
21.9
0.5
24.1
0.0
20.6
9.5
0.5
0.0
.
.
.
1
FEBRUARY
Coast:
Beirut .
Haifa
Jaffa .
Gaza
El-'Arīsh.
Inland:
El-Qareya
Nazareth.
Jerusalem
El-Lātrūn
Hebron .
Nekhl .
.
.
•
.
.
6.6
8.0
1.6
2.9
5.0
7.3
1.0
4.4
0.1
5.0
6.3
28.0
18.4
9.3
3.0.
10.0
1.0
9.8
2.8
1.0
6.9
11.0
10.8
0.8
10.0
20.1
4.0
11.9
15.1
21.0
4.2
18.
0
4.8
6.2
8.0
4.2
.0
3.3
1.6
4.0
11.7
3.0
11.9
38.2
10.0
.
.
.
.
.
.
KO
1.4
9.0
0.8
1.5
5.7
0.0
1.8
17.0
0.8
1.1
5.2
0.0
7.5
18.0
16.8
8.7
3.3
0.5
13.3
8.0
1.6
11.
5
3
6.9
5.0
0.6
.5
.7
2.1
11.7 18.8
7.0 9.0
5.3 30.3
13.7 15.2
4:2
7.0
3.4
12.0
213
164
0.0
18.0
7.9
0.0
0.0
.
MARCH
Coast:
Beirut
Haifa .
Jaffa
Gaza
El-'Arīsh.
Inland:
El-Qareya
Nazareth.
Jerusalem
El-Lātrūn
Hebron .
Nekhl .
·
.
9
10:
3
1.6
3.3 24.3
26.3 42.1
1.6
8.7
12:0
1.1
4.9
6:0
10.0
0:0
2.8
0.5
6:0
6.0
26.0
20.9
7.5
5:0
5.0
2.0
5.8
3.4
1.0
4.2
8.0
15.4
0.8
14.0
26.7
3.0
21.9
18.1
20.0
6.0
27.0
4.4
11.7
14.0
3.8
4.0
1.1
1.1
10.0
14:1
3.0
11.5
36.9
5.0
1.8
9.0
0.9
3.4
5.9
1:6
1.3
11.0
1.8
0.6
4.2
6:0
9.1 10.2
15.0 10.0
12.0 2.2
8.8 13.7
66 10:0
0.5 0.5
7.3
3.0
1.0
5.4
2.9
2.6
13.0
13.0
5.3
8.4
3.3
13.1
23.8
16.0
35.5
15.4
26.0
59.0
5.9
10.0
6.0
21.6
25.9
4.0
17.4
0.0
20.0
7.6
0.0
0.0
.
:
.
TABLE XXIII
81
.
THOUSAND OBSERVATIONS PER ANNUM
APRIL
Station.
N. NE. E.
. 7.3
. 15.0
1.1
. 2.9
. 7.0
11.1
1.0
0.5
0.4
9.0
4.3
17.0
27.4
9.8
7.0
Direction.
SE. S. SW. W. NW. C.
2.8 2.9 29.8 7.1 4.3 12.2
2.0 6.0 5.0 30.0 4:0 4:0
6.0 15.4 14.8 3.3 0.0 13.7
1.2 0.6 9.6 18.9 2.5 37.2
2:0 6:0 20.0 9.0 9.0 12:0
Coast:
Beirut .
Haifa .
Jaffa
Gaza
El-Arīsh.
Inland:
El-Qareya
Nazareth.
Jerusalem
El-Lātrūn
Hebron .
Nekhl .
.
•
.
.
1.5
9.0
1.1
3.2
8.6
6.0
0.8
8.0
1.5
1.4
3.5
8.0
4.5
15.0
13.7
7.0
9.1
4.2
17.9
7.0
2.2
14.1
10.3
1.6
4.2
1.0
1.1
4:0
3.4
8.0
11.8
8.0
2.3
5.6
2.5
12.1
24.2
17.0
31.1
11.3
18.8
35.3
4.8
12.0
9.4
25.1
25.6
4.2
15.4
0.0
20.0
10.5
0.5
0.0
.
MAY
. 101
. 12.0
: 0.0
• 5.1
. 13.0
12.2
1.0
0.8
0.0
12.0
3.4
11.0
17.8
15.1
9.0
0.9
1.0
4.7
2.3
3.0
2.5
6.0
16.7
0.4
8.0
28.5
5.0
21.1
8.0
13.0
8.7
36.0
1.4
24.9
8.0
6.7
7.0
0.0
3.0
9.0
11.7
5.0
22:4
26.2
11.0
Coast:
Beirut .
Haifa
Jaffa
Gaza
El-'Arish.
Inland:
El-Qareya
Nazareth.
Jerusalem
El-Lâtrūn
Hebron.
Nekhl .
.
5.3
19.0
3.8
3.3
9.8
2.6
2.6
8.0
1.7
1.5
3.4
8.4
6.7
5.0
10.0
3.7
5.9
60
14.0
9.0
1.6
12:0
8.1
1.6
3.8
2.0
0.8
4.3
5.0
0.5
4.6
19.0
2.6
2.7
5.4
13.1
22.6
13.0
31.5
7.5
13.7
48.3
10.1
11.0
15.7
35.5
33.2
6.3
21.6
0.0
17.3
14:3
0.1
0.0
.
JUNE
6:1
8.0
0.0
6:1
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
5.0
1:0
3.0
4.1
13.9
2.0
0:1
1:0
8.8
0.6
1.0
2.2 . 41.3
4:0 7.0
27.3 21:3
1.1 1.1
4.0 11.0
11.7
50.0
2.2
25.0
8.0
4.1
6.0
0.6
1.6
17.0
9.5
4.0
17.9
34.4
14.0
4:1
. 20.0
Coast:
Beirut .
Haifa
Jaffa
Gaza
El-Arīsh.
Inland:
El-Qareya
Nazareth.
Jerusalem
El-Lātrūn
Hebron.
Nekhl .
.
.
6.3
11.0
2.9
2.5
9.6
5.3
2.8
5.0
1.1
0.3
2.5
11.0
2.4
3.0
2.3
1.0
2.3
2.6
2.5
2.0
0.3
9.6
1.7
1.6
2.8
0.0
0.2
4.4
1.4
1.6
1.1
20.0
0.6
2.2
1.8
10.5
25.6 12.6
22.0 21.0
40.3 22.1
7.5 42.0
11.8 51.0
42.1 4.2
30.6
0.0
13.4
12.5
0.1
0.0
.
.
SYRIA
82
CLIMATE
JULY
Station.
Direction.
SE. S. SW.
N.
NE.
E.
W. NW.
C.
Coast:
Beirut
Haifa
.
..
.
.
3.7
1.0
0.0
1.4
14:0
1.4
0.0
0.7
0.5
2:0.
0.3
1.0
0.7
14.2
*
13.5
53.0
2.1
24.6
14.0
8.3
3.0
8.9
38.4
11.0
.
Gaza
El-'Arīsh.
Inland:
El-Qareya
Nazareth.
Jerusalem
El-Lātrūn
Hebron.
Nekhl
.
:
:
.
.
5.9
6.0
1.6
0.9
8.7
7.0
0.7
0.0
0.0
0.1
1.5
9.0
0.6
2.0
0.4
0.9
1.0
4:2
17.4
26.0
43.8
9.7
13.9
53.1
35.3
0.0
12.0
12.5
0.1
0.0
AUGUST
.
5.0
4:0
0.0
• 3.0
• 11.0
3.3
0:0
0.0
0.0
1.0
0.6
2:0
0.8
15.7
*
16.1
50.0
0.8
20.8
15.0
11:0
4.0
12.1
35.4
16.0
Coast:
Beirut .
Haifa
Jaffa
Gaza
El-'Arish.
Inland:
El-Qareya
Nazareth.
Jerusalem
El-Lātrūn
Hebron .
Nekhl .
.
•
.
.
.
6.3
9.0
1.9
5.2
8.7
5:0
1.1
1.0
0.4
0.1
1.6
12.1
0.6
0.0
0.4
1.8
0.3
1.6
14.4
33.0
37.3
7.2
8.2
49.4
36.5
0.0
13.8
10.8
0.7
0.0
SEPTEMBER
Coast:
Beirut .
Haifa .
Jaffa .
Gaza
El-'Arish.
Inland:
. 13.5
17.0
.
. 0.0
0.0
. 1.6
. 11:0
10.0
1.0
104
1.4
0.0
4:0
1.4
7.0
2.7
20.5
1:0
12.3
37.0
8.0
22.3
10.0
10.3
6.0
27.5
31.6
18.0
0.1
1.0
8.2
0.4
*
3.7
9.0
26.0
0.4
2.0
50.9
16.0
32.1
4:2
25.0
2.8
2.0
6.2
0.9
15.0
1.0
0.0
0.0
11.8
0.3
1.6
2.9
0.0
0.1
4.4
0.7
0.0
1.8
33.0
0.8
2.9
1.4
8.0
15.0
15.0
25.9
41.6
57.3
4.2
0.1
1.0
13.8
0.3
0.0
4.5
7.0
40.2
1.1
3.0
38.2
12.0
17.1
1.6
20.0
5.9
5.0
0.0
7.0
17.0
2.5
1.0
0.1
15.3
1.6
0.5
4:1
0.0
0.1
1.8
1.3
0.0
1:0
18.0
0.5
0.8
0.9
12.1
13.7
22.0
30.0
41.8
61.6
6.3
El-Qareya
Nazareth.
Jerusalem
El-Lâtrūn
Hebron.
Nekhl .
0.3
1.0
4.8
0.3
*
2.6
2.0
19.2
0.0
4.0
24.8
4.0
18.6
2.4
21.0
7.9
8.0
0.0
3.2
19.0
4:6
· 18.0
. 4:2
: 7.9
. 13.6
. 10.5
4.6
5.0
1.6
1.1
2.1
24.0
2.9
5.0
4:0
3.7
2:3
2.6
1.8
2.0
1.0
12.9
2.6
0.5
3.8
1.0
0.0
1.7
1.6
0.0
8.0
12.0
1.4
0.9
1.0
6.3
15.3
19.0
28.7
4.7
9.5
31.0
7.0
19.0
24.6
38.7
49.4
4:2
30.4
0.0
16.6
10.6
0.2
0.0
TABLE XXIII
OCTOBER
Station.
N. NE. E.
Direction.
SE. S. SW. W. NW. C.
Coast:
. 17.0
• 17.0
: 0.0
2.5
. 15.0
16.5
1.0
1.4
0.4
8.0
3.8
20.0
15.5
19.4
3.0
2.2
2.0
9.6
4.3
1.0
3.6
3.0
17.2
0.7
12.0
16.7
2:0
151
2.0
16.0
5.3
26.
0
2:1
21.7
14.0
4.3
8 .0
0.0
4.2
12.0
15.3
5.0
24.0
29.8
12:0
Jaffa
Gaza
El-'Arish.
Inland:
El-Qareya
Nazareth.
Jerusalem
El-Lātrūn
Hebron .
· Nekhl .
. 2.1
• 25.0
. 2.5
. 8.7
. 12.0
. 6.3
0.8
17.0
2.6
1.3
7.1
20.5
10.8
11.0
15.8
9.4
6.5
1.6
10.4
6.0
1.3
13.2
6.6
2:6
5.6
2.0
0.6
2.9
1.3
0:0
7.0
3.0
1.6
3.4
2.3
12:1
19.5
5.0
22:7
6.6
11.9
42:1
5.6
11.0
110
30.1
36.4
2:1
17.2
0.0
26•2
9.4
0.9
0.0
NOVEMBER
. 9.1
. 13.0
• 4:1
. 1.3
: 5.0
9.8
0.0
6.8
0.7
10.0
6.7
29.0
15.9
13.9
3.0
8.5
2.0
5.7
3.9
1.0
7.3
6.0
11.9
0.7
12.0
15.6
4.0
14.1
8.6
28.0
6.4
19.0
13.6
17.8
11:0
27.0
4.0
1.9
0.6
6:0
15.6
5.0
18.2
34.4
11.0
Coast:
Beirut .
Haifa .
Jaffa .
Gaza
El-'Arīsh.
Inland:
El-Qareya
Nazareth.
Jerusalem
El-Lātrūn
Hebron .
Nekhl .
. 4.6
. 10.0
2.0
. 4.3
9.6
.
. 2.6
0.4
24.0
1.5
1.1
7.6
26
9.5
19.0
18.8
13.2
8.9
3.1
8.7
7.0
2.9
12.3
6.5
26
7.8
5.0
0.5
4.3
2.1
0:0
15.3 13.2
6.0 5.0
3.3 23.7
8.2 9.8
2.9 16.2
13.6 47.3
2.9
7.0
4:1
16.9
28.1
6.3
16.2
0.0
24.5
11.9
0.3
0.0
•
DECEMBER
Coast:
Beirut .
Haifa ..
Jaffa .
Gaza .
El-'Arīsh.
Inland:
El-Qareya
Nazareth.
Jerusalem
El-Lātrūn
Hebron .
Nekhl
6.7
5.0
2.8
1:1
3:0
7.5
1.0
7.5
0:2
5:0
10.1
45.0
21.0
11.6
4:0
13.5
3.0
6.3
2.2
1.0
10.2
7.0
12.3
2.2
14.0
17.0
4.0
14:0
19.4
35.0
5.0
13.0
0.8
9.9
14:0
2-6
4.0
0.8
0.8
4:0
12:1
3.0
19.4
37.7
11:0
5.9
3.0
0.7
3.1
6.3
2-6
1.1
16.0
0.7
1.9
7.5
4:2
.
.
.
13.4 5.5
25.0 18.0
21.1 3.0
18.5 12.9
10.3 9.4
1.6 1.6
5.4
6.0
0.7
3:4
2.5
0.0
14.7
13.0
6.0
16.3
4.6
15.0
15.3
2.0
27.0
8.6
21.0
54.2
2.6
5.0
2.1
11.6
23.4
8.0
17.9
0.0
22.8
8.6
0.0
0.0
F 2
CLIMATE
TABLE XXIV. (a) STRENGTH OF WIND AT EL-QAREYA FOR THE
YEARS 1901-5 INCLUSIVE (BEAUFORT SCALE (-12) AT 7.30 hr.,
13 hr., and 19 hr.
No. of observa-
tions of Calm.
Mean strength,
including Calms.
Remarks.
N. NE. E. SE. S. SW. W. NW.
JANUARY
At 7.30 hr. . 2.3 2.5 5.0 5.0 2.9 2.5 3.4 2.0
,, 13 , 2.3 2.0 5.7 4.7 2.7 3.0 3.3 2.2
„ 19 „ . 2:0 4:0 6.7 5.6 3.0 2.5 4:0 2.9
100
O
O
or
9.2
15.6
2.3
FEBRUARY
At 7.30 hr. . 2:0
13 , 2.3
, 19 „ . 2-5
2:0
2.4
0.0
6:2
4.9
5.5
4:3
4.6
4.7
3.0
2.2
3.0
3.2
3.1
4.0
2.4 2.4
2.9 2.4
2.7 * 2.6
8.0
6.6
12:2
N
2.0
2.5
0.0
5.2
5.4
5.0
5.1
4.8
4.2
3.2
3.1
3.0
3.8
3.1
3.6
4.2
3.7
3.1
2.8
3.1
3.1
7.2
3.6
10.0
3:0
3.0
2.3
MARCH
At 7.30 hr. . 2.7
, 13 , . 2.8
, 19 „ . 3.0
APRIL
At 7.30 hr. . 2:4
,, 13 , 3.2
,, 19 , . 3.1
3.0
2:4
3.2
2.0
5.2
5.0
4.8
5.0
4.2
3.9
3.4
3.3
3.0
4.0
2.8
3.1
3.6
4.0
3.8
2.6
2.9
2.6
8.0
4.6
9.4
3.2
2.4
MAY
At 7.30 hr. . 2.3
, 13 , 3.5
, 19 , . 2:0
2:4
2.9
3.5
2.7
4:0
3.0
2.8
3.7
3.5
3.3
3.2
2.7
2.1
4.2
5.5
4.4
364
3.7
2.9
2.2
3.7
2.5
8.0
3.2
13.2
3.2
1.6
JUNE
At 7.30 hr. . 2.2
, 13 „ . 3.6
,, 19 „ . 3.0
2.9
4.7
2.7
3.3
0.0
4:0
3.6
2.0
4:0
2.3
2.3
2:0
4:0
2.7
2:0
3.9
3.2
3.5
2.6
3.1
2.0
16.2
2.0
20.0
1.2) 1901
3.0 Records
0.9) Missing
TABLE XXIV
No. of observa-
tions of Calm.
Mean strength,
including Calms.
Remarks.
2
N. NE. E. SE. S. SW. W. NW.
JULY
At 7.30 hr. . 2:0 2:0 4:0 4:0 2.8 6:0 2.8 2.4
, 13 , . 3.9 3.3 0.0 0.0 3.0 0.0 3.7 3.1
, 19 „ . 2.7 0.0 0.0 2:0 2:0 2:0 2.4 2.0
20-4
2.8
22.7
0.6
AUGUST
At 7.30 hr. . 3:0
.., 13 .34
, 19 „, . 2:0
0:0
40
4:0
2.7
0.0
0:0
4:0
0.0
2:7
4:0
0.0
0.0
2:0
4.8
4:0
2.5
2.9
2:0
2.0
2.6
2.7
25.2
1.5
25.8
0.61 1901
2.7 ) Records
0.4
Missing
SEPTEMBER
At 7.30 hr. . 3.1 4.0
, 13 , . 3.2 3.1
,19 , . 2:0 2:0
1.5
4.8
3.6
6:0
5.0
3.0
2.8
2.3
2.0
2.5
2.7
2.7
3.0
3.0
3.3
2.5
2.8
2.6
2.0
17.5
3.0
18.0
2.6
1.1
OCTOBER
At 7.30 hr. . 2.7
13 , . 3.1
„ 19 „ . 2.4
2.4
0.0
4.0
0.0
3.9
5.3
3.8
4:0
5.1
3.7
2.9
2.8
2.6
3.6
34
3.6
3.1
3.0
2.9
2.0
3.6
3.0
10.0
5.2
12:2
2.8
2.0
NOVEMBER
At 7.30 hr. . 2:4
„ 13 . 23
, 19 , .0.0
9.0
4:0
2:0
0.0
4:0
4:0
3.6
5.5
4.9
4.8
3.6
3.3
3.9
3.4
3.0
3.2
3.9
3.8
3.5
4.0
3.3
3.3
7.4
13.2
2:7
2.7
2.0
DECEMBER
At 7.30 hr. . 2.9
„ 13 . 2.5
» 19 . 2.4
2.7
0.0
4.0
4.0
4.4
4.7
5.0
4.8
4.4
4.0
2.5
2.5
3.5
504
4.0
3.3
3.8
3.7
4.0
2.5
2.8
2.7
8.8
9.8
11.8
2.4
24
86
CLIMATE
(6) STRENGTH OF WIND AT EL-LĀTRŪN FOR THE FIVE YEARS
1908–12 INCLUSIVE (BEAUFORT SCALE 0-12) AT 6 hr.,
12 hr., and 18 hr.
(The figures in brackets represent solitary winds of abnormal strength.)
N. NNE. NE. ENE. E. ESE. SE. SSE.
JANUARY
At 6 hr. . - - 4.0 4.0 5.0 5.2 3.0 4.0
: 4.0 4.0 2.0 4.0 5.6 5.4 4.0 -
, 18 , . 2.2
2.0
3.8
$.
3.6
5.2
4.0
6.0
3.0
2.8
FEBRU ARY
At 6 hr.
,, 12 , .
» 18 , .
2.2
4.4
6.0
5.0
3.6
6.0
3.2
3.2
4.2
5•2
6.0
3.4
3.6
3.4
2.0
3.4
3.4
4.3
MARCH
At 6 hr. .
„ 12 , :
„ 18 , :
3:0
3.0
-
2.2
2.0
6.0
6.8
4.4
[8.0]
7.5
3:2
6.4
2.0
2.0
3.4
6.0
4.0
APRIL
At 6 hr. .
„ 12 , .
» 18 , .
2.0
2.0
4:0
2:0
4:0
2.0
2:0 2:0
4.0
3.0
6.0
5.4
5.4
4.2
6.4
5.0
2.8
4.6
4:0
3.6
4.6
4:0
2.6
4.4
-
2.0
2.8
MAY
At 6 hr. .
» 12 , .
„ 18 , .
4.0
34 4:0
4.0
2.0
-
2.2
4:0
2:0
4:0
[6•0]
4.8
4.0
3:0
3.0
5.6
4:0
4:0
4:0
4.6
4:0
2.0
JUNE
At 6 hr.
» 12 ,
4.0
2.6
!!
. 5.4
, 34
811
2.6
4.6
18 ,,
2.0
il
TABLE XXIV
Mean No. Mean
of observa- strength,
tions of including
SSW. SW. WSW. W. WNW. NW. NNW. Calm. Calms.
1
6.4
4.0
4.6
4.8
3.0
4.8
6•0
4.8
5.4
36
3.2
4.6
5:4
4.0
2:0
3:4
2.3
5:0
2:0
2.0
2.6
2:4
3.96
4.12
2:44
At 6
„ 12 ,
, 18 ,
4.2
5.4
[6.07
5.6
6.4
2:0
A Orla
6.0
5.0
3.8
7.0
4.6
3.8
2.4
1.6
5.4
3.76
4:72
4.0
2.1
2.0
2.0
4.4
6.6
2.68
6.0
4.0
den
4.6
5.6
5.0
4.2
6.0
5.4
3.4
4.2
4:0
-
2:0
3.8
2.2
5.0
3.6
3.4
3.2
1.4
4.0
3:56
4.60
2.70
6.0
2.2
4.4
[6.01
5.6
2.76
4.6
4.8
40
5.4
5.0
3.4
5.0
3.6
6.0
2.2
3.0
4:2
2.3
4:0
2.0
7.6
1.0
4.6
4.52
2:40
1
2.6
4:0
-
5.6
4.0
[6.0]
6.0
5.6
-
4:0
5.4
3.2
4:0
5.2
2.0
2.0
4.4
2:4
10.4.
0.2
6:4
2.24
4.60
4.6
2:0
1.92
2.6
4.0
3.4
5.0
el
4.0
4.4
4.
4.0
5.8
0 4.
5.8
4.8
5:0
2.6
-
12.6
0.4
4.0
4.8
3.0
1.44
5:04
2:48
,
88
, CLIMATE
N.
NNE. NE. ENE.
E.
ESE. SE.
SSE.
S.
2.6
JULY
At 6 hr. .
» 12 „ .
„, 18 , .
2.4
2.2
....
131
II.
IT
2.2
AUGUST
At 6 hr.
, 12 „
, 18 ,
2.0
3.4
.
.
4.0
3.6
||
il Ullll
do
SEPTEMBER
At 6 hr. .
,, 12 , .
, 18 , .
2:0
4.0
2.6
[6.0]
leto
4.0
2.6
OCTOBER
At 6 hr. .
„ 12 . .
, 18 , .
2:0
3.6
2.6
2.6
llen
4.0
5.0
5.0
6:0
3.4
4.0
-
4:0
I
NOVEMBER
At 6 hr. .
9 12 , .
9 18 , :
3.8
3.8
2.4
[6.0]
6:0
2.0
5.2
6.8
4:0
3.4
2:0
2:0
3.4
4.0
4.0
DECEMBER
At 6 hr.
» 12 , .
:
3.0
2.8
2.0
5.2
6.2
4.8
4.0
. 18
,
.
2.6
2.2
2.6
-
2:2
-
3.6
8.0
2.4
6.0
2.0
4:0
2.0
2:6
4.2
5.8
4:0
3.2
5.4
4.0
2.8
[6•0]
16.07
2.0
2.8
2.8
4.0
[8.0]
2.0
3.0
5.4
4.4
60
4.6
TABLE XXIV
Mean No. Mean
of observa- strength,
tions of including
SSW. SW. WSW. W. WNW. NW. NNW. Calm. Calms.
2.6
3.0
3.8
4.8
4.0
[8.0]
6.0
5.6
3-2
5.4
2.0
5.0
2.6
4.8
2.0
12:2
0.0
3.4
1.60 At 6 hr.
5•24 „ 12 ,
2.40 , 18 ,
4.8
5.0
5.0
6.0
4.0
4.6
2.6
5.8
3.0
12.0
0.0
2.8
1.44
4.80
2.60
„
,
12 ,
-
1.32
[6.0]
3.0
[6.0]
[6.0]
54
-
14.0
0.4
is
5.4
304
4.6
2.8
5.2
3.2
2.0
4.68
2.72
2.40
5.0)
5.8
4.0
[6.0]
5.8
-
5.0
4.8
1.2
4.0
6.0
4.6
8.0
5.5
4.0
4.80
2.20
4:0
4:0
40
3.0
3.00
4.0
4.8
4.4
4:0
4:0
[6.0]
4.6
3.6
4.0
2.4
16.07
IL
4:32
2.4
2-16
16•0]
5.0
4.0
옆
​6.0
5.4
5.6
4.2
3.0
[6.07
2.0
1.6
6.0
4.28
4.60
2.84
3.2
3.6
2:1
90
CLIMATE
(c) THE AVERAGE ESTIMATED STRENGTH OF WIND (BEAUFORT
SCALE 0-12) AT SARONA FOR THE 10 YEARS 1880–89
Mean No. o,
Mean days of Wind
No. of Beaufort
days of 'Scale
N. NE. E. SE. S. SW. W. NW. Calm. 4 or more.
January . 2.4 1.6 1.4 1.4 2.4 3.8 3.4 3.6
3.8
February .
2.2 1.6 1.8 1.2 2.6 3.0 3.8 3.0
4.8
March
. 0.8 1.0 2.0 2.2 2.0 2.6 3.4 1.6
5.3
April
2:2 1:2 2.6 2.0 2.2 3.0 2.8 1.2
4.9
2.8 1.0 1.6 2.2 1.4 1.2
June
1.0 1.0 1.0 1.6 2.0 1.6 1.6
1.9
July
1.0 1.0 1.0 1.8 1.4 1.4
August
1.0 1.0 1.4 1.8 1.4 1.2
1.2
September . 1.6 1.8 – 1.0 1.6 1.6 1.4 1.2
1.4
October
. 1.4 1.4 3.6 2.0 1.8 1.8 2.2 1.4
2.0
November. . 1.6 1.4 3.2 1.2 2.2 3.0 2.2 1.2
3.0
December. . 2.2 1.2 1.4 1.4 2.4 3.0 4.6° 1.0 9
3.5
Total
Total
Calms in
year
Mean strength. 1.8 1.4 2.4 1.4 2.2 2.2 2.0 1.6 89 34.9
May
l•2
2.0 -
. . . .
ócio
Oo
oo
. . . .
Tipo
B
P
.
No. OF STRONG WINDS PER ANNUM OF
Beaufort scale : 4.0 5.0 6.0 7.0 8.0 9.0 10.0 12.0
Total
Mean . . 20.9 3.1 5.9 0.5 3.1 0.6 0.6 0.2 34.9
Max. in year . 30 8 10 4 6 3 3 1
Min, in year 9 0 2 0 0 0 0 0 20
48
(d) WIND STRENGTH AT TIBERIAS 1910 (BEAUFORT SCALE)
N.
January , 1.5
February
. 0.0
March . 1.5
April , . 0.0
May. . 0.0
June . . 0.0
Mean of Year
E.
2.0
2.3
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
.
S.
0.0
0.0
2.0
0:0
0.0
0.0
.
W.
1.3
1.0
2.0
2.3
2.3
2.3
.
N.
July. 0.0
August - 0.0
September . 0:0
October .0.0
November, 0.0
December . 0:0
. . . 1.5
E.
00
0.0
0.0
0.0
2.7
2:4
2.4
S.
0.0
0.0
0.0
1.0
0.0
1.0
1.6
W.
2.3
2.5
2.0
1.5
2.2
0.0
2.2
.
TABLE XXIV
(e) WIND STRENGTH AT MELHAMĪYEH, MORNING, AFTERNOON
AND EVENING, 1905-6 (BEAUFORT SCALE)
1.6
1.2
1.1
1.2
January
February
March
April.
May .
June.
July .
August
September
October
November
December.
Morn. Aft. Even. Mean. Max.
2.2 1.2 1.7 - 6.0
1.6 2.5 1.0 1.9 8.4
1.3 2.0 1.3 1.6 6.0
1:8
1.3 6.0
2.5 1.1 1.7 6.0
3.8 1.2 2.0 8.4
1.1 4.3 0.5
0.8 2.6
0.5
1:3 6.0
No records.
0.7 - 0.4 0.4 - 6.0
2.0 2.2 2.3 2.2 8.4
1.9
6.0
(f) WIND STRENGTH AT JERICHO, 1899, 1900 (BEAUFORT SCALE)
,
ryhr. 13 hr. 21 hr. Mean.
January. 1.2 3.0 1.3 1.8
February 1.7 2.6 1.8 2.0
March : No record
April · 1.4 3.6 2.4 2.5
y hr. 13 hr. 21 hr. Mean.
May 2:0 3.2 2.6 2.6
June , 1.8 4:4 2.5 2.9
July 1:0 2.9 1.6 1.8
August-December. No records.
(9) MEAN WIND STRENGTH AT 'AIN ET-TĀBGHAH (BEAUFORT SCALE)
at 7 hr., 13 hr., and 21 hr., 3-4 years between 1909 and 1915
Days of
Days of
y hr. 13 hr. 21 hr. Storm.
ý hr. 13 hr. 21 hr. Storm.
January 2.0 1.9 1.8 0.5 July 12 4:1 2.8 1.7
February 1.6 2.0 2.3 1.2
August . 0.7 3.1 2.6 0.3
March : 1.1 2.6 1.5 0.5 September 0.8 2.2 1.8 0.2
April . 1:0
1.8 1.0
October . 0.6 1.4 1.8 0.0
May . 1.2 2.8 1.6 0.8
November 1.0 1.3 1.5 0.8
June
3:2 2.6 1.3
December 1.8 2.0 ].7 1.0
2.6
CLIMATE
........
45
66
46
62
27
35
.
TABLE XXV. LATITUDE, LONGITUDE, AND ALTITUDE OF
METEOROLOGICAL STATIONS
Latitude N. Longitude E. Alt.
Coast:
Adana . .
37 15
35 21
Beirut .
33 54
Haifa .
Jaffa ,
Sarona .
47
Gaza
27
El-'Arish
Inland:
| 3,200
'Aintāb.
2,755
El-Qareya .
3,330
Qsāra .
3,030
Damascus
2,306
'Ain et-Tābghah
-682
Tiberias.
-653
Nazureth
1,608
Melhamiyeh.
-770
Wilhelma
Jericho .
El-Lātrūn
Qasr Hajleh
31 50 (?) 35 30 (2)
Jerusalem
2,200
Bethlehem
2,342
Hebron .
31 31
2,900
Nekhl. .
29 54
33 45
1,300
...............
ನನಗದದ
KEY TO REFERENCES AND PERIODS
Table XIII
Table XIV
Number of
rain days. |
Mean
relative
humidity.
Table XV
Relative
humidity:
morning,
afternoon,
evening.
Tables i
Table XVI XVII-XXI Table XXII Table XXII
Days with
Wind
hail, thunder-
Winds,
directions
Cloud.
storms,
per 1,000
per cent.
fog, storm,
observations
Snow.
ре аппит.
1908 and
1909
1876-1900 / 1876-1900 1884–1908.1884–1908
1876-1900
1907-12,
less 1910
| 1876–1905
1896–1905
1880–89,
1896–1905
1876–1905
1896–1905
1896–1905
1897-1904
1896–1905
1896-1905
1896-1905
1880–89,
1896–1905
i 1897-04
1880-89
1896–1905
+
Jaffa .
1907-12
1907-12
1907-12
.
1907-12
..
.
J
- -
Gaza.
1896-1905
1896-1905
1907-12
1907-12
1896-1905
1907-12
1 1896–1905
| 1907-12
| 1896-1905
1907-12
1900-04
1907-12
1900–04
1907-12
-
1884-85
1867-68
| 1884-85
Table I Table II Table III Table IV Table V Table VI Table VII Table VIII Table IX Table XL Table XI 1 Table XII
Mean daily | Mean daily
Mean
Mean
Monthly Absolute Absolute
Mean
Maximum Minimum Maximum
Dileum
Station.
minimum 1 maximum
monthly monthly
range of minimum , maximum monthly rainfall rainfall | rainfall
temperaturc.
Co | temperature. I temperature.
minimum maximum
temperature. temperature. I temperature. rainfali. in month. in month. in day.
temperature. temperature.
Adana . . Ann. du Bur. Cent. Mét, de France ; Hann, Hand- | 1907-12, 1907–12, 1907–12, 1907-12, 1907-12, 1907–12, 1907–12, 1907–12, 1907-12, 1907–12, 1907–12,
buch der Klimatologie.
less 1910 less 19101 less 1910 | less 1910 | less 1910 | less 1910 1 less 1910 | less 1910 | less 1910 | less 1910 | less 1910
Beirut
Kostlivy, Climatische Verhältnisse von Beirut | 1876-1900 | 1876–1905 1876-1900 1876-1900 | 1876–1900 1876-1900 1876–1905 1876-1905 1876-1905 1876–1900 1876–1900 1876–1905
(Prague, 1905); Mediterranean Pilot, vol. v.
Haifa
Exner (see below); Heinrich Hilderscheid (see 1896–1905
1896–1905 1896–1905 1896-1905
1884–1905 | 1884-1905 1884–1905 1896–1904
below); Austrian Annals (Wien), 1904 (p. 90).
Sarona
Exner, Zum Klima von Palästina,' Zeitschrift 1896–19:05 1880-89 1880-89 1880–89,
1880–89, 1880-89 1880-89 | 1880–89, 1880–89 | 1880–89 1880–89
des Deutschen Palästina-Vereins, vol. xxxiii,
1896-1905 1896-1905 1896–1905
1896-1905
Leipzig (K.P.); H. Hilderscheid, “Die Nieder-
schlagsverhältnisse Palästinas in alter und
neuer Zeit,' 2.D.P.P., vol. xxv (N.P.); Quarterly
Statement, Palestine Exploration Fund, Jas.
Glaisher (Q.S.P.E.F.)
. Ann. du Bur. Cent. Mét. de France; Q.S.P.E.F. 1907-12 1907-12 1907-12 1907-12 1907-12 1907-12 1907-12 1907-12 1902–12 1902–12 1907-12
(Rain, 1913, p. 45).
Exner (see above)
1896–1905
1896–1905 | 1896-1905 | 1896-1905
1896–1905
El-Arish .. . Met. Report, Survey Dept., Ministry of Finance,
1907–12
1907-12 | 1907-12 1907-12 1907-12 1907-12 1907-12 1907–12 1907–12 1907-12
Egypt.
Damascus. Q. J. Scot. Met. Soc., vol. ii, p. 228; Buchan, 1843-44, (1867–68, 1867–68,
| 1867–68, 1867-68, | 1867,
-
Report on Atmos. Circulation, Challenger |
ion Challenger| 1867-68.1 1884-85 1884-85
1884-85 1884-85 1884-85
Report ; C. Diener, Libanon.
1832, .
1884-85
‘Aintāb . . J. Hann, Handbuch der Klimatologie, vol.iii.
32 years
El-Qareya. . din. du Bur. Cent. Mét. de France; Herbert 1901-10
1901-10
1901-10 1901-10 1901–10 1901-10 1901-10 1901-10 1900-10 1900-10 1900-10 | 1901-05
Krugler, Die Windverhältnisse im östlichen
Mittelmeer.
Qsāra
Ann. du Bur. Cent. Mét, de France .
1912-12 1910-12 1910–12 1910-12 1910-12 1910–12 1910–12 1910-12 | 1910-12 1910-12 1910–12 1912
'Ain et-Tābghah Zeitschrift des Deutschen Palästina-Vereins, vol. 1909–12,
1909-12, 1909-12, 1909-12, . 1909-12, 1909-12, 1909-12, 1909-12, 1909-12, 1909-12,
for 1910, &c.
1915
1915
1915
1915
1915
1915
1914-15 1914-15 1914-15 | 1914-15
Tiberias . . Quarterly Statement, Pal. Exploration Fund ; | 1890-1995 1890–1905 1890-1905 | 1890-1905 1890–1905 1890-1905 .1890-99 1890-99 1890–99, 1890–1907 1890-1907 1890-99
Klima von Palästina' (K.P.)
1904-08
Nazareth . ./ Klima von Palästina' (K.P.)
1891-1906 1891-1906 | 1891–1906 1891–1906 | 1891-1906 | 1891–1906 1891–1906 1891–1906 1891–1907 1891-1907 1891–1907
Melhamīyeh . Klima von Palästina' (K.P.); Blanckenhorn 1896-1905
1896-1905 | 1896-1905 | 1896-1905 ; 1905-08 1905-08 1896–1905
(see below).
El-Lātrūn. . Ann. du Bur. Cent. Mét, de France .
1901 1901–12 | 1901–12 1901-12, 1901-12, 1901-12, 1901-12, 1901-12, | 1901-12 1901-12 1901-12 1906–12
less 1903 less 1903– less 1903 less 1903 less 1903-
04
Jerusalem. . Klima von Palästina' (K.P.); ‘Niederschlags- | 18RA. 1882–1901 1882–1901 1882–1901 | 1882–1901 | 1882–1901 / 1864–71, 1864-71, | 1861-1907 | 1860-99 1860-99 1884-99
verhält. Pal.' (N.P.); J. Glaisher, Q.S.P.E.F., 198 .
1882–96 1882-96
1898; Krugler.
Hebron .. R. J. Scot. Met. Soc., vols. xii-xvii; Krugler; 1896
1896–1914 1896-1914' 1896–1914 1896–1914 | 1896–1914 1896–1914 (1896–1914 1896–1914 1896–1914 1896–1914 1896–1914
Klima von Palästina' (K.P.)
Nekhl
Met. Report, Survey Dept., Ministry of Finance, | 1908-- 1908–12 1908-12 1908–12 1908–12 1908–12 1908–12 1908-12 1907–12 | 1907–12 1907–12 1907–12
Egypt.
Max Blanckenhorn, 'Stud. üb. d. Klima des
Jericho
| 1896
1899--1900 / 1899-1900
Jordanthals,' (Z.D.P.V., vol. xxxii); Exner,
Qasr Hajleh
1on
1906
1906
1906
1906
1906
1906
Klima von Palästina' (K.P.)
1900-10
1900-10
1900-10
1900-10
1901-05
1901-10
i 1901-10
1910–12
1910-12
1910–12
1909-12,
1914-15
1890-1907
1910-12
1909-12,
1915
2 years
| 1909-12,
1915
1911-12
| 1909-12,
1915
1896-1905
1896–1905
1891-1906
1891-1907
1896–1905
1891-1904
1-2 years
1891–1906
1905–06
1901-12
1903–12
1903-12
1905–12
1905–12
04
04
04
04
1861–1907
1896–1905
1896–1905
1901-12 1906-12
(16 years to
1 1882
..1896-1905
10 years to
1905
1896-1914
1895–1908 ! 1895-1908
1896–1914
1896–1914
1
1896–1914
1907-12
1899-1912,
less 1903-08
1907–12
1907-12
1
1899–1900
1899-1900
1906 -
1906
1 1
SYRIA
[To face p. 92.
CHAPTER III
MINERALS, FLORA, AND FAUNA
MINERALS
In general, it may be said that Syria is poorer in minerals
than in other resources, but it is difficult to say positively
whether this is due to an actual lack of minerals or to insuffi-
cient exploration. Comparatively few mines have so far
been discovered and, except perhaps the workers in iron,
few of the people have ever depended on mining for their
livelihood.
Iron.—The Lebanon in ancient and modern times has
times is that of Majerba in Wādi Sannīn, west of Jebel
Sannin in northern Lebanon, where the ore is rich and the
iron good. In south Lebanon, the amount of iron obtained
is insignificant and unprofitable. In southern Syria there is
no good evidence of iron except east of the Jordan at Maghāret
el-Wardeh, SSE. of Rājib (Southern ‘Ajlūn), where a hill has
been tunnelled for it; see further, p. 601. Manganese is fre-
quently found in conibination with iron. Post says (1890):
' At present the production of iron in Syria is probably smaller
than at any previous period, owing largely to the disappear-
ance of the forests which furnished the charcoal used in
smelting.'
Coal. In the southern Amanus there is anthracite. Such
coal as there is in Lebanon is mostly a tar coal, some of
it so mixed with sulphur ore that it cannot be utilized
and transport is another difficulty. The principal workings
of lignite are at Heitūreh near Jezzīn in south Lebanon,
where there is a comparatively rich mine. The lignite
is here found in strata varying from 40-120 cm, in thick-
ness, and it is reported that, during the war, 50–100 tons
·94
MINERALS, FLORA, AND FAUNA
were extracted daily from the mines of south Lebanon and
30-40 tons from others in north Lebanon. In the lignite
and. tar-coal of Lebanon a yellowish fossil resin, like aniber,
is found. No coal has yet been discovered in Palestine.
Bitumen is found in the Dead Sea area, (a) in chalk forma-
tions, (6) in the alluvial and diluvial soil, (c) in the sea itself ;
but it has not yet been systeinatically exploited. The chief
localities are Wādi Sebbeh south-west of Masada, and Wādi
Mahawat west of Jebel Usdum; the latter place is the most
important, and here the deposits could easily be worked.
The Bedouin regularly collect the bitumen from the Dead
Sea shores (about 2,000 kilograms per annum), which is of
extremely good quality and readily sells at 50 shillings per
100 kilograms. Bitumen is also obtained in middle Syria,
especially at Sūq el-Khān near Hāsbeya ; these deposits are
worked profitably and produce about 380 tons annually,
Also, in northern Syria, it is obtained at Kefrīyeh on the
Lādiqīyeh-Jisr esh-Shughr road and at Bir Baseit.
Bituminous limestone, locally known as hajar Mūsa (Moses
stone), is found at Nebi Mūsa near the Jerusalem-Jericho
carriage-road; also near Safed, and in northern Ajlūn. It
provides a gas and an oil by a process of dry distillation
and the stone is also used for making mosaics and small
articles such as vases, crosses, beads, &c. -
Fluid asphalt is still produced from the ancient pits at
Hāsbeya and Yahmūr; most of that from Hāsbeya is ex-
ported, the amount, in 1911, being 75 tons. It is also
obtained at 'Ain et Tīneh, near Damascus, which takes all
this supply; and also near Lādiqīyeh.
Petroleum exists south-west of Alexandretta, but costly
borings undertaken by a company of Basle, in 1889, led to
little success. Borings near Lādiqīyeh also revealed the
existence of oil. The geological formation of the Dead Sea
area makes the existence of petroleum springs highly probable
and the reports of travellers confirm this. In 1884, Schu-
macher found a petroleum spring at Tell el-Jamīd near the
village of El-Quseir or Eqseir (Yarmūk valley, not far from
the such as vas still producof that fr
MINERALS
95
Maqārim station on the Haifa-Der'a railway): a boring was
undertaken in 1912 by the Syrian Exploitation Company but,
after reaching a depth of 600 ft. in 1914 and the expenditure
of £T.12,000, the apparatus broke and the enterprise appears
to have been abandoned. In the year 1914, the American
Standard Oil Company was on the point of making borings
for petroleum near Kurmul, about 44 miles southwards of
Hebron, but was prevented from carrying on the work by the
outbreak of war.
Sali.-Strata of ordinary salt exist at the south-west
end of the Dead Sea, notably in Jebel Usdum where they are
of great thickness, but the mineral is little worked because
of transport difficulties. It is also extensively found at
Tadmor (Palmyra) and at Jūd in the Haurān. Salt is
obtained in Syria mainly from water, the most important
supply being from the depression of Es-Sabkheh or Jebbūl,
south-east of Aleppo and from artificial salt-pans on the
northern shore of the Dead Sea. The industry is a govern-
ment monopoly; in the year 1911-12, 12,000,000 kilograms
and, in the following year, 9,300,000 kilograms, were obtained.
Sulphate of magnesia and magnesium chloride are found
south-west of 'Ain Jidi (west of the Dead Sea).
Dead Sea water bas valuable curative properties : wounds
heal quickly as a result of bathing in it and the Arabs bathe
for rheumatism. The bromide in the water should be good
for nervous ailments and the whole question is deserving of
investigation. Hot mineral springs are spread all along the
great Central Depression : they are used very generally by
the natives (especially the sulphur Springs), and a large
number of those in the Ghör, as, e.g. the hot baths of Tiberias,
are radio-active.
Sulphur is abundant in the Dead Sea basin and in certain
parts of the lower Jordan valley. It is collected by the
Bedouin at 'Ain Jidi and Masada, but is not sufficiently
pure for exportation on a large scale.
Alum is said to be found north of Wādi Zerqa Mā'in east
of the Dead Sea.
96
MINERALS, FLORA, AND FAUNA
Marble. ---Of this widely distributed mineral, a green and
a greenish-red kind are the most valuable and are used in
Jerusalem and other towns for decorative purposes in build-
ings. The best quality is quarried at Beit Sāhūr near Mār
Sāba and a second quality is got from Tantūr, south of
Jerusalem. A white marble (melekeh), with rosy, tinted
markings is obtained near Jerusalem. Of good building
stone of various kinds there is no lack throughout Syria.
Phosphates are found in the upper chalk strata in many
parts of Palestine, notably on the eastern slopes of the hills
of Judaea and also east of the Jordan; it is a product of
fossil remains.
Gypsum is very widely distributed.
Lead.—There are traces of this metal in Jebel Aqra' north
of Lādiqīyeh, in the Amanus·range, at Ghor es-Sāfi south-
east of the Dead Sea, in Wādi el-Hesa, and in Wādi Sarmūj
(Ardh el-Kerak) a small valley just N. of the Hesa.
Copper.-In Jebel el-Arba'in (northern Syria), a working
is reported and there are deposits at Saida (Sidon). At the
extreme south of the Dead Sea, there is a good deal of copper
in the Cambrian rock and, to a lesser extent, in the chalk,
e.g. in Wādi Ruweibeh.
Antimony is reported to exist at Alexandretta in the
Amanus, and near Antioch; and nickel in Jebel Aqra'.
Chrome is obtainable in the neighbourhood of Alexandretta,
Antioch, Lādigīyeh, and in the Amanus. In the period
1886–8 an English company extracted 380,000 tons of this
mineral.
: FLORA
The flora of Syria is perhaps richer than any other country
of its size in the world. The great diversity of soil, climate,
rainfall, sun-exposure, elevation and depression, give oppor-
tunities for the growth of a very large number of species and
varieties. The flowering plants alone are said by Post to
number over three thousand species.
FLORA
97
Plants and Trees
The following, according to Post, are some of the more
widely distributed, typical, or peculiar varieties of plants and
trees of Syria. The Arabic names with which they are
generally identified are given in italics.
1. The principal forage plants apart from the numerous
native grasses :
Lucerne (qutāt), Medicago sativa, L.
Vetch (bāqiyeh), Vicia sativa, L.
Vetch (kersenneh), V. Ervilia, L.
Alexandrian clover (bersīm), Trifolium Alexandrinum, L.
Sainfoin, Onobrychis sativa, L.
Barley (posileh, when cultivated as a forage plant), Hor-
deum vulgare, L.
2. The principal seeds and grains :
Lupine (turmus).
Fenugreek (hilbeh).
Chick-pea (hummus), Cicer arietinum, L.
Horse-bean (fül), Vicia Faba, or Faba vulgaris, L.
Lentil ('adas).
Pea (bisellah).
Sesame (simsim), Sesamum Indicum, L.
Barley (shaʻor), Hordeum distichum, L., and H. vulgare, L.
Oats (sheifün), sparingly cultivated in the northern
districts.
Wheat (gamh).
Sorghum (dhura beidha), Sorghum vulgare, Pers.
Maize (dhura safra), Zea Mays, L.
Millet (dukhn), Panicum miliaceum, L.
Rice (riz).
3. The principal vegetables :
Cresses (jerjār, reshād), Nasturtium officinale, L.
Cabbage (melfüf).
Cauliflower (qarnabīt).
Turnip (lift).
I
SYRIA
98
MINERALS, FLORA, AND FAUNA
Radish (föjl).
Caper (qabbār).
Bean, String (lūbiyeh), Vigna sinensis, L.
Bean, Kidney (lūbiyeh-franjīyeh), Phaseolus vulgaris, L.
Cucumber (khiyār), Cucumis sativus, L.
Pumpkin (jelant), Cucurbita maxima, Duch.
Parsley (buqdūnis).
Carrot (jezar).
Lettuce (khass).
Saffron (za'farān), Carthamus tinctorius, L. Used for
tinging rice, &c., in cooking.
Tomato (banādūra).
Potato (batāta).
Egg-plant (betinjān), Solanum melongena, L.
Spinach (sebānekh).
Beet (shemandūr).
Colocasia (qolqās), Colocasia esculenta, Schott.
Onion (basal).
Garlic (tūm).
Asparagus (halyūn).
Marrow (kosa).
Hibiscus or lady's fingers (bāmiyeh), Hibiscus esculentus.
4. The principal fruits :
Grape ("enab). There are very numerous varieties-from
the Zante currant to berries as large and as firm as a
Lady Apple, and they are of all colours from light green
to black.
Orange (burtuqān or burduqāl), Citrus aurantium, L.
Orange, Bitter or Seville (nāranj, abu sfeir), C. Bigarada, L.
Orange, Mandarin (Yūsuf Effendi), C. Madarensis, L.
Lemon (leimūn hāmidh), C. Limonum, Risso.
Lemon, Sweet (leimūn helu), C. Limonum, var. dulcis.
Citron (kibbād), C. medica, Risso.
Cherry (karaz). Cultivated only from Homs northward.
Plum (kchaukh). Prunus domestica, L. Many fine
varieties are cultivated.
FLORA
99
Plum, Sour (khaukh ed-dīb, barcūq), Prunus ursina, Ky.
The fruit is nevertheless eatable and the wood makes
good fuel.
Blackberry (ʻulleiq), Rubus caesius, L., and other varieties.
Strawberry (kubūsh).
Pear (ijjās or commonly najās), Pyrus communis, L.
Pear, Wild Syrian, P. Syriaca, Boiss. It produces small,
acerb, almost inedible fruit.
Apple (tiffah). Many poor varieties are in cultivation.
Quince (sferjel), Cydonia vulgaris, Pers. Several excellent,
varieties are cultivated.
Apricot (mishmish). Several fine varieties are cultivated,
among which are the lozi, the kelābi, and the fārisi.
Peach (derrāqin). The peaches of Syria are inferior.
Nectarine. Cultivated at Damascus.
Medlar. Cultivated in Northern Syria.
Gooseberry, Ribes Orientale, Poir. It grows wild in higher
Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon.
Fig (tīn), Ficus carica, L. Numerous varieties are
cultivated.
Fig, Sycomore (jummeiz), Ficus Sycomorus, L. A poor,
dry fruit.
Fig, Indian or Cactus (subbeir), Opuntia Ficus-Indica,
Haw.
Pomegranate (rummān).
Persimmon. Of large size ; cultivated in Northern Syria.
Mulberry, White (tūt), Morus alba, L. Cultivated for silk-
worms and the leaves are used as fodder for cattle. The
wood is much used in the arts, and as fuel.
Mulberry, Purple (tūt Shāmi), Morus nigra, L. Cultivated
for fruit. The wood is valuable as timber.
Olive (zeitūn).
Banana (mõz).
Date (balah). Several varieties are cultivated. The
pressed dried fruit is called quttah.
Melon (batī kch asfar), Cucumis melo, L.
Melon, Water(batīkh akhdhar or ahmar), Citrullus vulgaris, L
G 2
100 MINERALS, FLORA, AND FAUNA
5. The principal nut-trees :
Pistachio (fustuq).
Almond (lõz). The wood of Amygdalus communis, L.,
is much used in building. Certain varieties of almond
grow wild.
Walnut (joz). A fine shade tree, usually growing near
fountains. The wood is much used in furniture making.
Filbert or Hazel-nut (binduq).
Beech, Fagus sylvatica, L. Confined almost wholly to
the Amanus.
6. The principal medicinal plants :
Poppy (khishkhāsh), Papaver somniferum, L. It is culti-
vated in Syria for its heads, of which a sedative
decoction is made.
Mustard (khardal), Sinapis alba, L. = (khardal abyadh).
S. arvensis, L. = (khardal barri).
Marsh Mallow (khitmīye), Althoea officinalis, L.
Liquorice (ʻurq es-sūs), Glycyrrhiza glabra, L.
Senna (sena mekki), Cassia obovata, Collad. and (sena
sařīdi), C. lanceolata, Forsk.
Colocynth (hondhol), Citrullus Colocynthis, L.
Henbane (benj), Hyoscyamus aureus.
Castor oil plant (kharwa), Ricinus communis, L.
Squill (basal el-fār), Urginea Scilla.
7. The principal aromatic plants :
Cummin (qammūn), Cuminum Cyminnum, L.
Caraway (karāwiyeh), Carum carui, L.
Dill (shibith), Anethum graveolens, L.
Fennel (shumār), Foeniculum piperitum, D.C.
Origanum (zaʻtar), Origanum Maru, L. Possibly the
hyssop of scripture.
Mint (na-na'), Mentha sativa, L.
Rose (ward), Rosa Damascena, L. Attar of Roses is
distilled from it.
Thyme (zaʻtar), Thymus Syriacus, Boiss.
FLORA
101
8. The principal industrial plants :
Cotton (qutn).
Flax (kittän).
Hemp (qinnab), Cannabis sativa, L. The extract Can-
nabis Indica is known under the name of hashish.
Indigo (nil).
Madder (fuwweh), Rubia tinctoria, L.
Soda plant (ushnān or hashishet el-qili), Salicornia fruti-
cosa, L.
Sugar cane (qasab mass).
Tobacco (tabagh, titun).
Tobacco, A variety of (timbek).
9. The principal trees and shrubs used as timber and fuel :
Terebinth (butm), Pistacia Terebinthus, L., and its variety
Palaestina.
Terebinth, Muticous (butm), P. mutica, F. et M. The
typical tree of the Syrian desert; the Arabs gather the
small seeds for tanning purposes ; the wood is used
às fuel.
Maple (qaiqob). Three main species. A good fuel wood.
Zaqqum (zaqqūm), Balanites Ægyptiaca, Del. A kind of
balsam is prepared from the fruit and sold at Jericho as
· Balm of Gilead'..
Pride of India (zinzilukht), Melia Azedarach, L. The
favourite shade tree of Syria ; wood used for house-
timbers and fuel.
Jujube ('ennāb), Zizyphus vulgaris, Lam. The berries
are eaten and the wood is used as fuel.
Christ Thorn (nabg or sidr), Zizyphus Spina-Christi, L.
The fruit is edible, but astringent. Fuel.
Lotus (nabq), Zizyphus Lotus, L. Fuel
Carob (kharrūb), Ceratonia Siliqua, L. A fine shade-
tree; also cultivated for its pods (St. John's Bread)
out of which a kind of syrup is made; also used for
building purposes.
Acacia (sant), Acacia Nilotica, Del. A durable wood,
Zizypbus is used as a Spina-C!
-102
MINERALS, FLORA, AND FAUNA
used for building purposes and for fuel ; possibly the
Shittim wood of the Bible.
Acacia, Gum (seyyāl), A. tortilis, Hayne, and A. Seyyal,
Del. Largely used as fuel and in making charcoal.
Hawthorn (zaérür). Several varieties. The fruits of
Cratægus Azarolus, L., are edible and make a delicious
jelly.
Broom (ratam), Retama Roetam, Forsk.
Cotoneaster, Cotoneaster pyracantha, L.. A tree with
beautiful crimson inedible fruits ; wood makes good
fuel.
Strawberry tree (qotlib), Arbutus Unedo, L. The berries
are edible, but the wood makes poor fuel.
Storax (hauz or abhar), Styrax officinale, L. The resin
is the storax used in medicine.
Sumach (simmāq), Rhus Coriaria, L...
Tamarisk (tarfa or athl), Tamarix, L., many varieties of
which are found.
Ash (dardār). Highly valued for building purposes and
for fuel.
Laurel (ghār), Laurus nobilis, L. Fuel.
Box, Buxus longifolia, Boiss. Wood used in the arts.
Hackberry or Nettle Tree (meis), Celtis Australis, L.
A tree somewhat resembling the elm. Good timber.
Plane tree (dilb), Platanus Orientalis, L. A fine timber
tree growing along the river bottoms.
Oak, Evergreen (sindiyān), Quercus coccifera, L. Good
timber and fuel.
Oak, Portuguese (mell, mellūl or ballūt), Q. Lusitanica,
Lam. Deciduous in autumn.
Oak, Scrub, Q. Ilex, L. and Q. Cerris, L.
Oak, Valonia (lūg), Q. Look, Ky. and Q. Ægilops, L. The
cupules of the latter are used extensively in tanning.
Oak, Lebanon (sindiyān), Q. Libani, Oliv.
Hornbeam, Ostrya carpinifolia, Scop. Used for fuel.
Willow (sifsāf). Various varieties : white, Salix alba, L.,
the twigs of which are used for basket work and
FLORA
103
making hedges ; Weeping, S. Babylonica, L.; Black,
S. nigricans, Fries, used in basket work and as
timber; &c.
Poplar, White (haur), Populus alba, L. A tree with a
tall straight trunk, much used for roofing timbers ; also
for house carpentry in the interior. It is extensively
cultivated near water-courses throughout the country.
Poplar, Euphrates (haur), P. Euphratica, Oliv. Valuable
for timber and fuel.
Poplar, Black (haur), P. nigra, L. Timber and fuel.
Poplar, Pyramidal (haur), P. pyramidalis, Roy. Timber
and fuel.
Pine, Aleppo (arz or snaubar juwwi), Pinus Halepensis,
Mill. The most widely distributed pine of Syria.
Pine, Stone (snauba berri), P. Pinea, L. A fine tree
with a spherical head, but usually trimmed into a palm-
or umbrella- like shape. It furnishes very heavy beams
for roofing and good fuel ; the trunks are also used
as supports for the heavy earthen roofs of flat-topped
houses.
Cedar of Lebanon (arz Libnān, or ibhul).
Cypress (saru), Cupressus sempervirens, L. A shade-
tree which grows especially in cemeteries.
Juniper : Large-fruited (difrān), Juniperus drupacea,
Labill; Tall (lizāb), J. excelsa, M.B.; Phoenician
(sherbīn), J. Phoenicea, L. Timber and fuel.
Distribution
Each region of the country has its distinctive flora. The
maritime plain has the palm, the sugar-cane, the colocasia,
the banana, the orange, citron, lemon, and mandarin-
orange, which characterize its gardens and fields. In the
dunes on the coast grow a large number of plants which are
only adapted to the blown sand and seem to be provided
to prevent this sand from overwhelming the fertile tracts.
In the warm moist air of the coastal plains most sub-tropical
plants can be cultivated in the open air.
104
MINERALS, FLORA, AND FAUNA
The lower and middle zone of the mountains is the favoured
home of the mulberry, the fig, the olive (which also grows
luxuriantly in the maritime plain), and the vine. Tree
culture is the main industry of the Lebanon and a considerable
one on the mountains of Palestine. The cereals grown in the
mountains are insufficient for the support of the population
and cannot be rated as a staple in such districts. The main
reliance of Lebanon is the mulberry, which not only furnishes
the food of the silk-worm, but later that of the sheep and
horned cattle. Anti-Lebanon is far less fertile and tree culture
is less common; but there are many more forest trees here
than in Lebanon, and at similar altitudes corresponding
productions are raised. Herpion and Jebel ed-Drūz are (or
were) partially wooded, bearing dense oak forests in places.
The forest trees of this middle zone are : the Aleppo pine
and Lebanon pine; various species of maple; the Portuguese,
Lebanon, evergreen, Valonia and other oaks; the Syrian ash;
the cypress; the storax; the arbutus, which attains the size of
a considerable tree in 'Ajlūn and the Belqa; the terebinth or
turpentine tree; and, in northern Syria, the beech and horn-
beam. The walnut and almond are generally cultivated, as
also the carob and pistachio. All the ordinary fruit-trees
(apple, peach, pear, plum, apricot, &c.) flourish. The syco-
inore fig, though not very common, is widely distributed and
grows to a great size. At an altitude of about 6,000 ft., the
cedar of Lebanon flourishes and doubtless once covered the
sub-alpine zone of Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon. It is now
found in only a few groves of Lebanon and is extinct in
Anti-Lebanon, but grows in considerable numbers in the
Amanus range. Of wild fruit-trees, there are but few in this
zone. The sour plum (Prunus ursina) is very common in the
middle and sub-alpine regions of Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon;
a dwarf cherry flourishes in the same region; and there are
the jujube tree, the hawthorn, and the Syrian pear. Of shrubs,
almost the only one with an edible fruit is the wild black-
berry.
The alpine peaks of Lebanon, Anti-Lebanon, Amanus, and
FLORA
105
the highlands of southern Syria support a copious and pecu-
liar natural vegetation which, though useless to man directly,
is of great indirect value as it furnishes the food of large
flocks of goats which are the sole source of livelihood of
no inconsiderable part of the population. Goats, however,
do much harm by devouring all seedling trees and so pre-
venting the renewal of the forests so needed in the high
mountain ranges both as a direct source of wealth and as
a regulator of the rainfall.
The characteristic wild flora of the almost treeless plains
of the interior consists of numerous species of the milk vetch,
the centaury, and the sage. These plains are one of the great
wheat-producing regions of the Levant: maize, dhura, sesame,
barley, and, in wet places, rice also flourish in this zone.
The flora of the Jordan Valley, besides sharing the charac-
teristics of the lower levels of Palestine, has an element of
tropical vegetation similar to the Upper Egyptian and
Nubian. Palms and sugar-cane once flourished here. The
so-called “Balm of Gilead' tree (zaqqūm) grows nowhere in
canina Balms on ciegas tree ence
Syria but in the Jordan valley, and the same is true of the
ushr, or “Apples of Sodom' (Calotropis procera), and the
papyrus reed. The ‘ushr is a strange tree with large fleshy
leaves, a crumpled corky bark, and a curious deceptive fruit
--full of dusty threads and air instead of succulence. The
papyrus covers very large areas in the marshes of Hūleh.
The willow, poplar, and tamarisk are very common along the
banks of the Jordan, and a kind of broom grows profusely in the
side wādis of the Jordan valley. Poplar trees grow also in con-
siderable numbers on the watercourses in the Damascus district.
The desert flora is peculiar and interesting and consists
largely of aromatic, saline and succulent plants and dwarf
thorny shrubs. It contributes to man's maintenance by
supporting considerable herds of camels and, in some places,
asses. Not all the so-called desert is unproductive: the valleys
of the Dead Sea Ghör and towards Sinai have, until recently,
contained large numbers of various kinds of acacia trees-
Acacia Nilotica and gum acacia---tamarisk, Christ-Thorn, and
106
MINERALS, FLORA, AND FAUNA
lotus trees which have furnished much charcoal and, though
reduced, the supply is even yet not exhausted. The great
tableland known as the Syrian Desert or Hamād furnishes
pasturage for innumerable flocks and herds and supports a
large nomad population.
Of forests in the strictest sense of the term, there are few
of any importance in Syria, and, though a certain amount
of planting has been done, those which exist are steadily
diminishing in extent. In 1915, it was estimated that about
770,000 acres were covered by woodland. The chief wooded
areas are in the hills of northern and central Syria-on Jebel
Ansarīyeh and the Lebanon--the greatest proportion being
found in the kazas of Beilān, Alexandretta, Antioch, and
Jisr; most of the trees are Aleppo pines. In the vilayet of
Damascus stunted oak-trees are prevalent (e.g. in the 'Ajlūn
district). In western Palestine, even small groves of trees, such
as those on Carmel and Mount Tabor, are rare. Extensive
plantations of eucalyptus trees, planted at Khudheireh by
the Jewish colonists about the year 1900, were cut down for
fuel and railway purposes during the war.
FAUNA
The wild fauna of Syria and Palestine, in Bible times, was
probably more varied and included more of the larger wild
animals than are now to be found. It is probable that the
hippopotamus, the wild ass, and the lion were found in parts
of Syria in historic times. It is asserted that the crocodile
still exists in the marshy courses of the Nahr ez-Zerqa and the
Nahr Muqatta'; but from early times the wild animals of
the more forinidable kind were extirpated or driven back
into the deserts or remoter mountain districts. Of the larger
mammals, the grey Syrian bear still exists in small numbers
on the high peaks of Lchanon and Anti-Lebanon, and even
in Upper Galilee and Mount Hermon; the hunting leopard,
or cheetah, is occasionally met with throughout the wilder
forest and mountain regions; the striped hyaena is not
uncommon in Galilce and is now and then met with in the
FAUNA
107
eastern slopes of the Judaean highlands; the oryx inhabits
the deserts adjacent to Palestine ; the fallow deer (of which
there are still a few stragglers) inhabits Carmel and the
wādis of Galilee; the ibex or wild goat (badan) is found
in the deserts and the eastern and southern mountains as far
as Sinai ; wolves are not yet entirely exterminated in Samaria
and Carmel among other parts ; the bubalis (antelope) or
baqr el-wahsh of the Arabs and the addax (antelope) are
found ; the wild cat is not uncommon in northern Palestine,
notably in Galilee and Carmel. But few 'of these animals
are ever seen and fewer captured or killed by man. The
chase, therefore, is of no great importance in this land
for the maintenance of human life. Wild swine exist in
numbers in the forests of Amanus, in the more secluded
regions of Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon, and, especially, in
the extensive cane-brakes of the Jordan valley and the Mari-
time plains. They probably owe their continued existence
to the fact that they are regarded as unclean and unsuit-
able for food. The chase is now almost wholly confined
to gazelles, hares, porcupines, conies, and other small mam-
malia and birds and to noxious animals, as the fox and jackal,
most of which species are very numerous all over the country.
The weasel and ichneumon are common in certain districts
and are very desti uctive of poultry. The otter is found in
some of the streams and rivers.
The domestic fauna of Syria is, however, of great impor-
tance and includes the camel, horse, ass, mule, buffalo, ox,
sheep, and goat. The camel is the beast of burden of the
Bedouin and its milk furnishes a considerable part of the
food of these people. The ass, also, is an animal of exceeding
value to man in this land ; it can live on the most meagre
diet of thistles and stubble and yet do a surprising amount
of work. The mule, as well as the ass, being very sure-
footed, is especially adapted to the mountains and stony
regions which are the rule in Syria and Palestine. The goat,
the most numerous of all the domestic fauna of Syria, is also
an animal capable of living where other grazing animals
108
MINERALS, FLORA, AND FAUNA
would find little or nothing to support life, subsisting on a
host of aromatic and bitter plants which no other quadruped
will eat. The sheep is found mostly in the lower hills and
the plains; in Lebanon and other elevated regions the fat-
tailed variety is most common and, here, its food consists
largely of the leaves of the mulberry tree. The buffalo lives
chiefly in the river valleys and the marshy tracts of the
coastal and other plains.
Of birds, water-fowl in great numbers and variety, including
wild duck, storks, and flamingoes, frequent the marshes and
lakes throughout the central depression and the swamps and
marshes of the Maritime plain; pelicans in particular are
exceedingly numerous in the marshes of Hūleh. Among the
birds of prey are the eagle, kite, and hawk, and the crow is
common. Quails, partridges, and wild doves are extremely
numerous in certain localities; the first named are caught
in nets in great numbers, or shot, along the coast. Many of
the smaller kinds of birds common to Europe are found
everywhere, but singing-birds are few both in number and
kind. The Lake of Antioch and the plains near the mouth
of the Jordan are said to be especially rich in bird life.
Reptiles-lizards, snakes (some of large size and venomous),
scorpions, and centipedes of large size--are plentiful. Leeches
are numerous in some of the wells and pools and are a source
of danger to cattle at watering places.
Of insects, the most harmful are the mosquitoes ; they are
a pestilence in the marshes of the depression, the Jordan
valley, the Dead Sea basin and the Maritime plain.
Fish are abundant in almost all the lakes and water-courses
of Syria ; even the small streams contain several varieties of
small fry. The most important fishing grounds are those of
Lake Tiberias and the upper reaches of the Jordan (see
further, p. 549 f.). The R. Orontes, and the lakes in the
northern section of the central depression are particularly rich
in fish (see further, p. 397 ff.). Fish do not live in the Dead Sea
on account of the unusual degree to which the waters are
impregnated with mineral salts.
CHAPTER IV
MILITARY HISTORY
SYRIA is a land geographically distinct which has never
achieved national or political unity. Left to itself it has always
been a land of city states, with hill and border tribes inter-
spersed. Its settled population is substantially onė people, in
spite of the admixture of many conquerors. A specific Syrian_
character has been maintained by reinforcements from the
Arabs of the desert, who have always hovered on the borders
and supplied additions to the population. The Arab conquest.
of the seventh century made a step towards the creation of
a Syrian nation by giving the people a common language and
religion. Even Jews and Christians speak Arabic, and at
least the latter are practically of the same race as their
Moslem neighbours. Especially after the Arab conquest
a national state might have been established in Syria but for
its geographical position, which has made its history one long
record of invasion and conquest. Since the date when native
Hebrew, Phoenician, and Aramaean princedoms existed side
by side, the country has been governed, with no appreciable
interval, by alien rulers only. Whenever Mesopotamia and
Egypt have been the seats of strong governments, these have
as a matter of course subjugated Syria. Sometimes the
.conquerors have come from Asia Minor (Hittites and Ottoman
Turks), and sometimes from Europe (Romans, Greeks,
Crusaders). But always some foreigner has governed. Some-
times there has been division of the country between Egypt and
a northern power. A stable line of division can be drawn
through the centre from west to east, with Damascus joined
either to the north or to the south. In such a case the towns
on the coast as far as Tripoli fall to Egypt, because of their
accessibility by sea. Egypt has never held dominion beyond
110
MILITARY HISTORY
the bounds of northern Syria, and its own subjection to a
northern power has been exceptional and transitory. The
prolonged Ottoman dominion of Egypt may be regarded as
a (partial) renovation of the old empire of the Khalifs, and
therefore as a case apart. The only complete conquest of
Syria from the East took place in the seventh century. The
only case of a part of the country maintaining its independence
against powerful invaders occurred during the Crusades. But.
the result was then due to the support of Mesopotamia and
Egypt. Cilicia and Euphratesia have always been closely
associated with the political fortunes of northern Syria. The
frontier of Cilicia. towards Asia Minor may be regarded as the
best military frontier of northern Syria. .
The chief political centres have always been Aleppo,
Damascus, and one or other of the cities on the coast,
sometimes one and sometimes another. Antioch, Hama
and Homs have played important parts in the political and
military history at times. Jerusalem, the chief religious
centre, is not prominent in the political and military history
of the country. Sometimes the greater cities have made
a good resistance to new conquerors, but generally their
opposition has been negligible, apart from the protection of
a foreign power. The fight for the possession of Syria has
sometimes been settled beyond its borders. So far as the
Syrians manifest a choice it is usually for a new master, who
will treat them, as they hope, better than the old.
The usual line of invasion from the north is by way of
Aleppo, Hama, and Homs. After this the invader must either
keep eastwards and deal with Damascus, or pass through
the Biqā' into Palestine. The Crusaders, however, advanced
along the coast from Antioch to Jaffa, so keeping in touch
with the sea, and through that with their sources of supply.
Invaders from the north have frequently been met in the
neighbourhood of Homs (Tartar invasions), as well as in the
neighbourhood of Aleppo. When Antioch and Aleppo were
rival capitals numerous battles were fought in the district
west and south-west of Aleppo (Byzantine and crusading
MILITARY HISTORY
111
periods). Invaders of Palestine coming from Damascus or
the north have usually fought their battles in the plain of
Esdraelon (Merj ibn 'Āmir). The decisive battle of Hattīn,
on the hills above the plain, was an exception; the choice
of site was then part of Saladin's plan for forcing the Latins
to an engagement. There are three gates of entrance into
Palestine from Damascus, (a) by Bāniyās, (b) across the
Jordan, south of Lake Hūleh, (c) across the Jordan, south
of Lake Tiberias. These also determine the routes by which
an army from Palestine or Egypt advances against Damascus.
The chosen battle-ground of the army of Damascus against an
enemy approaching by either of the southern routes was
frequently Merj es-Suffār, between Kisweh and Sanamein,
a day's march south of Damascus. The invaders of Palestine
from Egypt were usually met just on the border at Rafah
(near Khān Yūnus) or towards Gaza. When an Egyptian
garrison held Gaza or Ascalon, the country northwards as far
as Ramleh and Jaffa was the scene of frequent battles (cru-
sading period). Occasionally armies met farther north where
the spurs of Carmel join the central hills (Thothmes III,
Pharaoh Necho). It seems to have been unusual for invaders
to enter the hill country of Judah from the Philistine plain.
If they did so, a battle might have to be fought in one of the
valleys leading towards Jerusalem (Ajnādein, A. D. 634).
The weapons and military methods and organization of
Syrian wars are necessarily those of the foreign powers who
have ruled and fought in Syria. They are commented on in
each successive period. The development of equipment and
tactics is always affected by collision with new enemies. This
finds striking illustration in the case of the Arabs, who adopted
and adapted the principles and practice of Greek warfare when
they became a world power. As early as the ninth century
they were also influenced by Turkish models and leadership.
It is wrong to describe the tactics of the Moslem armies which
fought with the Byzantines and the Crusaders in terms of
the warfare of the Arabs of the desert. The oriental' method
of fighting in mediaeval times and later was Turkish rather
112
MILITARY HISTORY
.
.
than Arab. Of the local conditions which affect the military
history of Syria attention may be drawn to the importance
of the command of the sea for the defence and capture of
the coast towns, to the numerous cases where lack of water
for men and horses decided the issue of a battle, and to the
frequency with which religious and racial divisions bred
traitors' who betrayed otherwise impregnable towns into
the hands of the besiegers.
In all study of ancient history the question of historical
numbers is of fundamental importance. Even in modern
works of repute quite fabulous figures for ancient populations
and armies and battles are frequently given. It is not yet
generally recognized that otherwise excellent sources of
historical information may not supply reliable figures.
Numbers in ancient history rarely rest on actual enumeration.
Some writers choose their numbers on artistic principles.
Such writers are generally remote from the events they
describe, but they may also be contemporaries. The estimates
of eye-witnesses are often affected by their state of mind,
Modern experience shows that estimates of enemy forces,
especially when these are victorious, are of little value. The
impression of a great event, a great conquest, or a great battle,
i. e. one having important consequences, seems to demand for
its adequate 'expression, in popular currency, a great number,
and certainly predisposes men to the acceptance of great
( numbers as part of the story.. So much is this the case that
grave suspicion must always attach to the allegation of large
numbers in explanation of a great victory or conquest. Con-
quests, in fact, seem to have been accomplished with surprising
frequency by very small numbers. Fortunately tradition
hands down real as well as unreal numbers, so that definite
proof of the unreal numbers may frequently be given, and
a standard of comparison for other cases is supplied. The
way in which numbers that pass from mouth to mouth, or
from writer to writer, increase, is well known. Numerical
data, which occur in writers remote from the events they
describe are, therefore, of no value to a modern historian.
MILITARY HISTORY
113
The general result of modern criticism is to reduce greatly the
numbers of ancient history, in comparison with those of the
present day. But this does not alter the importance of the
events themselves nor the achievement of those who played
a part in them.
I. EARLY HISTORY (15TH-9TH CENTURY B.C.)
Predominance of the Egyptians and the Hittites
The characteristic features of the history of Syria might be
illustrated from events reaching as far back as 3000 B.C. But
as the reign of the Egyptian king Thothmes III (early fifteenth
century) supplies the first detailed account of an invasion of
Syria, this may be taken as a starting-point. The population
of Syria was then, in the main, Canaanite, although mixed
with elements from the neighbouring peoples who had already
often crossed its borders. The country was ruled by petty
princes, whose principal towns occupied the sites and were
denoted by the names which they have to-day. A league of
the Canaanites of central Syria had been formed against the
Egyptians, and their army waited for the invaders at Ta‘annak,
behind the line of hills that stretches east from · Carmel.
Thothmes marched from the frontiers of Egypt to Gaza
(125 miles) in 10 days. When he reached the spurs of Carmel
he chose the central road of the three which cross the hills to
the central plain. The Canaanites let his army issue un-
molested from the pass, and the decisive battle of the cam-
paign was fought and won by the Egyptians at (Megiddo.
The town of Megiddo was besieged and captured, and
operations were then conducted in the district of Lebanon.
The whole campaign lasted from the end of April to perhaps
the close of summer. The annals of Thothmes record after
this 18 years of warfare in Syria. The policy followed was to
conquer the Phoenician coast towns first, and then to transport
by sea to central Phoenicia the forces which were to be used
against the north. Evidently the Egyptians marched along
El-Buqei'ah and waged war with the inland towns of northern
SYRIA
H
114
MILITARY HISTORY
Syria from a base in Phoenicia. In this way Thothmes
exercised some authority as far as Euphratesia.
The next century (fourteenth century B.C.) shows a northern
power, the Hittites, ruling north Syria as far as the Biqā'.
The Hittites were a people of Asia Minor, from which they
conquered Euphratesia and the north of Syria. Egypt still exer-
cised a nominal suzerainty over Palestine and the Phoenician
coast. One of the periodic overflows of the population of Arabia
into Syria now took place. The invaders were called Khabiri,
and gradually mastered the centre and the south, where the
Canaanite towns were disunited, and succumbed in turn to
the warlike invaders. Towards the end of the century the
Egyptian kings of the XIXth Dynasty (Seti I) began to restore
Egyptian authority. Rameses II (early thirteenth century)
has left several accounts of a great campaign in which he
challenged the power of the Hittites of the north. His army
marched by land, at first along the coast, afterwards through
the Biqā'. Qadesh, at the northern extremity of the Biqā', near
the modern Homs, was an outpost of the Hittites, and there
the only battle of the campaign was fought. Details are
preserved which show that the Egyptians marched in four
divisions, that they failed to discover the position of the
Hittites near Qadesh, that the Hittite army fell on the flank
of the second division and cut it to pieces, and then attacked
the first division, which was just encamping after the day's
march. The Egyptians were saved by the eagerness of the
enemy to plunder their camp, by the arrival of auxiliary troops
(who had possibly marched from the coast, apart from the
main army), and finally by the tardy approach of the third
division. Both sides seem to have suffered severe loss.
The Hittites withdrew into Qadesh. The Egyptian king re-
turned home. A few years later peace was made between the
Hittites and Egypt. The former remained in possession of
the north, the latter retained Palestine and the Phoenician
coast.
EARLY HISTORY
115
guage of the OB B. on në dhe Fleb
Early history of the Arameans, Philistines, and Hebrews
By the thirteenth century the Arameans, another overflow
from Arabia, who had long infested the borders of Meso-
potamia, began to settle in considerable numbers in northern
Syria. In the twelfth century, the Hittites were severely
shaken by swarms of immigrants from Asia Minor, the
peoples of the sea, so that the Arameans became the dominant
power in northern and central Syria. They absorbed the old
Canaanite population and not a few of the Hittites, who had
preceded them. For many centuries their language was the
native language of the greater part of Syria.
Sometime about 1200 B. c. is a probable date for the en
trance of the Philistines and the Hebrews into southern
Syria. The Philistines were the only one of the 'peoples of
the sea' to secure a permanent footing in Syria. They came
possibly in ships to their new homes, and, unlike the Khabiri
and the Arameans and the Hebrews, they were a people alien
to the Canaanites a different race with different customs
(uncircumcised '); who, however, in the end were semitized
and absorbed by the previous population. The Hebrews, on
the contrary, were a fresh inflow from the desert, whose
settlement amongst the Canaanites resembled that of the
Khabiri, with whom some would identify them. For 150 or
200 years they acknowledged no central authority, and their
tribes made peace and war, separately or in groups, with the
Canaanites and with the border peoples (Moabites, Midianites,
&c.). This is the period of the judges when there was no
king in Israel'. The Canaanite cities of the central plain
kept their independence, and Jerusalem was a Canaanite town
until the time of King David. Some strong towns were early
gained by the Hebrews (Jericho), but clearly, they were not
numerous enough nor skilled enough to capture many fortified
cities nor to face the Canaanite chariots in the open plain.
The ultimate fusion of Hebrew and Canaanite may be attri-
buted to their common suffering at the hands of the Philistines.
In the early part of the eleventh century the Philistines became
H 2
116
MILITARY HISTORY
i masters of inland Palestine as far as the Jordan. Saul's
career is distinguished by his deliverance of the hill country
from their yoke. Gilboa, on the edge of the central plain,
was perhaps the limit of his government.
| The reign of David exemplifies the establishment of a native
- Syrian power of some considerable extent. David drove the
Philistines back into the western lowlands, united the rest of
Palestine under his rule, and subdued the country east of
Jordan, including the Aramean district of Damascus. But
his conquests did not survive his lifetime, and the union of
Israel which he effected ended with the death of his son
(Solomon). All the more do David's achievements and his
military power demand special explanation. The king's
personal qualities were probably an important factor in the
case. (So was his employment of a standing army of foreign
mercenaries and of adventurers, whose nucleus dates from the
cave of Adullam. They were paid by plunder and by the
wealth which conquest brings. In a country suited for empire
building, and with a larger population, David might have
accomplished more. The independence of the Phoenician
coast towns, and possibly also of the Philistines, sharply
marks the limits of his power. Solomon's reign as compared
with that of David, was probably a period of decline. It
cannot be maintained that his kingdom extended to the
Euphrates. .
The creation of David's kingdom was made easier by the
quiescence of Egypt at the time. The division of Israel into
two petty kingdoms after Solomon's death was probably
settled or confirmed by the Egyptian invasion which then
took place. Judah, to protect itself from its northern neigh-
bour, Ephraim, made alliance with the Arameans of Damascus.
The kingdom of Ephraim, thus placed between two enemies,
made peace with Judah. Even so the Hebrews were a match
for the Arameans only because of the intervention of Assyria
from the north. The records of the wars between Judah
and Ephraim and between Israel and Damascus are very
fragmentary.
THE ASSYRO-BABYLONIAN PERIOD
117
WA
II. THE ASSYRO-BABYLONIAN PERIOD (9TH-6TH
CENTURY B.O.)
Palestine and Syria under the Assyrians and Babylonians
Early in the ninth century the kingdom of Assyria on the time
upper reaches of the Tigris began to blossom into a small
imperial power. The course of its expansion under Ashur-
nasir-pal quickly brought it into collision with the cities of
Euphratesia and northern Syria. The limits of its authority
in Syria were at first the hills of Lebanon and the Phoenician
coast towns. In 854 B, C. a Syrian league, which included
Hama and Damascus and Israel, was formed against Assyria.
The allies were defeated at Qarqar, on the Orontes, near
Hama. This opened the way for a series of campaigns against
Damascus (850, 849, 846, 842, 839). But Damascus, although
deserted by its allies, was not conquered. It has always been
comparatively easy for a Mesopotamian power to reduce
northern Syria. But the conquest of Damascus and of the
Phoenician coast towns has generally been found a much
greater task. Towards the end of the ninth century (805–
804 B. C.) Damascus was besieged by the Assyrians and com-
pelled to pay tribute. From then it lost ground in the border
warfare with Israel. During the next half century the Assyrians
were little seen in Syria. The reconquest of the north was,
therefore, one of the early tasks of Tiglath Pileser (IV) in
741–738 B.C. The conquest of the southern states and towns
followed. In three years (734–732) Tiglath Pileser subdued ...
north Israel and the Philistine cities and finally Damascus.
A large part of the territory of Israel and of the territory of
Damascus became Assyrian provinces. The deportations of
the population of the conquered districts were compensated
by the introduction of colonists from other provinces. The
Assyrian king was the professed ally of king Ahaz of Judah,
so that Judah was unmolested and a portion of northern Israel
survived as a vassal state. The Assyrian conquests were,
indeed, far from secure. The Egyptians felt themselves to be
menaced and fomented rebellion. Always, however, when it
118
MILITARY HISTORY
came to a battle, Egypt was defeated, and the revolts of the
Syrians made their position less tolerable than before. During
one rebellion (724–721) Ephraim was eliminated and became
part of an Assyrian province, in another (720) the king of Hama
was defeated at Qarqar and an Egyptian army, helper of the
Philistines, on the Syrian border at Rafah. A second Philistine
revolt (713–711) was also suppressed. In 705 B.C. there was.
a general rising which could not be dealt with until 701 B.O.
In that year the Egyptians were defeated near Ekron and
Judah escaped destruction only because of an incalculable
catastrophe which befell Sennacherib's army in the Philistine
plain (? pestilence).
The Assyrians would have been wise to make the southern
border of Syria the limit of their empire. But it is not sur-
prising that they resolved to cross the river of Egypt'
(Wādi el-‘Arīsh ?). In the first half of the seventh century
Egypt was several times invaded and partially conquered.
A native viceroy was installed in lower Egypt and paid
tribute. Syria, meantime, was quiescent, except that the
Phoenician coast towns, which were easily reinforced from the
sea, were restive and incompletely subdued. The years 652–
348 were a time of revolt in Mesopotamia, which the subject
peoples were not slow to turn to their advantage. Egypt
recovered its independence. The Assyrian empire was hasten-
ing to its fall. Tribes from Asia Minor and the north swept
over its borders. Medes on the east and Babylonians from the
south renewed their attacks. After the capture of Nineveh
by the Medes (about 606 B.C.) Babylonian kings ruled Meso-
potamia and Euphratesia and Syria. An attempt of the
Egyptians to annex Syria failed. They defeated a Syrian
army at Megiddo (607 B. C., death of king Josiah of Judah),
and advanced through the Biqā' and northwards to the
Euphrates, only to be defeated in turn by Nebuchadnezzar
at Karkemish. Under the Babylonians the Phoenician towns
and the peoples of southern Syria (Jews, Philistines, &c.)
showed the same tendency to revolt as in the time of the
Assyrians, and were instigated and backed as before by the
THE ASSYRO-BABYLONIAN PERIOD
119
Egyptians. It was now that the little kingdom of Judah was
destroyed, after having twice revolted (586 B.C.).
The Assyrian Army
The Assyrians may be presumed to have contributed
largely to the development of military equipment and military
technique, though it is not possible to distinguish accurately
between what they inherited and perfected and what they
created for themselves. In the time of their greatness they
necessarily maintained what may be described as a standing -
army. Their troops were organized in units similar to
modern platoons and companies. There were 'captains of
fifties' as well as 'captains of hundreds' and captains
of thousands'. The infantry were the largest part of an
Assyrian army. They were chiefly bowmen, armed with
swords for personal defence. Co-operating with these were
men armed with shields and spears. Sometimes a single
bowman is represented as accompanied by a shield- and
spear-bearer, but it may be supposed that generally groups of
each class acted together. The horsemen were also armed
with bows, that is, the Assyrians used the mounted bowman,
an extremely effective combatant until the introduction of
fire-arms. Chạriots were a third arm in use; they were light
vehicles drawn by two horses, carrying generally a driver and
one bowman, both standing. The respective parts played in
battle by the horsemen and the chariots can only be con-
jectured. Chariots may have been used in preference to
horsemen for charging infantry. They are supposed to be
older than horsemen as a military arm, and if the country
suited them had a certain transport value. Presumably the
superiority of the Assyrians in war was largely due to their
superior arms and to their discipline and organization. They
seem to have had an organized transport system which would
be of value in distant and prolonged campaigns. About their
tactics in battle little can be said. There are bare indications
in the sources that an attack on the flanks was a favourite
operation, and they are supposed to have aimed at surrounding
120
MILITARY HISTORY
and compelling the surrender of hostile forces. As a turtan (com-
mander) of the right and a turtan of the left are spoken of, they
may have used a regular formation in two wings and a centre,
the king being in command in the centre. Other high officers
whose titles are known were the Rab-shake (2 Kings xviii. 17)
and the Rab-mug (Jer. xxxix. 3, 13). The Assyrians em.
ployed a large amount of siege equipment (storming-ladders,
battering-rams, siege-towers, &c.) and practised the ordinary
methods of sapping and undermining walls and towers.
Altogether they must have displayed considerable skill in the
reduction of highly fortified and well defended towns, though
the long resistance of Samaria, Damascus, and other places
besieged by them marks the limitation of their methods.
III. THE PERSIAN PERIOD (6TH-4TH CENTURY B.C.)
After Babylon was captured by the Persian king Cyrus
(539 B. C.), Syria and all the subject lands quietly accepted
their new ruler. The Persian empire was greater and more
beneficent than any previously existing world power. The
subject peoples were treated considerately, and some at least
were grateful. The Jews were restored to Palestine. Egypt
was conquered before the end of the sixth century (526-525 B.C.),
and remained subject for more than 100 years. The fourth
century was a time of decay due to civil wars and the revolts
of provincial governors. Syria, however, seems to have
remained loyal, except for a brief revolt of the Phoenician
towns (350 B. C.)
The Persians were famous for their mounted archers. They
also used chariots, and are believed to have introduced the
use of the scythed chariot in the East. In the fourth century
Persian armies were largely composed of Greek mercenaries.
This led to a combination of Asiatic and Greek methods of
warfare, especially after the time of Alexander the Great. Greek
armies consisted originally for the most part of foot soldiers.
Their formation in line of battle was called a phalanx and was
at first usually eight deep. They were exercised in drill move-
ments (“about turn”, “right turn', 'left turn', 'half left turn?,
THE PERSIAN PERIOD
121
&c.). In drawing up troops for battle most attention was paid
to the formation of the wings. One was composed of the best
available troops and was designed for the offensive, the other
remained on the defensive. The result, when both com-
batants followed the same method, might be that one wing
in each army was successful, and that the victorious wings
were left to contest the issue. The centre seems to have acted
as a reserve for the wings. Philip of Macedon and his successor
Alexander introduced the employment of cavalry on the
wings. The foot soldiers were then posted in the centre and
were still the most numerous element in the army. The dis-
tinction between the offensive wing and the defensive wing
was retained.
IV. THE HELLENISTIC PERIOD (4TH-1ST CENTURY B. C.)
The conquest of Syria by Alexander the Great was a part
of his conquest of the Persian empire. After a great victory
at Issus in Cilicia, in the autumn of 333 B.C., he invaded
Syria. Part of his army marched inland towards Damascus,
while he himself followed the coast line southwards. The
submission of the Phoenician towns as far as Tyre gave him
a powerful fleet with which he blockaded the harbour of
Tyre while he besieged the city by land. Tyre was taken
by storm in July 332 B.C., after a seven months' siege. The
only other Syrian town that offered serious resistance was
Gaza, which was also stormed, after a two months' siege, in
the autumn of 332. From Syria Alexander entered Egypt,
which submitted almost without resistance.
Alexander's generals divided his empire after his death me
(321 B. o.) into several kingdoms. One of these was Egypt,
ruled by Ptolemy I and his successors. With it went Palestine.
Another, the kingdom of the house of Seleucus, included at
first Asia Minor, Euphratesia, Mesopotamia and northern
Syria. One of its capitals was Antioch in northern Syria.
Apamea (Fāmīyeh) was the military head-quarters of the
kingdom and a centre of horse breeding. There were long
wars between the Ptolemies and the Seleucids in which Syria
122
MILITARY HISTORY
was the battleground. No consecutive account of these wars
can be given, because of the imperfection of the sources.
Egypt retained Palestine until the end of the third century
B.O., while the Seleucids held northern Syria at least as far
as the north end of the Biqā'. Damascus and the Phoenician
towns seem to have fluctuated in their allegiance:
Towards the close of the third century B. C. the Seleucids
made several attempts to conquer the whole of Phoenicia and
Palestine. In the years 219–218 most of southern Syria was
subdued by the Seleucid king, only to be lost completely in
217, in consequence of an Egyptian victory on the old battle-
ground of Rafah (Raphia): Operations extending over the
years 201–198 had a better result. The chief battle was
fought at Bāniyās (Paneion) on the northern border of
Palestine and the principal siege was that of Gaza. All
Syria was now involved in the fortunes of the Seleucid kings.
The tactical methods of the Hellenistic period in Palestine
were, as already indicated, essentially Greek in character.
Standing armies of mercenaries were usual in the Hellenistic
states. The centre now played a greater part in the decision
of battles. The 'phalanx ’, increased to a depth of sixteen
ranks, stood in the centre and was used offensively as well as
defensively. The arrangement of the wings increased in com-
plexity (advance guards, flank guards, &c.). Scythed chariots
were borrowed from the Persians. Elephants were also used.
They were placed in front, especially on the offensive wing.
But they were found to be as dangerous to their masters as
to the enemy. Chariots finally disappear from warfare with
the coming of the Romans.
During the second century B. C. Rome from the west and
Parthia from the east attacked and destroyed the power of
the house of Seleucus. Asia Minor was easily acquired by
the Romans (190 B. C.) and the border of the Parthian empire
advanced towards Euphratesia (139 B.C.). In the closing
years of the century rival Seleucid kings engaged in civil war
and sank to the rank of petty princes. In consequence Syria
dissolved again into its component parts. The Jews held
of battles. There now played were usual in the
THE HELLENİŠTIĆ PERIOD
123
most of Palestine under princes of their own people; along
the eastern border Arab tribes predominated, on the coast the
Phoenician towns were a group of free cities. The first
revolt was that of the Jews, under the leadership of the
Maccabean family (168 B. C.). Inspired by religion and
patriotism and favoured by local knowledge they waged
intermittent war for 25 years against garrison posts and
small expeditionary forces. The political weakness of the
Seleucid kings compelled them to make concession after
concession, until the Jews gained complete independence
(about 143 B. c.). They shared southern Syria with the
Nabateans, an Arab tribe, whose capital was at Petra and
who even occupied Damascus for a time. An Armenian
king (Tigranes) seized Cilicia and northern Syria in 83 B. C.
and began to attack the Phoenician towns. He was com-
pelled to evacuate his conquests by the Romans as they
advanced from Asia Minor (69–68 B.C.).
V. THE ROMAN PERIOD (1ST CENT, B.C.-6TH CENT. A. D.)
Syria at the time of Pompey's invasion (64 B. o.) was a land
of petty princedoms unprotected by any foreign state and
therefore powerless against serious attack. The case of the
Jews is typical. Only a small party attempted resistance.
They made the temple in Jerusalem their fortress and were
reduced after a three months' siege (63 B. 0.). The only rivals
for the possession of Syria whom the Romans had to fear
were the Parthians, whose western border now reached the
upper Euphrates. In their long wars with the Parthians the
Romans generally kept the upper hand and thus saved Syria
from attack. The Parthian invasion of the country in
40 B.C. was an episode and exceptional in the history of the
period.
Even under the pax Romana local conflicts between rival
peoples and rival rulers were not excluded. Sometimes the
Roman army of occupation shared in these conflicts. Such
a local war was carried on by Herod the Great against Anti-
gonus in the years 39–37 B. C. Jerusalem was besieged and
124
MILITARY HISTORY
captured after a five months' siege (37 B.C.). The resistance
which it then offered to Roman troops is an evidence of its
strength as a fortified place.
Of all the Syrian peoples the Jews were the most turbulent,
from the Roman point of view. Their religious susceptibilities
induced friction and revolt. Two rebellions were specially
serious and were not easily suppressed. The principal event
of the first (4. D. 66–73) was the siege of Jerusalem for five
months (A. D. 70). Even its capture did not end the war.
Small Jewish garrisons held strongly fortified castles which
had to be reduced one by one. The second revolt did not
last so long (A.D. 132–5). Jerusalem was no longer capable
of defence. Still the Jews made a stubborn resistance else-
where. After their defeat Jerusalem became a Roman colony,
Aelia Capitolina, subordinate to Caesarea, the capital of
Palestine. The Jews were no longer allowed to reside in
their ancient capital. Another people who gave the Romans
trouble were the Nabateans. Their kingdom was destroyed
in A. D. 106.
In the third century (A. D.) the chief Syrian state was the
new kingdom of Palmyra, a Hellenistic city with a large
Arab population and Arab rulers. An attempt by Queen
Zenobia to make herself independent was crushed by the
Emperor Aurelian (272–3). He entered Syria by the Beilān
pass and followed Zenobia as she retired from Antioch to
Homs. Having defeated and dispersed her army there,
Aurelian proceeded to the siege of Palmyra. Under pressure
of a prolonged siege Zenobia left the city hoping to get
reinforcements in Parthia. Her capture on the way was
followed by the submission of her people.
From the third century onwards the chief rival of the
Romans in the east was a revived kingdom of Persia. After
the transformation of the Roman empire into the Byzantine
empire, with its capital at Constantinople, the rivals were not
unequally matched. In the sixth century Syria began to
suffer from Persian invaders. In A. D. 540 the town of
Antioch was sacked and in 571 Apamea. Finally in the
THE ROMAN PERIOD
125
early part of the seventh century the whole of the Asiatic
territories of the empire including Syria (A. D. 614–15) and
Asia Minor were overrun by the Persians. Jerusalem, after
a twenty days' siege, was captured and its great treasures
were plundered (A. D. 614). Later the emperor Heraclius
forced the Persians to a peace, in accordance with which
Syria was restored. But his success demanded years of
preparation and a long series of campaigns in Armenia,
where the struggle was fought out (A. D. 622–8). In judging
the issue of the Arab invasion of the seventh century the
exhaustion caused by the Persian war is of fundamental
importance. į
VI. THE ARAB CONQUEST
As the Byzantine empire grew weaker the raids of Arab
tribes into Palestine became more frequent. The Greek
garrisons were few in number and small. The Christian
Arab tribes on the borders acted as wardens and were paid
by the Greeks for their services. The Arab invaders of
A. D. 634 acted in the accustomed manner of these raiders
and probably at first had no different purpose. They were
at most a few thousands strong and operated under several
leaders. The resolve to conquer Syria and make it a Moslem
dominion was probably formed after some minor successes
had shown how easily a permanent conquest could be made.
The obscurities and contradictions in which the early history
of the Moslem conquest is still involved are being gradually
cleared away and the following account emerges from the
latest examination of the subject.
The invasion commenced in the south of Palestine. The
local governor, Sergius, operating from Caesarea, was defeated
early in the year (A. D. 634). In July a considerable victory
was gained by the united Arab bands in the Wadi es-Sant
(at “ Ajnādein '). The Greek commander was Heraclius'
brother, Theodore. The numbers of the Greeks and the
circumstances of their defeat cannot be determined. Pre-
sumably all the troops available in Syria were engaged.
126
MILITARY HISTORY
The Arab victory placed rural Palestine at the mercy of the
invaders and they were encouraged to further enterprises.
The tribes of Arabia were united in a measure by their recent
conversion to Islam and were therefore in a position to form
a common plan and to co-operate in the execution of it.
Early in 635 they advanced towards Damascus, driving Greek
forces before them. Engagements were fought at Beisān
(January 635) and at Merj es-Suffār (February 635) on the
way. The surrender of Damascus in the beginning of
September was an act of the inhabitants who began to see
that the Arabs were an alternative to the hated Byzantine
governors.
Heraclius now made his one great effort to save Syria.
In the summer of 636 an army of imperial mercenaries and
Armenians and Arabs (drawn from the settled tribes of Syria)
advanced through the Biqā' and past Bāniyās and across the
Jordan, south of Lake Hūleh. They cut the communication
between Damascus and Arabia. But the Arabs had already
abandoned Damascus and had taken their position on a strong
line of defence, just south of the River Yarmūk. The opposing
armies seem to have faced one another on opposite sides of
the Yarmūk for some weeks. Futile negotiations were
carried on. Perhaps both sides awaited reinforcements and
feared to risk attack. Apparently the Greeks at length took
the offensive. The Arab victory was of supreme importance
for the future of Islam and therefore for the history of the
world. Unfortunately the course of the battle cannot be
ascertained in detail. Certainly the Moslems were not greatly
superior in point of numbers. During one phase of the
struggle the Greeks appear to have been within sight of
victory. But the composite character of their army was
a disadvantage. Their leaders were at variance and perhaps
their full force was not employed. Although most of the
Arabs fought on foot they had a distinguished cavalry leader
(Khālid ibn Walīd), who seems to have dealt the decisive
blow. A sand-storm blowing in the faces of the Greeks may
have turned the scale against them (August 20, 636).
THE ARAB CONQUEST
127
After this battle Heraclius abandoned Syria. Probably his
resources were exhausted by the Persian war so that he could
not do otherwise. The fate of the country therefore depended
upon the attitude of its own population. Jews, Samaritans,
and Christians all welcomed the Arabs as their deliverers
from the persecution and oppression of the orthodox'
Greeks. Naturally the Arab tribes of the eastern frontier
were ready to throw in their lot with the new comers.
Not a single Syrian town was captured by force of arms.
Sooner or later they all accepted the generous terms of the
Arab chiefs. Jerusalem and Caesarea were strongholds of
Greek sentiment and power. They submitted in the years
639 and 640 respectively. Since the Greeks held command
of the sea the towns on the coast were specially secure. Gaza
and Ascalon did not submit to the Arabs until after the
surrender of Caesarea. Tripoli was the last of the Greek
possessions on the mainland. In 645 a large part of the
population abandoned the city in ships and the gates were
opened to the Moslems. Antaradus, on an island off the
coast, was reduced in 648–9.
Two of the causes of the triumph of the Arab invaders
of the seventh century have alreadys been sufficiently
emphasized, namely the weakness of the Byzantine empire
and the preference of the Syrian population for Arab rule.
The question of the military power and efficiency of the
invaders is not so easily determined. Individually they were
brave and practised combatants with sword and bow. Their
leaders were experienced in the art of minor warfare and
evidently were skilful enough to adapt the tactics and strategy
of the desert to the greater tasks which now confronted them.
Without such qualifications of leadership and fighting capacity
the Arab victories could not have been won. On the other
hand the invaders were severely tested only during the battle
of the Yarmūk, and it may be that defects in the opposing
army and the accident of a sand-storm turned the scale in
their favour. Other alleged causes of their triumph, if
allowed at all, must be strictly qualified. It has been suggested
128
MILITARY HISTORY
that the Arabs won their victories as an army of horsemen.
On the contrary, most of them fought on foot and they became
famous horsemen only after they had conquered the horse-
breeding lands of Syria and Persia. The view that they
owed their success to their enormous numbers does not bear
critical examination. In reality 5,000-6,000 was a great force
even for the united Arab tribes to assemble. The Moslem
invasion of Egypt in 639 was begun by an army of 4,000 men.
The latest historian of the period gives 20,000–24,000 as the
maximum strength of the Moslems at the battle of the
Yarmūk and regards 10,000 as a more probable estimate.
In any case the Greek army was not much, if at all, inferior
to the invaders in point of numbers. Finally, the part played
by the new faith of the Arabs has probably been overstated
and has perhaps been wrongly conceived. The popular view,
supported by Moslem tradition, that the Arabs set out to
conquer the world for their faith can hardly be maintained.
The influence of Islam consisted rather in this that the Arab
tribes for the first time acted together in virtue of their
common faith, and that a common direction and purpose were
secured for their enterprises by the authority of the Khalifs,
the successors of Mohammed. It was only later, perhaps,
that Islam supplied such a sense of confidence and superiority
as to become an appreciable source of military strength.
It remains to be said that even in the battle of the Yarmūk
the Arab army seems to have been arranged according to
a definite tactical plan. The front lines consisted of infantry
and the cavalry was posted in the rear in support, especially
on the flanks. There was probably a reserve under the chief
commander, Abu 'Ubeidah.' The disposition and tactics of
Moslem armies from now onwards were plainly influenced by
Greek and Persian models. Possibly Greek military principles
influenced to some extent even the leaders of the conquest.
The final result of this development is plainly seen in the
period of the Crusades and will be described under that period.
SYRIA UNDER THE KHALIFS
129
VII. SYRIA UNDER THE KHALIFS (7TH-11TH CENTURIES A.D.)
Egypt and Syria
For 100 years after the Arab conquest Syria enjoyed almost
unbroken peace within its borders. The country was part of
a great Arab or Moslem empire, ruled by the Omayyad line
of Khalifs. Though their capital was Damascus they were
not in any special sense Syrian rulers. Thus the military
forces of Syria were not tested, as such, either in civil war or
in the wars with the Greek empire which were fought in Asia
Minor. The Syrian border was not as yet seriously threatened
from Asia Minor.
After the overthrow of the Omayyad dynasty (A.D. 750)
and the establishment of the ‘Abbasite khalifs, with their
capital at Bagdad, Syria, and all the provinces of the empire,
move towards a resumption of their ancient national histories.
The ‘Abbasite khalifs never held the allegiance of Syria as the
Omayyads did. The country begins at once to resolve itself
into its old divisions. The Arab tribes lead the way in the
separatist movement. By the middle or the end of the ninth
century Syria stands once more apart, in its accustomed
relation to Egypt on the south and to the rulers of Meso-
potamia north-eastwards.
The first Egyptian governor who became practically
independent of the Khalifs of Bagdad was Ahmed ibn Tulūn
(870–84). He added Syria to his emirate and so long as his
family ruled they continued to be in a manner the overlords
of Syria. A later line of Egyptian rulers, the Ikhshīd family
(935–69), mastered southern Syria, including Damascus.
The rest of the country was subject to the emir of Aleppo,
Seif ed-dīn 'Ali (944–67). The division between north and
south was finally regulated by treaty. Seif ed-dīn's territory
included Cilicia and Euphratesia, así well as northern Syria.
The Qarmatians were troublesome rivals of the Egyptians
in the tenth century in the south, and invaded Syria in A. D.
903–6, 964, and 968. They were Arab adherents of a Moslem
sect whose power began in the latter part of the ninth century.
SYRIA
130
MILITARY HISTORY
In 969 the Fatimite khalifs began to rule Egypt. They
at once sought to acquire the Syrian dependencies of their
predecessors. At first the forces ranged against them, headed
by Damascus, were too strong. But from 983 onwards the
Fatimites were overlords of southern Syria, including
Damascus. The most troublesome of the revolts with which
they had to deal were risings of Arab tribes resident in
Palestine (1011-13, 1024–9). The towns on the coast as
far as Tripoli were governed by Fatimite emirs, who in some
cases transmitted their authority to their descendants and so
were petty dynasts. Between the Greek empire and the
Fatimite khalifate Aleppo maintained a precarious inde-
pendence. Its emirs usually paid tribute to the emperors
and at the same time made a nominal acknowledgement of the
khalifs:
Syria and the Byzantine Empire
After the Arab conquest of Syria and Euphratesia, Asia
Minor was overrun but not permanently occupied. In the
tenth century Seif ed-dīn of Aleppo was the most powerful
emir on the borders of the Greek empire and brilliantly
represented the warfare of his time and people. Every
summer he raided and plundered the lands of the empire.
His battles, on a small scale, were always fought in Greek
territory. The Greeks used local forces to surprise and cut
off the raiders. But no defeat deterred the Moslems from
returning next year. Two Greek writers supply descriptions
of this unending border warfare. In the eighth and ninth
centuries the Moslem armies seem to have regularly included
horse and foot. When they drew up in line of battle they were
arranged in a rectangle
in which African bowmen
stood in front and the horsemen were posted behind. In this
order they stood firmly and preferred to await attack. The
foot-soldiers advanced with the cavalry when they took the
offensive. On the march each horseman carried a foot-
soldier on his horse, if the distance were not too great. For
longer marches the foot-soldiers also were mounted. Camels
SYRIA UNDER THE KHALIFS
131
were used for the transport of baggage. The writer from
whom these particulars are given obviously reckons 4,000
to be a considerable Greek army, although he speaks of
armies varying in size from 5,000 to 10–12,000 men.
The Abbasite khalifs early began to employ Turkish
mercenary troops whose homes were in central Asia. By
the middle of the ninth century the greater part of the regular
troops of the khalifs were Turkish. Turkish generals began to
lead their armies and Turkish governors, to rule the provinces.
Even before the Turkish conquest of the eleventh century,
therefore, Turkish methods of fighting must have influenced
the constitution and tactics of the Moslem armies. The second
Greek writer, just referred to, represents the Moslem armies
which fought with the Greeks in the tenth century as composed
of horsemen only. He contrasts the Greek use of infantry
joined to cavalry and regards it as an element of strength
and superiority. The want of reference to Greek infantry
in descriptions of actual battles is not a sure indication of
their not being employed. They were of humbler rank
than horsemen and their part was not considered equally
worthy of notice. The same writer commends particularly
the sending out of a portion of the Greek cavalry to draw
the Moslems in rash pursuit into a prepared position,
where the foot-soldiers and the majority of the cavalry were
drawn up to receive them. Surprise attacks and attempts
to cut off the raiders in defiles as they returned homewards
played a large part in the Moslem war. When a Greek
general had 5,000-6,000 good horsemen, in addition to his
infantry, in an important battle, he was well satisfied.
In the latter part of the tenth century the power of the
empire revived under a series of distinguished emperors, and
Greek armies once more entered Syria. Aleppo was sur-
prised and sacked in December 962 by Nicephorus Phocas.
In this, as in many similar cases, the citadel was not captured,
and the town was therefore evacuated in a few days. The
changed balance of power is shown by the Greek conquest of
Cilicia (962–5). In 968 an invading army ascended the
I 2
132
MILITARY HISTORY
valley of the Orontes, passed Hama and Homs, turned to
the sea through El-Buqei'ah and then northwards by the
coast to Cilicia. The expedition was little more than a great
raid and an encouragement to the Christian population.
A garrison was left in Baghrās, a castle at the Syrian gates'.
In October 969 the governor of this castle was admitted into
Antioch by a party in the town. The Greeks thus secured
a footing in Syria which they retained for 100 years. Antioch
was strongly fortified and accessible from the sea. It became
the Greek base of military operations against the Moslems
and a standing menace to Aleppo.
Syria was invaded four times within 30 years in the latter
part of the tenth century by Greek armies commanded by the
emperors in person. It is significant that the invaders had in
no case to fight a pitched battle, while, at the same time, their
Syrian territory never exceeded the coast and the inland
hills (Jebel Ansarīyeh) south and south-east of Antioch. In
particular the great expedition of 975 may have served its
purpose as a display of power and a means of obtaining sums of
money, but it left Syria unsubdued. The first of these four
invasions was that of Nicephorus Phocas, already described
(968). In 975 the Emperor John's army passed Hama and
Homs, traversed the Biqā', reached Tiberias and Beisān and
'Akka, and finally turned northwards by the coast. The
expedition lasted six months. The only permanent result was
the occupation of some castles in the hills east of Lādiqiyeh.
Basil in 995 raised the siege of Aleppo, which was being
besieged by-a Fatimite commander, and then with a small
army followed the route traversed previously by Nicephorus.
Tripoli was invested without success for 40 days. Antarsus
was garrisoned by Armenian auxiliaries. Basil's second
campaign (999) lasted three months. A number of castles in
the Jebel Ansarīyeh were captured and dismantled. Northern
Palestine was raided. Tripoli was again unsuccessfully
besieged for four weeks. A garrison was left in Sheizar, on
the Orontes, near Hama.
The invasion of Romanus in 1030 and his defeat by the
7
LLL
SYRIA UNDER THE KHALIFS 133
emir of Aleppo did not alter the political situation. From
1037 onwards there was a stable peace between the empire
and the khalifate. This gave the Egyptians a free hånd
against Aleppo. Twice for a short period Egyptian troops
garrisoned the town (1038–42, 1058–60). The first occupa-
tion was a consequence of military success, the second of the
abdication of the ruling emir. But the people preferred rulers
of the local house of Mirdās, and the Egyptians were too
remote to maintain themselves permanently. Their wars with
Aleppo were carried on chiefly by means of Syrian troops sent
from Damascus or Tripoli.
The Turks in Syria (11th century)
The Turkish conquest of Syria occurred in the latter part
of the eleventh century. The process is no doubt repre-
sentative of other periods where the facts are more obscure.
There was no systematic invasion and no general resistance.
Bands of 500 or 1,000 horsemen offered their swords to the
Syrian emirs in return for homes and lands, or they planted
themselves without permission in the smaller towns. They
were better fighters than the Arabs and the Syrians and better
disciplined. They paved the way for the claims of the Turkish
sultans who already ruled in Mesopotamia. Turkish officers,
who from being slaves had risen to high positions in the
armies and counsels of the Syrian emirs, welcomed their com-
patriots. The first of the new settlers arrived in the neighbour-
hood of Aleppo in 1064. The Greek war, which had slumbered
for twenty-five years, wakened again to life, especially after
Aleppo was ruled by Turks (1071). After the defeat of
Manzikert (1071) the empire lost ground in Asia Minor, and
Antioch was abandoned to fight its own battles. It was
surrendered by treachery to a Turkish emir in 1084. The
following year the Turks were dominant in all northern Syria.
Events in the south followed exactly the same course. For
a few years one Turkish leader with a few hundred horsemen
dominated the Belqa and inland Palestine (1071–76).
Damascus having submitted to his authority he even ventured
134
MILITARY HISTORY
to attack Egypt. Afterwards, in 1078, Tutush, brother of the
great sultan Malik Shāh, occupied Damascus with stronger
forces and the rulers of Egypt left him unmolested. The coast
towns, from Tripoli southwards, maintained their native
rulers. Their policy was to conciliate the Turks but to remain
dependencies of Egypt. The chief Turkish towns were there-
fore Antioch, Aleppo, Homs, and Damascus. They were held
by small Turkish garrisons. The bulk of the population was
still Syrian and Arab. The Turks of this period are known
as the Seljūq Turks.
VIII, THE PERIOD OF THE CRUSADES (12TH AND
13TH CENTURIES A. D.)
The First Crusade
The next conquest of Syria, by the Crusaders, has certain
distinctive and unique features. It proceeded very slowly, it
was never completed, and it was directed by a combination
of west European powers. A belt of territory on the eastern
side, extending from north to south, and including the great
towns of Aleppo, Homs, and Damascus, was never conquered.
These towns were less accessible to invaders from the west
than the towns on the coast. But the failure of the Crusaders,
when compared with the success of other invaders, must be
attributed to other conditions. The Christian and European
aspect of the invasion evoked a corresponding Islamic and
Oriental opposition. Syria was supported in its resistance by
Mesopotamia and Egypt, it was saved by Turks and Kurds.
The Crusaders who established themselves in Syria depended
for their very existence and for all future progress upon a con-
tinuous stream of reinforcements from Europe. At first re-
inforcements came abundantly, but subject to no central
authority, guided by no plan and without much relation to
the constantly varying needs of the Syrian situation. Even
the greatest of the Crusades accomplished little. Besides, the
Latin colonists themselves were divided and weakened by
international and personal jealousies. From the date.of their
THE PERIOD OF THE CRUSADES 135
first conquests they were organized in four separate prince-
doms. Jerusalem was the capital of one, Tripoli, Antioch,
and Edessa of the others. During their final struggle for
existence in the twelfth century the Latins were, if possible,
more divided than ever. Civil war absolutely sealed their
fate.
The First Crusade aimed at more than the conquest of Syria
or the deliverance of Jerusalem from Moslem rule. It was an
expedition by the Christians of western Europe, under the
auspices of the Pope, intended to assist the Christians of the
East against their Moslem oppressors. It included Asia
Minor as well as Euphratesia and Syria in its scope. It was
sent in response to an appeal from the Greek emperor, and
therefore the gathering point of the crusading armies was
Constantinople, and their first attack was made on the Turks
of Asia Minor. The argument that the invaders should have
crossed by sea to Palestine overlooks this broad purpose of
the Crusade as well as the difficulty of obtaining sufficient
transport. The larger aspect of the Crusade must also be
kept in view when judging of its success. Its greatest achieve-
ment was the check which it administered to the Turkish
conquests of the eleventh century. Asia Minor was recovered
for the Greek empire and Islam was held back from Con-
stantinople for two centuries or more. If the Latins and the
Greeks had continued their co-operation all Syria would
probably have been subdued, and the territories of the Roman
empire would have been recovered from their Moslem rulers.
The numerical strength of the First Crusade is not easily
determined. The figures as given in popular histories are
incredible. The details of the siege of Antioch, the calculated
strength of the Moslem armies with which the Crusaders fought
for a bare victory, and the more moderate statements occa-
sionally found in the best sources allow us to conclude that
the maximum number of fighting men available for the
greatest battles would range from 12,000 to 15,000, of whom
only a small proportion were mounted men. The Moslem
armies were generally superior in numbers, but not over-
136
MILITARY HISTORY
whelmingly so. Ten thousand was a large army for the
périod, twenty thousand might be reached, but very rarely.
Cities like Aleppo and Damascus usually put in the field a
force of 1,500 or 2,000 horsemen, occasionally with allies and
auxiliaries, they reached a total of 3,500. The garrison of
Antioch when besieged by the Crusaders cannot be reckoned
at more than 5,000 soldiers. The civilian population did not
add much to its strength. The heavily armed Latin knights
were the chief element of strength in the crusading army, but
the terrible loss of horses during the siege of Antioch greatly
diminished their superiority in this respect. Early in the
siege the total number of mounted men is given as about 700,
in the decisive battle fought after the capture of the city in
June 1098) there were probably fewer. In August 1099 (at
the battle of Ascalon) the number had increased again to
about 1,200. The Crusaders who remained in Syria after the
First Crusade were only a few thousands in number. The
battles of the following period were fought with armies which
seldom exceeded 5-6,000 men and were often less.
When the Crusaders entered Syria the northern part was
ruled by Turks and the south by Egyptian governors. This
division entirely excluded co-operation against the common
enemy. Even the Turks were not united. When finally they
did assemble an army under the chief command of the emir
of Mosul, their divisions and jealousies still prejudiced their
chances of success. The siege of Antioch was the first im-
portant enterprise of the Latins in Syria. Its capture and
the occupation of the neighbouring country secured them safe
communication by sea with the west and overland with the
Greek empire. The presence of a numerous and friendly
Armenian population to the north was also an important
reason for their choice of objective. Antioch was invested and
blockaded, at first very loosely, afterwards more stringently
(October 7, 1097-June 3, 1098). It is remarkable that no
attempt was made to destroy the strong walls of the city by
siege engines or by mines. At least there is no record of this.
The defenders were reduced by starvation, and entrance into
THE PERIOD OF THE CRUSADES
137
a tower on the wall was gained by the connivance of a traitor.
The Latins themselves suffered greatly from scarcity of food
and fodder, especially during three months in the winter. The
assistance of the Armenians and the arrival of ships from
Europe saved the situation. The only serious attack made on
the Crusaders was by an army which reached Antioch after
the capture of the city, but before the surrender of the citadel.
There was lack of unity in the Moslem command and therefore
in the plan of battle. The Latins seem to have been allowed
to attack and defeat the troops of Syria and Asia Minor while
the troops of Mesopotamia looked on. They gained a victory
in spite of a bad position in which they had to face the enemy
on two fronts.
The advance of the Crusaders from Antioch was postponed
until the beginning of the following year (1099). As they
marched south along the coast they passed some of the
strongest towns in Syria. It is significant of the impression
they had already made and of the Moslem failure in co-opera-
tion that no attempt was made to stop their progress, and that
food and occasionally horses and money were freely given to
the Latins. Jerusalem was besieged for five weeks in the
summer (1099). It was not as well fortified as most of the
greater towns, and its garrison was probably not more than
1,000 strong. Siege engines were constructed and the city
was stormed through the breaches they made (15th July 1099).
Next month an important victory was gained over an Egyptian
army in the neighbourhood of Ascalon. Godfrey of Bouillon
commanded the Latins and skilfully neutralized the superior
numbers of the enemy by posting his men so that his right
wing touched the sea and his left the hills. The weight and
numbers of the Latin knights made their charge against the
centre of the enemy decisive. The battle lasted only one
hour.
Limit of Latin conquests in Syria
The limits of the Latin conquest were quickly attained.
The close of the period of conquest must be set about the year
138
MILITARY HISTORY
1112, although Tyre and Ascalon were not captured until
much later (1124 and 1153 respectively). The territory of the
Latin states finally included Palestine, the whole coast of Syria,
most of Lebanon and the Jebel Ansarīyeh, the open country
south-west of Aleppo, and Euphratesia with the neighbour-
hood of Edessa. The most notable fact about the boundaries
of this territory is that, with the exception of Euphratesia
and the princedom of Edessa, it was dominated by the great
towns on the coast which were besieged and captured with
the help of European fleets. The inland territory of Edessa
was gained and maintained by the help of the Armenians of
the district. The limits of the province were determined by
the limits of the Armenian population. The armies of the
princes of Edessa consisted chiefly of Armenians, and the loss
of their friendship was one of the causes of the early overthrow
of the Latins in the north.
The main feature of the history of the Latin conquest
subsequent to the close of the First Crusade is the gradual
reduction of the strong towns on the coast. By means of
Italian fleets, which came to Syria from Genoa and Pisa and
Venice, year after year, the Latins held command of the sea
and hindered the introduction of supplies from Egypt. There
is no mention of an Egyptian fleet of more than 30–40 ships,
much inferior in numbers to those of the Italians. These
Italian fleets brought with them also the soldiers and the
material which permitted of a strict investment and siege of
the coast towns. In a few months even the strongest Moslem
towns were starved or terrorized into surrender. There was
not a single case of an adequate attempt at relief by a land
army. The Syrian towns could not provide such an army.
The Egyptians were discouraged by some early misfortunes
(1101-05), and never realized that they should have challenged
the supremacy of the Italians upon the sea, and that only
a strong Moslem fleet could effectively protect the Syrian
coast towns. The Italians were rewarded and stimulated to
fresh efforts by the concession of trading privileges and the
surrender to them of a portion of every town they helped
THE PERIOD OF THE CRUSADES 139
to conquer. Thus by the year 1110 all the towns on the
coast excepting Tyre and Ascalon were Latin possessions.
In every case an Italian fleet assisted during the final siege,
and when, as sometimes happened, a siege was unsuccessful
at the first attempt, the cause of failure was the want of a
fleet or weakness in the blockade of the harbour.
Castle building played a great part in the subjection and
defence of Syria in this period. Between Aleppo and the
Orontes numerous border castles changed hands frequently
and mark the advance and retreat of the opposing forces.
Previous to the First Crusade the Jebel Ansarīyeh, stretching
from the neighbourhood of Antioch to El-Buqei'ah on the
south, was already a nest of castles. They guarded the
approaches to the hills from the cities on the coast and from the
cities of the eastern plain. They protected also the roads
across the hills, e. g. Balātunus, Sahyūn and Esh-Shughr on
the main road from Lādiqīyeh to Aleppo. The great castle
of Husn el-Akrād commanded the eastern entrance to the
Buqei'ah and dominated the plain towards Homs. The slopes
of Lebanon were also defended by strong castles, especially
the roads leading into the hills from the Biqā'. Muneiterah,
Sheqif Tīrun and Sheqif Arnūn were amongst the more im-
portant. These castles of the north and centre were greatly
strengthened and extended by the Latins. In Palestine there
was more building on fresh sites. While Tyre and Ascalon
remained in Moslem hands it was the policy of the Latin kings
to ring them round on the land side with castles. Against
Ascalon they built Beit Nūba (1133), Beit Jibrīn (1136),
Yebna (1143), Tell es-Sāfiyeh (1144), and finally Gaza (1150).
The border castles either existed before the Latin conquest
(e. g. Bāniyās) or belong to a late date in the period of occupa-
tion. But Mont Royal (Shõbek), south-east of the Dead
Sea, was an early construction (1115), and Kerak, to the east
of the Dead Sea, was afterwards associated with it (about
1140).
The Moslem resistance to the Crusaders was at first in-
effective. The Egyptians were singularly unfortunate when
140
MILITARY HISTORY
they had most chance of success (1101-05). The sultan of
Damascus was just able to protect his territory east of Jordan
and in the Biqā' and northwards towards Homs, which was
also subject to him. Except in 1105, when he sent auxiliaries
to fight in the Egyptian army at Ramleh, he engaged merely
in border warfare beyond the Jordan and in the neighbourhood
of Homs. Much of the territory of Aleppo was seized during
the First Crusade, and if the town could have been seriously
attacked in the period following (1100–10) it would almost cer-
tainly have fallen. But the princes of Antioch were hampered
by the hostility of the Greek emperor with whom they were
compelled to contest the possessions of Cilicia and even of Lādi-
qīyeh on the Syrian coast. Besides they were occupied in
extending their territory southwards in competition with the
counts of Tripoli. It has already been noted that the Latins
easily established themselves on the upper reaches of the
Tigris with the help of the Armenian population. On this
frontier the Moslems were strongest. The battle of Harrān
(1104), won by the emirs of Mosul and Mārdīn over the
combined forces of Antioch and Edessa, definitely checked their
advance beyond the Bālikh river. Harrān and Raqqah re-
mained Moslem towns. In Mosul and Mārdīn the movement
for the reconquest of Syria began.
The year 1110 marks the commencement of a systematic
offensive against the Latins. Its leader was Sharaf ed-daula
Maudūd, emir of Mosul. His first campaigns against the Latins
were in the territory of Edessa (1110-12), but he also relieved
the pressure of an attack on Aleppo (1111). He found a ready
ally in Tughtakīn of Damascus. At the suggestion of this
ruler he invaded Palestine, advancing through the Biqā'.
and then by Bāniyās and Tiberias. Baldwin of Jerusalem
met him at the south end of Lake Tiberias and suffered a
severe defeat. It was the first serious defeat of the Latins
since the battle of Harrān (1104) and it is significant that it
was inflicted by the same enemy. Maudūd was assassinated
at Damascus in the year of his victory (1113), but his work
was carried on by his successors.
THE PERIOD OF THE CRUSADES
141
The first question to be decided in the contest between the
rulers of Mosul and the Latins of Syria was the possession of
Aleppo. For a few years after Maudūd's death the Moslem town
was a submissive tributary of Antioch (1113–18). In 1118 the
Latins began their greatest effort to occupy it and annex its
remaining territory. Alone it could not have survived the
attack. It was saved by Ilghāzi of Mārdīn, now the leading
emir in Mesopotamia. He occupied Aleppo and vigorously
waged war with the Latins (victory at Balāt, June 1119) until
his death (1122). Aleppo endured its moment of greatest
peril after the death of Ilghāzi's nephew and successor,
Balak. The town was besieged by the Latins for four months
and reduced to the utmost extremity (October 6, 1124-
January 29, 1125). The siege was raised by the army of
Mosul under Āq-Sonqor el-Bursqi, and the territory of Aleppo
became part of this emir's dominions. For twelve months
after his death (November 1126) there was civil strife in
Aleppo, and then the great soldier and ruler, 'Imād ed-dīn
Zanki, atabek of Mosul, received the town into his safe
keeping (January 1128).
The art of war in the Crusading period
The crusading period in Syria is specially favourable for a
study of the character of mediaeval battles and of the methods
of warfare peculiar to the European and Oriental armies of
the twelfth century. Numerous accounts of battles by eye-
witnesses on both sides are available, and leave no doubt re-
garding the general characteristics and outstanding features
of the principal engagements. There were fundamental
differences between the Moslems and the Latins both in
equipment and tactics. The Turkish armies were generally
composed of mounted troops armed with bows and swords.
Their invariable aim was to envelop the enemy, and they
made their principal attack on one or both of his wings.
Whatever the formation they adopted before the battle, in
practice their front assumed the form of a crescent with the
horns enclosing or seeking to enclose the opposing forces.
142
MILITARY HISTORY
They had always reserves, which, however, seem generally
to have been rather quickly drawn into the fight. If one of
their wings was successful in its enveloping movement it was
apt to pursue its immediate opponents off the field, instead
of closing on the centre. When the army was large, judged
by the standards of the period and country, and therefore was
composed of the troops of several independent emirs, the
several parts tended to act independently of one another.
This partly explains the action of the wings just noted.
Battles were commenced with a discharge of arrows, at some
distance from the enemy. When the arrows were exhausted
or a sufficient effect had been produced, the bows were laid
aside and a charge was made with drawn swords. It is
sometimes alleged by modern writers that a feature of the
attack was the successive advance and retirement of distinct
squadrons which drew off to return to the charge when their
turn came again. Such an account implies a more regular
movement than was actually in use. Divisions necessarily
charged separately, and it might be successively, especially
when several bodies of reserve troops were sent into the
fight. But, apart from this, one may only say that the lightly
armed Turkish and Arab horsemen in conflict with the western
knights showed superior mobility and advanced and retired
more freely. Egyptian armies were not so exclusively com-
posed of cavalry as Turkish armies. They employed large
numbers of Ethiopian infantry armed with bows and also
with maces and other weapons suited for close fighting. But
such infantry could bring the charge of the Latin knights to
a stand only when the numbers of the latter were small.
In the greater battles of the period the offensive was
generally taken by the Moslems. The Latins stood on the
defensive until the enemy had closed in and were so massed
together that a well-directed charge produced its maximum
effect. The Latin victories were generally won by this charge
an hour or less from the commencement of the fight. A battle
of some hours' duration was exceptional. The form in which
the Latins awaited attack was one of three divisions arranged
THE PERIOD OF THE CRUSADES
143
in some such order as - or , where the rear
division acted as a reserve. If the army was very large there
might be three divisions and a reserve (battle of Antioch), thus
— . Each division normally included horse and
foot. A part of the foot soldiers were bowmen, and it was
their chief duty to balance the missile attack of the enemy,
and thus, in combination with the knights, to repel the charge
of the Moslem horse. It was exceptional for them to take the
offensive. It has been alleged, without sufficient proof, that
in the early part of the First Crusade the Latins had no
infantry sufficiently serviceable to co-operate with the knights.
A battle fought without infantry was very exceptional, and
demanded specially favourable ground and a speedy closing
with the enemy. The strength of the centre or wings or
reserve of a Latin army depended partly on the strength of
the national forces assigned to these positions, since the troops
of each nation or leader fought together. But two or more
national or local divisions (acies) might be used to form the
centre or one of the wings.
In several of the critical battles of the First Crusade the
Latins chose their position so as to cover their flanks from
envelopment, and at the same time neutralize the numerical
superiority of the enemy. There are instances of successful
manoeuvring before battle. In 1100 Baldwin I drew the Mos-
lems from a strong position at the Nahr el-Kelb by a feigned
retreat. Before the battle of Harrān the Moslems seem to
have exhausted and divided the Latin army by retiring before
it. The Latins secured the same advantage during the battle
of 'Ezāz (1125) by the same means. The Latin defeats
occurred mostly when they did not or could not adopt their
regular formation, e. g. when they were attacked on the march
or when encamping. The skilful use of the reserve for a
decisive charge is a feature in the tactics of the Latins. The
tendency for a victorious wing to ride off the field in pursuit
of the defeated enemy finds illustration amongst the Latins
also (Hāb, 1119). · Light horsemen, Turkopoles and Ar-
menians, appear in the Latin armies soon after the First
144
MILITARY HISTORY
Crusade. This and the adoption of light oriental armour by
the western knights tended to assimilate the composition and
tactics of the Latin armies of the following period to those
of the Moslems. Still a difference in equipment and methods
of fighting, especially at critical periods of the history, was
maintained by the constant inflow of Crusaders from the
west.
LUL
Zanki, Nür ed-din, and Saladin (1127–93)
Zanki's career (1127-46) marks the establishment in Meso-
potamia and northern Syria of a Moslem power against which
the Latins could make no progress, and which was destined
under his successors to be the instrument of their ruin. But
he himself did not wage systematic war with the Latins.
In Syria he aimed chiefly at the conquest of Damascus, which
thus became an ally of the Latins (1139–47). In this period
the Knights Templars and the Knights Hospitallers were
increasingly the wardens of the border castles and an important
part of the military strength especially of the kingdom of
Jerusalem and the county of Tripoli. The interposition of
the Greek emperor (1137–8, 1143–4) again distracted and
weakened the Latins. Zanki's greatest achievement against
them was the capture of Edessa (in 1144, after 28 days' siege).
The suddenness of the attack, the entanglement of the Latins
in war with the Greeks, and the alienation of the Armenian
population were the chief factors in his favour. The event
fired again the crusading zeal of Western Europe, but the
strength of the so-called 'Second Crusade' (1148) was spent
in a futile enterprise against Damascus.
The military weakness of the Latins in southern Syria may
be judged from the failure of their attempts to conquer
Damascus (1126, 1129, 1148). In 1126. the troops of Jerusalem
and Damascus were fairly matched. . The Latins advanced
directly from the south, and were met on the Merj es-Suffār.
They held the field after the battle, but went no farther.
It may have been the plundering of their camp during the
battle, and their consequent loss of equipment that decided
THE PERIOD OF THE CRUSADES
145
their hurried retreat. In 1129 troops from all the Latin states
shared in the enterprise, and they were assisted by a large
number of western crusaders. The clear cause of their failure
was the inclement weather (December). They gained the
castle of Bāniyās by the treachery of its governor. In 1148
large forces were employed. The king of France (Louis VII)
and the German emperor (Conrad) both took part. Yet only
five days were spent in fighting amongst the orchards on the
outskirts of the town. The decisive causes of the retreat are
obscure. Probably the chief influences were international
jealousies and the action of those who had been opposed to
the attack from the beginning. In all these expeditions in-
sufficient preparation and insufficient appreciation of the
difficulties beforehand suggest themselves as causes of failure.
It is significant that in each case the Latins were only a few
days, at most, in the neighbourhood of Damascus. The first
two expeditions crossed the Jordan south of Lake Tiberias,
and approached Damascus from the south by the Pilgrimage
road. The third left Latin territory at Bāniyās, which was
then a Latin stronghold.
The reign of Nür ed-dīn Mahmūd (1146–74), Zanki's son and
successor, began with vigorous and successful attacks on
Latin territory in the north (1148–9). His acquisition of
Damascus (1154) is a landmark in the history, because now
at last all Moslem Syria was united under one ruler. After
a period of comparative peace Nūr ed-dīn's general, Asad ed-dīn
Shīrkūh, fought with Amalric of Jerusalem for the possession
of Egypt (1163–9), while Nür ed-dīn waged war in Syria. Nūr
ed-dīn's capture of the border castles of Bāniyās and Hārim
in one year (1164) is highly significant. No attempt could be
made to save Bāniyās, because the main part of the Latin army
was in Egypt. Antioch and Tripoli tried to save Hārim,
helped by Greek and Armenian troops from Cilicia. The Latin
army was large (12,000–13,000 ?), and so was Nūr ed-din's. The
issue turned against the Latins when the victorious knights
rode off in pursuit, leaving their infantry to defeat (August
1164). After the occupation of Egypt, its governor was Salāh
SYRIA
146
MILITARY HISTORY
ed-dīn Yūsuf, afterwards Nūr ed-dīn's successor (known as
Sultan Saladin). If he had co-operated loyally with Nür ed-din,
the kingdom of Jerusalem would have stood in grave danger.
But Saladin aimed at independence, and thwarted Nür ed-dīn's
plan for the reduction of the Latin castles by the Dead Sea.
The Sultan's death in May 1174 took place just when he was
about to engage in war with his disobedient vassal.
For some years after Nür ed-dīn's death Saladin failed in his
attempts to gain Aleppo. But the rest of Moslem Syria and
Egypt were his, and he was therefore in a better position than
any of his predecessors for carrying on the Latin war. It is
not clear that his invasion of southern Palestine from Egypt
in 1177 was seriously intended, and his defeat (near Ramleh)
had no important consequence. With this exception all his
attacks on Palestine were made from the direction of Damascus,
entering by Bāniyās or by the south of Lake Tiberias. The
building of Castle Jacob by the Latins (1178), just south of
Lake Hūleh, was intended to protect their frontier on the
north-east. The defeats which they suffered in 1179 exemplify
the special faults of their conduct of war. They straggled on
the march, did not maintain the necessary combination of
infantry (i. e. bowmen) and cavalry, are surprised in a bad
position on the march; they dash impetuously on a small
force, and are drawn in confusion into conflict with the main
army of the enemy. These disasters culminated in the loss of
Castle Jacob. The growing danger and the alarm of the Latins
is marked by the quite unprecedented strength of their army
in 1183 (1,300 knights and 15,000 foot). Although Saladin
cannot have been superior in numbers, the Latins deliberately
entrenched themselves on the northern slopes of the Merj
ibn 'Amir, and declined battle. Lack of provisions caused
the Moslems to retire after an invasion which lasted only
10 days. The gathering place of the Latin armies in this and
other times of danger was Seffūrīyeh.
In the spring of 1187 Saladin prepared his final stroke.
His army probably numbered 20,000–25,000, to a large extent
horsemen. The Latins were perhaps 20,000 strong, chiefly
THE PERIOD OF THE CRUSADES
147
foot soldiers, with 1,000-1,200 knights and a considerable
number of Turkopoles (light horsemen). A decisive battle was
fought on the road from Seffūriyeh to Tiberias (July 3-4, 1187).
On the first day, on ground he had chosen, Saladin fought his
enemy to a stand, and cut them off from all but meagre
supplies of water. The Latins were exhausted by the summer
heat and by the lack of water. On the second day the Latin
knights were separated from the foot soldiers, and surrounded
by mounted bowmen whom they could not resist. The foot
were driven on to a waterless hill and compelled to surrender.
This battle of Hattīn was a crushing blow for the vanquished.
Every castle and town had been depleted of its troops for
the sake of the defeated army. Thus Saladin's further task
was made easy. By the end of 1189 practically all Palestine,
as far as Tyre, and northern Syria except the towns of
Tripoli and Antioch, were conquered. To secure speedy
surrenders Saladin allowed the Latin garrisons to take refuge in
Tyre, and in some cases released prisoners taken at Hattīn.
His policy is open to obvious criticism. Still its success was
great, and the ultimate fate of the country depended upon
the issue of the struggle with the so-called “Third Crusade’.
The Latin colonies in Syria were saved from extinction by
a great European intervention. Reinforcements from France,
England, Germany, and Italy poured into Syria for more than
two years, and joined in the siege of ‘Akka (August 28, 1189–
July 12, 1191). Saladin lay a short distance from the town
during all the siege, and reinforced and reprovisioned it from
the sea. His emirs were always against his risking a battle,
and in time the superior numbers of the crusaders imposed
restraint. The city was induced to surrender upon equitable
terms. When the French king Philip returned home,
Richard of England became the principal leader of the crusade.
On August 25, 1191, his army set out for the siege of Ascalon.
Saladin's policy was to destroy the fortifications of the towns
on the coast south of ‘Akka, and harass the Latins on their
march. He twice attacked them in some strength, as they
crossed the rivers by Caesarea and Arsūf. Their trying
7
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MILITARY HISTORY
experiences on the march, and uncertainty regarding the best
plan of campaign, decided the Crusaders to pause and fortify
Jaffa. International jealousies and Richard's personal cir-
cumstances now decided the English king to open negotiations
with Saladin. These negotiations lasted a whole year, during
which time the Crusaders fortified Ascalon. The other move-
ments of the army were insignificant, and the engagements
with the enemy mere skirmishes. A treaty was signed on
September 2, 1192. The Latins retained the coast from Tyre
to Jaffa. Ascalon was dismantled, and was to be left un-
occupied for the duration of peace (three years). Jerusalem
remained Moslem, but the Latins were to enjoy the right of
pilgrimage, and to retain the Church of the Resurrection. In
the north Tripoli and Antioch and a certain amount of
territory beside them were left to the Latins. The great
castles of Marqab, Sālīta, and Husn el-Akrād, belonging to
the Knights Hospitallers, also survived the wreck of the
Latin States.
Latin Syria in the 13th century
The Latin colonies still survived almost exactly another
century. But all the time they were under sentence of death.
Western Europe had made its great effort to conquer Saladin
and had failed. The surviving cities on the coast could not
resist even a moderate Moslem power. Superficially regarded
they appear for the next fifty years to improve their position.
Minor crusades came with considerable frequency, and the
successors of Saladin made them concessions, largely because
of domestic troubles. Except for brief intervals of war carried
on by the crusaders from Europe, there was generally peace
between the Latins and the Moslems. Beirut and Jubeil
(1198), Jaffa and Nazareth (1204), Jerusalem, Tibnīn, and
Saida (1229), Safed, Sheqif Arnūn and Ascalon (1240), and
finally Tiberias (1244) were restored to the Latins. But no
single town was captured and no victory in the field was
gained. Jerusalem was lost again in 1244, and Ascalon and
Tiberias in 1247, and when the Mamluk Sultans united Syria
THE PERIOD OF THE CRUSADES
149
and Egypt under their rule and seriously resumed the holy
war ’, the end was near at hand. The Syrian Latins split into
warring sections, and made separate treaties with the common
foe, and spent their strength in civil war. No crusades came
from Europe in the last years of the period, and no battles
were fought with the Moslems. A series of sieges, generally
brief, inexorably diminished the Latin territory. When the
stubborn resistance of ‘Akka was overcome (1291), the de-
fenders of the surviving towns lost heart, and the last surrender
was made a few months later.
The most interesting of the military expeditions from
Europe in the early part of the thirteenth century struck,
rightly, at Egypt (1218–21, 1249–50), and so lie outside the
limits of this survey. The most influential was that of
Frederick II. But his only military achievements were the
fortification of Caesarea and Jaffa and Saida, and the building
of a new castle (Qurein) for the Teutonic knights of the
Hospital. Part of the crusade of 1239–40 suffered a serious
defeat near Gaza in November 1239. The event again
exemplifies the military errors of the Crusaders. A large
portion of them separated from the main body in the hope
of securing plunder ; they were attacked whilst resting after
a long night march ; the bowmen had not a sufficient supply
of arrows; the ground was sandy and unfavourable; the enemy
stronger than the Crusaders had supposed; having found a
safe position, they let themselves be drawn out of it by
a pretended flight. At least 600 were taken prisoners, and
many were killed. Gaza was the scene of several battles about
this time (1239, 1242, 1244), because it was the most advanced
position of Egypt in south-western Syria, and a base of their
attacks on the Latins.
The invasion of the Kharismian Turks into Syria brought
fresh disaster upon the Latins (1244). They were a roving
band invited from the neighbourhood of Harrān by the Sultan
of Egypt to assist him against a league of the Latins with the
Sultan of Damascus. A decisive battle was fought at Gaza,
in which the Latins and their Moslem allies were defeated.
MILITARY HISTORY
The military orders suffered severely. The commander of the
Egyptian army was Baibars, afterwards Sultan. Probably
the efficiency of the Egyptian army was largely due to its
contingent of Mamluks (Turkish slaves), of whom Baibars
himself was a representative.
Louis IX, during his stay in Palestine (1250–4), after he
left Egypt, had very small forces with him (1,400 men), and
he spent his time in negotiations and in fortifying Jaffa and
Saida. When Baibars became Sultan of Egypt and all Syria
(1260), he resumed the Latin war with great effect. The
sieges lasted only 5 weeks (Arsūf and Sheqīf Arnūn). Antioch
was stormed on the third day after the Moslems reached the
town (May 1268). Its citadel surrendered two days later.
The great Hospitaller castle of Husn el-Akrād surrendered
after 15 days' siege (April 1271). One of the last of the
crusades was that of Prince Edward, afterwards Edward I
of England. Only the knights of 'Akka co-operated with him,
and his crusade accomplished nothing (1271–2).
At Baibars' death (1271) the Latins held the coast from
Marqab, north of Tripoli, to ‘Athlīt, south of 'Akka. The last
steps in the Moslem conquest were the sieges of Tripoli (1289)
and of 'Akka (1291). The former held out for 34 days; the
latter, in spite of a brave resistance with large forces, for not
much more than 6 weeks. Evidently the siege methods of
the Moslems were highly perfected. Trained engineers and
miners and powerful siege engines were in use. It may be
that credit for these methods should be given to Sultan
Baibars personally. At least it is known of him that one of
his first measures as Sultan was the complete renovation of
the Egyptian navy, which had been greatly neglected after
the death of Saladin.
THE RULE OF THE MAMLUK SULTANS
151
UU
IX. THE RULE OF THE MAMLUK SULTANS (13TH-16TH
CENTURIES)
The Tartar invasions (13th and 14th centuries)
The Khans of Tartary began to threaten Euphratesia and
Syria in the latter part of the thirteenth century. They were
disposed to friendship with the Christians of western Europe,
and in the East both the Latins of Antioch and the Armenian
kings of Cilicia gladly became their allies. Their repulse
by the Mamluk sultans is a proof of the military power of
Egypt at this time. It must, however, be remembered that
the strength of the Egyptian armies lay in Turkish, and,
generally, Asiatic soldiers, who were of the same race and
possessed the same qualities as the Tartars themselves.
It was really a case of diamond cut diamond. Besides, the
conquest of Syria was a remote enterprise for the Khans, and
their invasions were occasional and spasmodic events.
The first of these Tartar invasions, under the leadership of
Khan Khulagu, occurred towards the end of the year 1259.
Aleppo and northern Syria were occupied without much
resistance. The grandson of Saladin, who was nominally
ruler of Moslem Syria, made no attempt to defend his posses-
sions. From Aleppo Khulagu sent one of his generals,
Kitbõga (with 10,000 men ?), to occupy Damascus and southern
Syria. The citadel of Damascus capitulated after a blockade of
two months (June 1260), and all Palestine was raided by the
invaders. Seif ed-dīn Qutuz, the Mamluk Sultan of Egypt,
then advanced against the invaders. A battle was fought at
‘Ain Jālūd, at the eastern extremity of the Merj ibn 'Amir,
(September 3, 1260). The armies were probably closely
matched, and the issue hotly contested. The victorious
Egyptian army consisted largely of Kharismian Turks. All
Syria now passed under the dominion of the Mamluk sultans.
In the winter of 1260-1 and again in 1271 small forces of
Tartars ravaged north Syria, but generally speaking, during
the Sultanate of Baibars, Egypt maintained an offensive against
the Tartars and their Armenian allies of Cilicia. In the
152
MILITARY HISTORY
autumn of 1280 Aleppo was plundered by a Tartar expedition.
In the following autumn a larger force appeared under the
command of Mangu Timur, Khulagu's brother. The Sultan
of Egypt, Qilāwūn, assembled an army, which took its position
beyond Homs, on the way the Tartars were advancing
(October 1281). Mangu's force included Armenians, Latins,
and other Christians, to the extent of one-third of its total
strength. The course of the battle is typical. Mangu's right
wing, on which the Christians stood, was victorious, and
pursued the Moslems off the field. But Qilāwūn's centre and
right stood firm, and finally the charge of his reserves gave
him victory. The fall of Mangu Timur from his horse at
a critical moment is said to have thrown his troops into
confusion, and to have contributed to their defeat.
Ghazan Khān, the greatest of the line of Khulagu, struck
more emphatically at Syria. As in previous invasions his
army left home in autumn (October 1299). Passing by Aleppo
and Hama he reached Selemīyeh about the time when the
Egyptian army reached Homs (December 22). In a battle
fought between these places the Tartars were victorious.
The Arabs and Syrian troops on the Egyptian right wing
were the first to give way. According to some accounts their
left wing was victorious and chased their opponents off the
field. At all events the decision depended on the Mamluks
of the centre, who were surrounded and finally defeated.
The Tartar horsemen are related to have fought at first on
foot, holding off the enemy by discharges of arrows until the
time was judged favourable for charging. The Egyptians
are noted to have had a body of flame-throwers, but they
miscalculated the range and were quite ineffective.
Although thus routed, the Egyptians do not seem to have
lost severely and were soon ready to take the field again.
Ghazan, having occupied Damascus and plundered the town
and suburbs and raided Palestine, left Syria in February 1300.
He had taken none of the citadels of the great towns, and he
had accomplished nothing permanent. Next winter he again
invaded Syria and laid waste the territory of Aleppo and
THE RULE OF THE MAMLUK SULTANS
153
Antioch and Sheizar. But the heavy rains of January
checked his progress. An Egyptian army awaited the
invaders near Hama, but no battle was fought.
Ghazan's final invasion of Syria was timed to arrive in the
end of March. The chief command was given to Kutlu Shāh.
The Syrian army posted at Hama withdrew to Damascus
and the Tartars followed quickly, hoping to secure a decision
before the main army from Egypt could arrive. In this they
did not succeed. The Moslem armies united in the Merj
es-Suffār, and the Tartars were now inferior in numerical
strength. Still they took the offensive and the ensuing battle
lasted two days (April 20 and 21, 1303). Finally the Tartars
retired to a hill where they stood surrounded without sufficient
water for themselves and their horses. They barely succeeded
in cutting their way out, and retreated by the road they had
come. The death of Ghazan next year (1304) ended the
Tartar invasions of Syria for 100 years.
Under the strong rule of the Mamluk sultans Syria now
enjoyed a period of comparative peace. The chief feature
of the military history of the fourteenth century was the
war carried on with the Armenian kingdom of Cilicia, which
flourished early in the century but was destroyed before its
close (1375). Asia Minor was already passing into the hands
of the Ottoman Turks, but as yet they were chiefly occupied
with European wars and did not covet Cilicia.
The invasion of Syria by Timur lenk (Tamerlane) was of
a punitive character (1400–1). The emirs who opposed him
near Aleppo were easily defeated (October 1400). In front
of the centre of the Tartar army were Indian elephants, having
archers and flame-throwers mounted upon them. Aleppo,
Hama, Homs, and Ba'albek surrendered in turn without much
resistance. The Egyptian sultan, who reached Damascus
just before the Tartar army, either was not prepared for the
invaders or played a very pusillanimous part. He aban-
doned the city in less than a fortnight, and Timur took posses-
sion (January 5, 1301). The citadel also surrendered after
a short siege. Timur's army remained in Damascus till the
154
MILITARY HISTORY
end of the winter. The city was plundered before he left and
set on fire, accidentally or intentionally. All Syria suffered
from the invaders as they retired.
An interesting Tartar treatise on the principles of the art of
war belongs to this period. It is there laid down as conditions
of military success (1) that a battle should be fought on level
ground, unbroken by natural obstacles and with ample room
for extension in line; (2) that a sufficient supply of water
should be available; (3) if possible, the ground should slope
towards the enemy; (4) above all, the sun should not be in
the face of the troops as they advance. On these points it
may be observed that the methods of fighting both of the
Tartars and of the Mamluk sultans favoured the choice of
open ground, so that the defenders regularly await their
opponents on such ground, and that it is remarkable how
often in the battles of the period want of water did contribute
to the defeat of armies. The order of battle described in the
treatise is essentially that of all Syrian wars from the Arab
period onwards. There are two wings and a centre. The
centre is given the strongest advance guard and includes in
the rear the best troops as a reserve. The wings are divided
into sections which are intended to be thrown into action in
succession. It would seem to be regarded as normal that the
centre should begin a battle, but the existing narratives of
battles fought by the Tartars show that the enemy wings
were sometimes first attacked.
The triumph of the Ottoman Turks
During the fifteenth century Syria remained under the
rule of the Mamluk sultans and still enjoyed immunity from
external attack. Its borders were rounded off by the posses-
sion of Euphratesia and Cilicia. The local emirs waged
a border warfare in which their superiority was secured by the
help of the sultans. Frequent domestic wars, resembling
those of other periods, were of the nature of personal struggles
and may be passed over. In the latter part of the century
the Ottoman sultans began to dispute possession of Cilicia
THE RULE OF THE MAMLUK SULTANS
155
with the Mamluks, and the certainty of a decisive contest
with them became apparent. Bayezid II (1481-1512) was
a weak ruler, and the Mamluks in his reign held the upper
hand. With the accession of Selim I (1512–20) a new policy
was inaugurated. It looked to Persia and Syria for fresh
conquests. Armenia, Kurdistan, and Upper Mesopotamia
were quickly wrested from the Shah. The conflict with the
Mamluks was extraordinarily brief. One battle, at Merj
Dābiq, a day's journey north of Aleppo, decided the fate of
Syria. The Mamluk army represented their full strength,
and it fought as bravely and as skilfully as ever. It was the
Ottoman artillery and firearms that decided the day against
them (August 24, 1516). Another victory in the neighbour-
hood of Cairo (January 22, 1517) secured Egypt also. The
Mamluks knew, of course, the use of firearms already. But
they had not developed their use against serious opponents
as the Ottomans had. Their overthrow was due to their
failure to recognize the far-reaching effect of a new invention.
The quiet and complete submission of Egypt and Syria to the
rule of the Ottoman Turks was due in the first place to the
wise measure of home rule which the conquerors accorded to
their new provinces, and in the second place to the intercourse
and sympathy which Islam at once created throughout the
new empire of the Khalifs.
X. SYRIA UNDER THE OTTOMAN TURKS (16TH-19TH
CENTURIES)
Characteristics of the Ottoman period
The Ottoman conquest did not greatly alter the political
condition of Syria. The Turkish population was only slightly
increased and the governing classes were little disturbed.
Certain taxes which it had been customary to send to Cairo
were now sent to Constantinople; one nominal ruler was
substituted for another; pasha, beg, and agha were used as
official titles instead of sultan and emir. But the atmosphere
created by the governing class remained the same and every
156
MILITARY HISTORY
career was open precisely as before. The Pashaliks of
Aleppo, Tripoli, Saida, Damascus, and Palestine could be
won by force as well as by favour, and the pashas raised
their own troops, governed as they pleased, and were free to
wage war with one another. A special feature of the sixteenth
century is the growth of the power of the Druses, whose
principal strongholds were in Lebanon and who exercised
authority over the coast as far as Qaisārīyeh. In the early
part of the seventeenth century the chief historical events
are connected with the career of the Druse chief Fakhr ed-Dīn
(1584–1635). He waged war with the pashas of Tripoli and
Damascus, and, being the most powerful ruler in Syria, con-
ducted himself as an independent prince.
The petty wars of the eighteenth century need not be
described in detail, but their value as illustrating the military
resources of Syria, and the conditions under which Syrian
wars have always been carried on, may be emphasized.
The moderate numbers of the fighting men, the lack of
cohesion in the forces employed, the part played by surprise
in securing victory, the numerous nationalities which divide
the country into factions and their changing combinations
are all typical of Syrian history generally. Only the weak
fortifications of the towns and the lack of skill in siege warfare
seem to mark a real declension as compared with the days of
the Mamluks and the Tartars. The shifting character of the
population of Syria is also noticeable.' The movements of
the Arab tribes continue. The influx of Berbers from North
Africa commences in the beginning of the century. They
became the mercenary infantry of the pashas. About the
middle of the century the Metāwileh migrate from Ba'albek
and anti-Lebanon into the Lebanon hills and strengthen the
resources of the rulers of 'Akka, which is now the chief town
on the Syrian coast.
'Omar ez-Zāhir and Ahmed el-Jezzār
The careers of two men are specially instructive and of
outstanding interest. "Omar ez-Zāhir, in European books
SYRIA UNDER THE OTTOMAN TURKS
157
generally referred to as Daher or Taher, was early in the
century an Arab chief whose principal village was Safed.
Having seized Tiberias he carried on war with the pashas of
Damascus, just as Tancred had done with their predecessors
in the crusading period. In 1749 he seized 'Akka from
a subordinate of the pasha of Saida and established himself
in it. He restored somewhat the defences of the city,
attracted a population by his good government, increased his
power by treaties with Arab tribes and with the Metāwileh,
and thus became strong enough to wage war with Damascus
on equal terms. When he allied himself with the Egyptian
ruler ‘Ali Beg (1770-3), and obtained the help of Russian
ships (1772–3), there was a prospect of his becoming master
of all southern Syria. But the death of ‘Ali Beg (1773) and
the peace between Turkey and Russia (1774) and quarrels
with his own sons resulted in his defeat and death (1775).
His successor in Akka was Ahmed el-Jezzār. He was a
Bosnian by birth, had been a slave of the Egyptian Begs,
and had recently won a military reputation in Syria. Adven-
turers flocked to his service, and his pashalik extended till it
included the coast from Beirut to Qaisārīyeh, along with
northern Palestine and the Biqā'. His efforts to gain the
pashalik of Damascus were not permanently successful, but
he was the most powerful ruler in Syria, and by fortifying
‘Akka (from 1786 onwards) made it the strongest town on
the coast. The Ottoman Government would have dispossessed
him more than once if they had been able. Yet when
Napoleon invaded Syria they appointed him at once chief
commander of their forces.
The invasion of Napoleon
Napoleon's invasion of Syria in 1799 was primarily a defen-
sive measure. The French in Egypt were threatened by an
invasion from the sea, where the English fleet under Sir
Sidney Smith was supreme, and overland by a Turkish army
which was reported to be assembling in Syria. Napoleon
resolved to disperse the Turkish forces in Syria and to take
158
MILITARY HISTORY
possession of the coast of Palestine. This measure, if success-
ful, would both deprive the enemy of the resources of Palestine
and simplify the future defence of Egypt. It might, besides,
dispose the Ottoman Government to come to terms with the
French republic. The season was favourable, and Napoleon
hoped to return to Egypt within two months of his departure.
The wider projects of a conquest of all Syria and an invasion
of India by way of Mesopotamia, referred to in his memoirs, as
published by General Bertrand, were not part of his plan
at the time.
The leading events of Napoleon's invasion were the siege
of 'Akka and the battle of Mount Tabor. The Ottoman
Government sent munitions and guns and trained gunners
from Constantinople, and these were landed in Jaffa and
'Akka. Otherwise at first El-Jezzăr had only his own troops
for the defence of Palestine. When 1,000-1,800 of them had
been routed on the border, near El-Arīsh, and the garrison
of Jaffa (4,000–5,000 men) had been annihilated, Jezzār's only
policy against a French army of about 13,000 men was to
defend himself as best he could in ‘Akka. It is unlikely that
his garrison there exceeded 4,000–5,000 men, but Sir Sidney
Smith's guns and sailors were a potent backing, and in critical
circumstances the city was reinforced from Turkish ships by
5,000 men under orders from Constantinople.
An army under the command of the other Syrian pashas,
consisting chiefly of troops from Damascus and northern
Syria, moved into Palestine after the siege of Akka had
lasted about three weeks. Of all grades it may possibly
have numbered 10,000 men. It was engaged by a French
division under Kleber (2,000 men) at El-Füleh, near Mount
Tabor, and kept at bay for nine hours. Possibly the French
field guns, joined to the excellent discipline and superior arms
of the infantry, sufficiently explain the stand which the
French thus made. Possibly the Turkish leaders held off,
expecting victory when the French should be utterly exhausted
by fatigue and thirst. A victory similar to that of Saladin at
Hattīn seemed to be within their reach. Suddenly, however,
SYRIA UNDER THE OTTOMAN TURKS
159
in the late afternoon, Napoleon with fresh troops (2,500 men)
attacked the Turkish army from two points in the rear, and
at once they broke and fled. The French had not sufficient
cavalry to inflict much loss on the discomfited enemy. But
no further attempt to raise the siege of 'Akka was made by
the Syrian pashas.
Napoleon's invasion crippled the resources of Syria in men
and material, and taught the pashas that they could not hope
for success in a pitched battle with the French. So far, it
accomplished its purpose. On the other hand, the siege of
“Akka being unsuccessful, the occupation of Palestine became
impossible and the retreat of the French gave the whole
campaign an aspect of failure. The critical event of the
invasion was, therefore, the siege of ‘Akka. A combination
of circumstances determined the event. In the first place
the defence was bravely and skilfully conducted by Jezzār's
troops and by his Ottoman gunners. Napoleon, in his
memoirs, remarks that the fighting qualities of his opponents
told in siege warfare more effectively than in open warfare.
Besides, a French engineer, Louis-Edmond de Phélipeaux,
superintended the construction of defence works and counter-
mines with an ability equal to that of the besiegers. Then,
further, the guns of the city and of the English ships were
superior to the French guns and were better supplied with
munitions. Finally, most important of all, the command of
the sea was held by the defenders. Owing to this Napoleon's
transport and means of communication were always disabled,
and reinforcements and supplies could be introduced without
hindrance into 'Akka by sea. On the day before the siege
began the ships which brought the French siege guns and
supplies from Egypt were captured off ‘Akka by Sir Sidney
Smith. These guns were mounted at once for the defence of
the town. Even this single misadventure probably made
the difference between success and failure. Other guns were
brought seven weeks later overland from Jaffa, but it was
then too late.
At no period of the campaign were the French transport
160
MILITARY HISTORY
and supplies organized on a satisfactory footing. The attack
on ‘Akka was hampered frequently by scarcity of munitions.
From the beginning too few camels and horses were avail-
able for transport. Astonishing negligence on the part of the
enemy allowed the French to obtain great stores of provisions
and even of powder and shot on the way from Egypt (at
El-Arīsh, Gaza, Ramleh, Jaffa, and Haifa). The Turkish loss
of guns, munitions, and 25 days' provisions in Jaffa was,
perhaps, unavoidable, but the stores accumulated at Gaza,
Ramleh, and Haifa should not have been allowed to fall into
the hands of the invaders. The friendly relations which
Napoleon cultivated with the Druses and the Metāwileh in
Lebanon gained for him a useful source of supply.
As a further preliminary to the following sketch of the
events of the campaign it may be remarked that Napoleon
in his dispatches and in the memoirs already referred to
systematically magnified his operations and his successes.
Skirmishes become battles, and enemy forces of 2,000 and
10,000–12,000 became with facility 4,000 and 30,000 or more.
His losses, on the other hand, are minimized. The total
casualties as calculated recently by a member of the French
General Staff are: killed in battle 1,200, died of disease
(including plague) 1,000, sick and wounded 2,300 (of whom
about 100 lost a leg or arm)-out of an army almost exactly
13,000 strong. From the time Napoleon left Egypt to the
time of his return the army suffered from plague. This
discouraged the troops and diminished their effective strength,
but it had not the decisive influence attributed to it by the
memoirs.
The line of march from Egypt was by Qāti' and El-Arīsh
and Gaza. Qāti' was occupied by a French force on January
7, 1799, and became a dépôt in which stores were accumulated
for the invading army. At the same time flying columns
operated against the Arabs of the desert and gathered horses
and camels for transport. On February 6 an advance
guard left Qāti' for El-Arīsh, which was reached on the night
of the 8th. El-Arīsh fort was held by about 1,000 of Jezzār's
SYRIA UNDER THE OTTOMAN TURKS
161
troops, and a protecting force 1,000–1,800 strong, under
Jezzār's general ‘Abdallah, lay a short distance off. Even
after the surprise and defeat of the protecting force (night of
February 14) the garrison defended itself so well and the
prospect of further loss to the besiegers was so grave that
Napoleon granted the defenders favourable terms of sur-
render, which they accepted (February 20). Gaza was
occupied on the 24th 'after a skirmish with ‘Abdallah's forces,
which now for the most part entered Jaffa. The French army
left Gaza on February 28 and entered Ramleh on March 1.
On the 3rd they approached Jaffa, which they successfully
stormed on the 7th. The fortifications were poor and werè
easily destroyed by the French field guns. Most of the
garrison laid down their arms together, being promised their
lives, after the French had penetrated the outer defences and
held part of the town. Considering the number of guns the
defenders had, and that 300 Turkish gunners had arrived the
day before, the defence should have been better. 'Abdallah
was among the prisoners. Jaffa now became the French
port of communication with Egypt.
The army resumed its march towards ‘Akka on March 14,
it crossed the spurs of Carmel by the Wādi el-Qasab and
invested ‘Akka on the 19th. Napoleon's choice of a point of
attack was condemned by some of his staff, and the difficulty
actually experienced in making a breach at this point gives
colour to their condemnation. Still it cannot be assumed
that an attack otherwise directed would have succeeded
better. The first attempt at storming was made on March 28.
The breach was impracticable and quickly seen to be so.
After further bombardment and the blowing up of part of
the counterscarp a second attempt failed equally (April 1).
Already the besiegers experienced a certain discouragement
and the defenders gained confidence. A great mine, intended
to blow up the tower which was the chief protection of the
defenders of the breach, began to be excavated and engaged
the miners from the 3rd to the 24th of April.
During this interval an attempt to relieve ‘Akka from
SYRIA
162
MILITARY HISTORY
Damascus was made. Troops had been posted at Nazareth
and elsewhere to guard the French rear. The engagements
in the plain of Lūbiyeh on April 7 and 11 were with por-
tions of the enemy and were of a very slight character,
although represented by the French as considerable victories.
Finally the Turks encamped in the Merj ibn 'Āmir (plain of
Esdraelon) near El-Fūleh, and Kleber followed them as
ordered by Napoleon, although with 'much inferior forces.
Napoleon's timely attack on the rear of the enemy gained
a decisive victory as already described (battle of Mount
Tabor, April 16, 1799).
• The activity of the defenders of Akka in obstructing
and countermining the operations of the besiegers decided
Napoleon to explode his great mine on April 24. The result
was disappointing. The tower was still defensible and the
French attack was repelled. Napoleon's hopes now rested
on the effect of siege guns which were on the way from Egypt.
The trenches were pushed forward and another mine was
opened. The mine was destroyed, but the heavy guns were
put in position on May 7 and the final assault was appointed
to take place on the 9th. That same day (May 7) Turkish
ships with reinforcements on board (5,000 men) were seen
to be at hand. Napoleon ordered the assault to begin at
once. On the 7th, 8th, and 10th a sustained attempt was
made to storm the town. The French penetrated the first lines
of the defence, but failed before the interior lines. They are
said to have lost 200 killed and 500 wounded in this last
effort. When Kleber's division, recalled from Nazareth, was
repulsed on the 10th Napoleon decided to raise the siege.
Probably he judged that success was beyond his reach. At
all events the city was not worth the price that would still
have to be paid for it. An early return to Egypt was impera-
tive, affairs in France would soon require him to leave the
East altogether.
Ten days were spent in organizing the retreat from 'Akka.
On the morning of the 21st the enemy learned that the French
had departed the night before. The retreat was accom-
SYRIA UNDER THE OTTOMAN TURKS
163
plished without much molestation. But the army suffered
from the forced marching and the scarcity of provisions.
Guns and munitions had to be abandoned and destroyed.
Villages and crops were burned as a measure of protection
from pursuit. At Haifa, Tantūrah, and Gaza some plague
cases were abandoned. El-Arīsh was reached on June 1.
A garrison of 500 men was left here. Four or five days were
required to reach Sālihīyeh from El-Arīsh.
XI. MOHAMMED 'ALI AND IBRĀHĨM PASHA
Forms of modern European organization and drill were
introduced into the Egyptian and Ottoman armies at about the
same time (1822 and 1826 respectively). The reform in the
one case was due to Mohammed (Mehemet) 'Ali Pasha (1805-49)
and in the other to the Ottoman sultan, Mahmūd II (1808–39).
The chief features of the new methods were: (1) the systematic
training of the soldiers in drill movements and in the handling
of weapons ; (2) their organization in symmetrical units
(regiments, &c.). The undrilled forces of the older armies
fought to a large extent as individuals, and the military units,
so far as they existed, lacked cohesion and discipline, and
therefore full effectiveness in attack and defence. Under the
new system the commanders exercised more control in battle
and could better calculate the numbers of their troops and
thus dispose them more accurately according to plan. In
the older armies the units were not even approximately of
uniform size, and the distribution of the troops in a given area
or on the field of battle was uncertain and irregular. Under
the reformed system an army in battle order was arranged
in two or three successive lines, the rear line acting in support
and as reserves, and each unit being of uniform depth. The
ancient crescent movement of the front line (see page 141)
was replaced by movements in straight lines. Troops trained
and organized according to the new model may now be dis-
tinguished as regular troops. The Arab contingents and other
local levies, which still fought in both armies in the old manner,
are the irregulars. Regular troops, however, after they had
L 2
164
MILITARY HISTORY
been absent from the instruction camps for a time, tended to
revert to the undisciplined movements of the irregulars.
‘Abdallah ibn `Ali, who became pasha of 'Akka in 1820, is the
most prominent figure in a turbulent and typical decennium
of Syrian history. The crisis and the end of his career were
provoked by a conflict with Mohammed ‘Ali, ruler of Egypt.
The Egyptian invasion of Palestine in 1831 was directed against
‘Abdallah in the first place, although it was taken by the Otto-
man Government to be a challenge to its authority, and so
inaugurated a war between Egypt and the Ottoman Turks for
the possession of Syria. A brief campaign in which a siege of
Akka (1831-2) and a battle near Homs (July 1832) were the
chief events secured Syria for the Egyptians. After several
years of occupation, in which the Ottoman Government
acquiesced, the struggle was renewed (1839). A fleet, chiefly
English, representing the European allies of the Sultan,
attacked the Syrian coast towns in 1840. Within four months,
without any great battle being fought, the Egyptian army,
under Ibrāhīm Pasha, evacuated the country. Some general
comments on these events will clear the way for a more
particular account.
Napoleon's siege of ‘Akka and Ibrāhīm Pasha's offer more
points of contrast than of resemblance. The latter gave five
months to the siege. Napoleon could afford only two:
Ibrāhīm's troops were nearly twice the number of Napoleon's,
his guns were more numerous, and he was supported by war-
ships which bombarded the town and brought him reinforce-
ments and supplies. On the other hand, ‘Akka was protected
by an additional exterior wall, and the defenders were at first
very confident of success. The final assault, in May 1832, might
have been repelled and the city might have been maintained
for some months longer if thegarrison had been more numerous.
The Ottoman Government acted most foolishly in not sending
reinforcements by sea, as they could have done. With this
encouragement and assistance 'Abdallah could have held out
at least for the time which the army of Asia Minor needed in
order to reach ‘Akka.
MOHAMMED 11
'ALI AND IBRAHIM PĀSHA 165
Both the conquest of Syria in 1831–2 and its loss in 1840
were facilitated by the attitude of the Syrian population. In
the former case they supported the Egyptians, in the latter
the Turks. This change of sympathy was due to the unwise
government of Mohammed ‘Ali. From 1833 to 1840 increased
taxation and a rigorous conscription were imposed and com-
pletely alienated the inhabitants, especially in Lebanon. In
1840 the antipathy and hostility of the Syrians were a grave
weakness in the Egyptian military position. The hill peoples
of Lebanon gave most valuable help during the allied opera-
tions in the neighbourhood of Beirut. They were armed by
the invaders, and not only hampered Ibrāhīm Pasha in his
measures of defence, by holding the hills against him, but also
decisively turned the scale in favour of the invaders when they
finally drove off the Egyptian forces. The events of 1840
strikingly illustrate the importance of the sympathies of the
hill population in the case of an attack on the coast towns of
central Syria. The hostility of the Arab tribes to the east
of Jordan and in the south of Palestine greatly added to the
suffering of the Egyptian army during its final retreat.
The share of the allied fleet in the reconquest of Syria in
1840 was important. The camp at Jūneh Bay, where the
invading force landed, was secured by its guns. The rapid
blows at widely separated points on the coast were made
possible by the transport and gunfire which it provided. The
cutting of Ibrāhīm's communications by sea with Egypt was
a deadly blow when the Syrians turned against him. Of
course the easy triumphs of the allies over the coast towns
were much beyond what may normally be expected from
similar operations. Only “Akka was strongly fortified. The
capture of Saida in a single day and the surrender of Akka
after three hours' bombardment were obviously conditioned
by the cowardice and demoralization of the Egyptian garrisons.
Beirut was held for more than a month against a combined
attack by sea and land, and the principal achievement of the
fleet at this point was the landing of the allied forces. The
garrison of Tripoli was withdrawn by Ibrāhīm Pasha, although
166
MILITARY HISTORY
it was not attacked. Jubeil and Haifa and Jaffa could not be
and were not seriously defended.
Ibrāhīm Pasha gained an unbroken series of victories over
the Turks in 1832 and 1839 (Homs, Beilān, Konieh, Nizib).
His army consisted chiefly of Egyptian peasants drilled by
French instructors and led by Turkish officers. His success
was due to his good generalship and that of his staff, including
notably Suleimān Pasha (a Frenchman, Joseph Sève), and
still more to the amazing blunders of the Turkish commanders.
At Homs only one half of the Ottoman army consisted of
regular troops, drilled in the modern European manner.
Besides, owing to the fault of the commanders, they fought
under most disadvantageous conditions. After the first
victory Ibrāhīm's prestige and the corresponding lack of
confidence amongst the Turks contributed to the continued
success of the Egyptian army. It may still, therefore, be
maintained that if the issue of these battles had been decided
by the fighting qualities of the Egyptian and the Ottoman
soldiers, the latter would have shown their usual superiority.
Indeed, the discipline and general morale of Ibrāhīm's armies
were far from good. At Nizib, especially, the quality of the
Egyptian army, by this time mixed with Syrian levies, was
poor (1839). In 1840 the desertion of Syrian and Egyptian
troops, on a great scale, was common.
Ibrāhīm's poor defence of Syria in 1840 has called forth
sharp criticism of his capacity as a general. His army was
scattered in garrisons and camps all over the country, and
divisions numbering 1,000 or 2,000 or 4,000 men were attacked
and defeated by superior numbers of the enemy. If he had
assembled even the garrisons of the coast towns and the troops
of central Syria he would have been superior to all attack 1
I Quite reliable figures are not available. Suleimān Pasha at first had
nearly 7,000 men under his command in Beirut and its neighbourhood.
The garrison of Saida may have numbered 3,000 men and the garrison of
Tripoli is put at the same strength (or alternatively at 4,000). The strength
of these garrisons may have boen deduced from the paper strength of the
regiments in question. The garrison of ‘Akka could not be moved (3-4,000
men). The troops in the Biqā', afterwards brought to Lebanon, may
MOHAMMED 'ALI AND IBRĀHĪM PĀSHA
167
and might have overawed the Lebanon hill population. He
should have concentrated at least the troops of Suleimān
Pasha and Osmān Pasha and his own. It would have been
easy to join with them the garrison of Saida, and not impossible
to add the troops of Tripoli. Ibrāhīm's motives in disposing
his forces as he did are not clearly ascertainable from published
sources of information. Assuming that Mohammed ‘Ali
ordered him to remain on the defensive, his policy was still
mistaken. His expectation that a combined French and
Egyptian fleet would soon drive away the invaders may have
blinded him to his danger. In the beginning of October, three
weeks or more after the landing of the Turks, he attempted too
late a partial concentration. Possibly he had left out of his
calculation such bold and skilful strokes as those of the British
commander, Commodore (Sir) Charles Napier. The rapid
success of the allies was due principally to Napier's energy
and clearsightedness.
On the other hand, the keeping of the main part of the
Egyptian army in northern Syria may be justified on the
ground that it was needed there to guard against invasion
from Asia Minor, and the general choice of a defensive policy
may be explained by Mohammed 'Ali's political aims and by his
judgement of what was politically expedient. If a large part
of the northern army, probably Ibrāhīm's best troops, had
been marched to the neighbourhood of Beirut, the invader
would have been compelled to retire and Syria would have
been saved for the time. Sir Charles Napier gives it as his
opinion that Ibrāhīm should have undertaken an offensive
after his expulsion from Lebanon, as soon as his concentration
at Zahleh was complete (end of October). After the capture
of ‘Akka (November 3) the allies ceased their offensive and
the Turkish army was scattered in garrisons over the coast
towns, as the Egyptian army had been previously. Sir Charles
Napier was no longer in command.
The total number of Ibrāhīm's troops in Syria in 1840 has
be estimated at 4,000-5,000. The current figure, 16,000, is inconsistent with
the detailed figures of the engagements in which they fought.
168
MILITARY HISTORY
been variously estimated. It is put as high as 85,000 (e. g. by
General Iochmus, Commander-in-Chief of the allied troops in
the latter part of 1840). On such an estimate Ibrāhīm's
handling of his troops is quite incomprehensible. The allies
when they landed were only 7,000 strong, and in the end
their army did not exceed 20,000 regulars. Native estimates
(e. g. those of the Druse emir Beshīr and the Mufti of Jeru-
salem), and inferences from the paper strength of the Egyptian
regiments are of no serious value; 35,000 or 40,000 may be
admitted as possible maxima, though 30,000 may be closer to
the facts. After deducting the army of northern Syria (say
16,000) there may have been a total of 14,000 in the garrisons
of the coast towns and in the field army. The most trust-
worthy figures are those of the strength of Ibrāhīm's army
when it returned to Egypt, 20,000-25,000. Allowing liberally
for losses by desertion and capture an original total of 35,000
or even 40,000 may be reached, but not 85,000.
Part of Ibrāhīm Pasha's army of invasion in November
1831 marched by land from Egypt, following Napoleon's
route, part was transported by sea. When the siege of
‘Akka began (November 29, 1831) he commanded about
22,000 men. The Arabs of Palestine and the Druses and
Maronites in Lebanon were friendly. None of the coast towns
south of ‘Akka had offered any resistance. The garrison of
Gaza had fled, that of Jaffa had surrendered. “Akka was
defended by 2,500 or 3,000 excellent troops, chiefly Albanians
and Mamluks (expelled from Egypt by Mohammed Ali).
After a bombardment by land and sea (December 8–23) an
attempt to storm a breach near the east gate failed. The
engineer who had hitherto directed the siege operations
(Chianti) was replaced by another (Romei). His mines were,
however, skilfully countermined, the winter rains filled the
trenches and softened the ground, the fleet was injured by
gunfire and battered by storms, and withdrew to Alexandria.
At last another bombardment (March 3-9) and the explosion
of a mine opened a more promising breach. Through it the
outer wall was stormed and the second rampart was sur-
MOHAMMED 'ALI AND IBRAHIM PASHA
169
mounted (March 10). But the defenders had prepared their
counter measures. By the explosion of a mine and rifle fire
from the houses they drove the assailants out with a loss of
200 men. A long period of further preparation for the next
attempt (May 27) now followed. In the interval, at the end
of March, 400 Albanians deserted the garrison.
Meantime Turkish troops advanced from northern Syria to
the neighbourhood of Tripoli, where there was already an
Egyptian garrison. Ibrāhīm Pasha drove them away with
troops from 'Akka and moved towards Hama, where the
Pasha of Aleppo commanded the Turkish army of northern
Syria. After a skirmish with a detachment of these troops
near Homs, Ibrāhīm stationed a large part of his army (?15,000
men).in a fortified camp at Ba'albek. In this way he held the
Pasha of Aleppo in check while the siege of ‘Akka was com-
pleted.
The final assault on “Akka (Sunday, May 27, 1832) was
directed against three breaches in the eastern wall. It com-
menced at daybreak. The breaches were quickly gained by
the assailants. But, afterwards, for most of the day the
garrison fought with desperate bravery to recover their lost
positions and to prevent the capture of the ramparts on the
north side. The personal bravery of Ibrāhīm helped notably
to secure his victory. About 5 o'clock in the afternoon the
fighting ceased and the garrison surrendered that same day.
The Egyptian casualties in the last assault were announced to
have been 512 killed and 1,429 wounded. Their losses during
the whole siege are said to have been 4,000 killed and wounded
and 2,000 deaths from disease. There were still ample stores
of food and military requisites in the town, so that the small-
ness of the garrison was the chief cause of its defeat.
All Syria now welcomed the conqueror. Damascus was
occupied on June 15, being abandoned by its pasha and
garrison. Ibrāhīm, having assembled a large part of his forces,
advanced to give battle to the Pasha of Aleppo (Mehemet
Pasha), now encamped beside Homs. Another Mehemet
Pasha, commander of 10,000 Turkish regulars, joined the
170
MILITARY HISTORY
Ottoman army on the day of the battle (July 8). The Otto-
mans (20-22,000) were, therefore, numerically superior to the
Egyptians (16,000). But they were not homogeneous nor
under a properly unified command. They were also badly
posted and the best troops (the Turkish regulars) were tired
and hungry. Ibrāhīm's plan was to encircle his opponents'
left wing. The Turkish commander attempted a bayonet
charge with the infantry of his centre. When this failed a
large part of the army broke and fled. The fighting was over
in 31 hours.
The Turkish regulars who fought at Homs were part of an
army which had assembled in Asia Minor under the command
of Husein Pasha. Their separation from the rest of the army,
which lay by Esh-Shughr, was a blunder due to the incapacity
and impetuosity of their commander (Mehemet Pasha) and
was against the express orders of Husein Pasha. By it the
Turks lost their chance of engaging the Egyptians with an
advantage both in quality and number of troops. When
Husein Pasha heard of the disaster at Homs he drew back to
the “ Iron Bridge', then to Aleppo and finally to the Beilān
pass, for the defence of which he gathered about 17,000 men.
Ibrāhīm Pasha, after a delay of nine days in Aleppo, attacked
the Turks at the Beilān pass on July 30. The Ottoman troops
on the left, being threatened by a well-planned turning move-
ment, abandoned their ground and were speedily followed by
the remainder of the army. Although the Turks everywhere
had the advantage of high ground Ibrāhīm gained the summit
of the pass in three hours. The Turkish army was completely
demoralized by the defeat at Homs and by the panic flight which
had followed. Husein Pasha might, perhaps, have saved the
situation by holding his ground at Esh-Shughr and collecting
the remains of the beaten army there. Even the portion of
the army which remained with him, if well posted, should
have been sufficient to hold Ibrāhīm in check for some time.
His retreat to the Beilān pass demoralized his army further
and threw away material and men which should not have
been lost.
MOHAMMED 'ALI AND IBRAHIM PĀSHA
171
Ibrāhīm's further campaign in Cilicia and Asia Minor was
equally successful (victory at Konieh, Friday, December 21,
1832), and when peace was signed (April 8, 1833) Syria was
formally granted to Mohammed 'Ali. The causes of the rapid
revulsion of Syrian feeling against the Egyptian Government
have already been explained. In 1834 there was rebellion in
Palestine, in 1838 a formidable insurrection of the Druses of
the Haurān, in 1840, worst of all, an almost unanimous revolt
of the Druses and Maronites and Moslems of the Lebanon hills.
Before this last, hostilities between Mohammed 'Ali and the
Sultan had again broken out. The only considerable battle
was fought at Nizib, slightly to the east of 'Aintāb, on June 24,
1839. Ibrāhīm Pasha commanded the Egyptian army, which
was somewhat superior to the Turks in numbers and artillery
and possibly in training. The Kurds in the Turkish army and
the Syrians in the Egyptian army deserted in large numbers
at every opportunity. Von Moltke was in the Turkish camp,
as one of three German officers who were military advisers of
the Turkish general, Hāfiz Pasha. His account of what
happened may be summarized as follows : On the 20th of June
the Turks were in a strong position where Ibrāhīm was afraid
to attack. On the 22nd he made a hazardous march round
their left flank, by which he cut them off from their base (at
Birejīk) and compelled them to adopt a much less favourable
position. The Turks failed to use their opportunity of falling
back on Bīrejik or of attacking the Egyptians during their
turning movement. On the 23rd Ibrāhīm Pasha rested a
prepared his troops for the attack. The Turks unnecessar
stood to arms during three nights in succession. On the 24
Ibrāhīm struck at the Turkish left. His troops and guns were
so disposed that his attack was prepared for by concentrated
gunfire, while his own infantry were largely out of range of
the enemies' fire. Von Moltke says that the Turkish losses
from the cannonade were not great but that their lines were
completely disorganized. The issue of the battle was decided
in an hour and the Turks were in full flight in two hours.
Moltke was afterwards told by Turkish officers that their men

-172
MILITARY HISTORY
had stood better and lost more heavily at Nizib than in the
earlier battles of Homs, Beilān, and Konieh.
In July 1840 four European powers (Russia, England,
Austria, and Prussia) decided that Syria should be restored to
the Ottoman Turks. From August 12, British warships lay
off Beirut, interfered with the movement of Egyptian vessels,
and encouraged the revolt in Lebanon which had broken out
in June. A period of grace allowed to Mohammed Ali
expired on September 5. On September 10 a force of
Turkish troops and English and Austrian marines, about 7,000
men in all, landed at Jūneh Bay, near Beirut. They were
energetically and most ably led by Commodore (Sir) Charles
Napier. They fixed themselves in a strongly entrenched
camp just to the north of the Nahr el-Kelb. The friendly
inhabitants of the hills were soon armed and became useful
auxiliaries. A reinforcement of 1,100 Turks arrived on
September 19, and other reinforcements later. Demonstra-
tions were made from the sea against Jubeil and Haifa and
Jaffa, with satisfactory results. Beirut was defended by
Suleimān Pasha. He had 3,000 men in the city and 4,000 in
a camp near at hand. These latter were Turkish deserters,
many of whom soon transferred their allegiance back again.
Osmān Pasha lay at Meirūba, in the hills, with a few thousand
men brought from Ba'albek. Sir Charles Napier's first
attack (on September 24) was made on an outpost near Beit
Shehāb. The Egyptians made a poor resistance. From three
four hundred prisoners were taken, out of a force of 700 men.
September 26 Saida was bombarded and stormed and
actically the whole garrison (3,000 men) were taken prisoners.
The Druse emir Beshīr, Ibrāhīm's only supporter in the hills,
now began to negotiate with the allies. A battalion of
Egyptian deserters was formed. Sickness seriously diminished
Ibrāhīm's effectives. In the beginning of October a concentra-
tion of his forces was in progress. Two thousand men were on
their way from Aleppo and Osmān Pasha was ordered to leave
Meirūba. But the hillmen were on the watch. Osmān was
attacked and routed on the night of his departure from
Shehan on Septem Baain, in the his

MOHAMMED ‘ALI AND IBRAHİM PASHA
173
Meirūba (October 4). Out of 1,500–2,000 men 300 prisoners
were taken. On October 8 Sir Charles Napier again advanced
to Beit Shehāb, his intention being to attack Suleiman Pasha.
There he encountered and defeated 3-4,000 men commanded
by Ibrāhīm himself (October 10). The troops from Aleppo,
although near, were delayed by the mountaineers. Suleimān
Pasha sent four battalions, which may or may not have been
engaged. After this defeat a concentration at Zahleh was
ordered. Most of those in the camp near Beirut (2,000 men)
now deserted (October 11). At Zahleh about 6,000 men
assembled. About 2,000 deserters had already joined the
invaders and 3,000 prisoners had been taken (Wood, in
Levant Papers III.) Napier's estimate of 5,000 deserters and
5,000 prisoners shows how even his figures are sometimes
above the mark.
In the latter part of October further movements were in
progress. The garrison of Tripoli was withdrawn to the Biqā'
(October 18) and the army of the north was concentrated at
Aleppo. Presumably it was still Ibrāhīm's intention to hold
Palestine and Damascus. But by the end of October he
foresaw the possibility of a temporary evacuation of the whole
country. The Syrians everywhere were hostile. It was
difficult, therefore, to obtain supplies. The Turkish regulars
had increased to 12,000, exclusive of Syrian auxiliaries. The
Egyptian force at Zahleh did not exceed 10-12,000 men. On
November 3, a great and unexpected calamity occurred. The
fortress of ‘Akka, so often long defended in recent years
against powerful attacks, yielded after a three hours' bom-
bardment by the British fleet. Part of the garrison fled and
part surrendered. Perhaps it was this occurrence which
finally decided Ibrāhīm to retire to Damascus. The army of
the north left Aleppo on November 13 and Ibrāhīm retired
from Zahleh on the 27th. By this latter date he knew that
Syria was to be evacuated. On November 9, Mohammed 'Ali
learned of the fall of 'Akka and before the middle of the month
he had sent couriers to Ibrāhim with orders that he should re-
turn to Egypt. In the beginning of December the preparations
174
MILITARY HISTORY
for evacuation were stopped by counter-orders. There were
prospects of a reconciliation with the Sultan and therefore
of a more leisurely and undisturbed return through Palestine.
It was not until the end of December that Ibrāhīm actually
left Damascus, presumably after renewed instructions from
Mohammed ‘Ali, who had definitely resolved to abandon Syria
and wished to have his Syrian army back in Egypt. For the
purpose of the retirement Ibrāhīm divided his troops into five
divisions. One under Suleimān Pasha, with the guns, returned
by Akaba to Egypt. The others marched in succession along
or parallel to the hajj road and round the south of Palestine to
Gaza. They suffered severely from shortage of provisions and
from the attacks of the Arabs. General Iochmus, Commander-
in-Chief of the Turkish army, barred the way through Palestine.
He wished to attack the Egyptians near Gaza, but negoti-
ations were already in progress and the Syrian war was now
ended.
Egypt.2 Suleimorabim w back,
CHAPTER V
INHABITANTS
DISTRIBUTION AND DENSITY OF•POPULATION
THE latest official record (1914–15) makes the registered
population of Syria 3,156,000. This does not include those
who were not Ottoman subjects nor the Bedouin and is
believed to be otherwise under-estimated. Assuming the
Bedouin to be less than 400,000, the total population may
be estimated at about three and a half millions. Lebanon
is most densely occupied and the extreme south and south-
east most sparsely. The north and east are generally speak-
ing, less populous than the coast belt and western Palestine
(as far as Beersheba). On the basis of the official figures
the average density of the population is 43 per square mile.
In the vilayet of Aleppo it is only 30 (pop. 657,000), in Lebanon
330 (pop. 407,700, not including Beirut), in western Palestine
(as far as Beersheba) 119 (pop. 718,000). The average per
for the number of the Bedouin. The comparatively dense
population of Lebanon is accounted for by its having enjoyed
a special constitution, by its silk industry and by its proximity
to Beirut. For some years before the war, however, its
population was decreasing and in 1914 its inhabitants were
probably fewer than 300,000. Perhaps a further deduction
should be made from this figure on the ground that territory
not properly belonging to Lebanon has been reckoned to it.1
The largest towns in Syria are Aleppo, Damascus (popula-
tions 200,000 or more) and Beirut (180,000). Jerusalem, Homs,
Hama and ‘Aintāb range between fifty and eighty thousand,
1 Cuinet makes the area of the province alternatively 6,500 or 5,790
sq. kil. (pop. about 400,000). The actual area seems to have been between
3,100 and 3,200 sq. kil.
176
INHABITANTS
and the following between twenty and forty thousand: Jaffa,
Gaza, Hebron, Nāblus, Haifa, and Safed, in western Palestine,
Tripoli, Lādiqīyeh, and Antioch, on or near the northern
coast. In Lebanon, apart from Beirut which is not included
in the province, Zahleh is the only town of some size (14,000).
Everywhere most of the Syrian people live in hamlets or small
villages. In western Palestine (to Beersheba) perhaps one half
of the people live in places having populations of less than 300.
From an economic point of view three main elements in
the population of Syria may be distinguished: (1) the peasants
(fellāhīn) who live mostly in villages and depend upon agri-
culture (with fruit growing), (2) the population of the large
towns, which is industrial in an oriental fashion, (3) the
Bedouin pastoral tribes on the borders. The population of
the smaller towns, being chiefly dependent on agriculture,
may be added to the first group, which then includes about
two-thirds of the whole population of the country. The
number of the Bedouin is very uncertain. It probably does
not exceed 400,000.
Townsfolk and Villagers
The distinction made in ancient times between Towns and
Villages seems to have been based on the presence or absence
of fortifications ; the larger places usually stood on hills, the
smaller might be hidden away in a valley or in the folds
of the mountains. The modern usage of the words is based
on the size of the community, so that the same place may
be designated by different persons differently.
The sites for villages and towns are determined by two
main considerations : facilities for defence and for obtaining
water. The former consideration accounts for the ordinary
choice of the top of a hill as the site ; such a position com-
mands a view of the surrounding country and renders a village
in the normal warfare of the fellahin wellnigh impregnable ;
to add to this advantage the houses are built close together
so as to constitute a sort of fortress. Cases are quoted from
modern experience of villages being transferred from the
DISTRIBUTION AND DENSITY OF POPULATION 177
.
plain to the top of the hill with the view of obtaining
better protection from Bedouin depredations. Where both
advantages (defence and water-supply) cannot be combined,
the latter consideration gives way to the former. Thus many
villages are half a mile away from their wells ; and in places
villages are established where there are no springs, and where
the water-supply is contained in open tanks or cisterns, which
depend on the rainfall. The size of any settlement is ulti-
mately determined by the water-supply.
Since, without a reasonable degree of protection from
marauders, no community can exist, the area wherein it is
possible for town and village life to be maintained depends
very largely on the efficiency of the government at any
particular time. Complaints occur in many books of travel
of the inefficiency of the Ottoman Government, which by its
failure to suppress the nomad raiders permits large areas,
which might be profitably cultivated, to lie waste. It would
seem doubtful, however, whether in these cases bad govern-
ment alone is responsible ; for it has been shown that the
tendency to raid the cultivated lands varies inversely with the
rainfall and the scarcity which want of rain produces among
the nomads is largely the cause of their raids.
The tendency of late years has been to increase the popu-
lation of the towns at the expense of the villages. Reasons
given for this are the modern civil code, owing to which
agricultural land has largely passed from communal owner-
ship into the hands of individuals ; and the ruin of native
industries by the introduction of cheap manufactured goods
from Europe. Thus in a village where a few years ago
forty looms were at work only six were found by a recent
traveller. Another reason is doubtless the better protection
which the town affords. Thus many villages in the rich and
fertile lands of the Haurān were laid waste by the Bedouin
because the villagers declined to pay the blackmail called
khuuweh, “fraternity'; the people fearing further ill treatment
then sought more secure abodes in the vicinity of towns
more directly under Turkish rule.
M
SYRIA
178
INHABITANTS ..
In Lebanon the last quarter of a century has witnessed
the growth of many villages into towns, partly owing to
the return of emigrants who had made fortunes abroad,
and partly owing to the increasing employment of the region
as a summer resort. In Zahleh in 1885 the only stone
building was a church ; in 1909 there were large numbers
of stone-built houses and a street called Brazil Street in
memory of the fact that most of the house-owners had made
their fortunes in that country. The facilities offered by
railways account for the growth of some towns. Another
cause of growth is sanctity, i.e. the belief that residence in
the neighbourhood will be attended by some spiritual advan-
tage. This may be joined to the recognition by wealthy
communities outside the country. that certain places have
special claims on their benevolence. It accounts in the first
place for the populousness of Jerusalem, and further for that
of less sacred places, which still count as sanctuaries, such as
Safed and Tiberias to the Jews, Bethlehem and Nazareth to the
Christians. In the last of these cases it has been shown that
sanctity is more than sufficient to compensate for the want
of natural advantages. Competent observers held that owing
to want of water it could never become populous. Its
population of 3,000 in 1879 was regarded as unduly swollen
by immigrants from regions which the Bedouin had rendered
unsafe; and it was thought likely to sink again into insigni-
ficance when once the raiders had been checked. But by
1905 it was found to number 10,000 inhabitants.
The growth of population shows a tendency in places to
repeople ancient towns and villages. So the Jebel Zāwiyeh,
a cluster of low hills between the Orontes valley and the
plain of Aleppo, contains a number of ruined towns, which
date mainly from the fourth and fifth centuries, and are
being reinhabited by Syrian fellahin. Between Hama and
Aleppo several ancient cities are reoccupied by half-settled
Arabs. Elsewhere in North Syria old settlements have been
reoccupied by Kurds.
The size to which these settlements can grow is strictly
DISTRIBUTION AND DENSITY OF POPULATION 179
limited by the water-supply. Hence certain places which
during the construction of the Hejaz railway were used as
centres for distribution, and in consequence grew abnormally,
have since sunk to the numbers which the local water-supply
can maintain.
The decrease of the villages in some parts of Palestine
appears to be compensated elsewhere by the foundation of
new colonies, whether by immigrants from other parts of the
country or from abroad or by the settling of the nomads.
The Christians of Salt and Mādeba are praised for their
cultivation ; in five years they pushed the area of cultivation
two hours' ride to the east. The traveller who reports this,
visiting Qastal after five years, found that it was being culti-
vated, after having lain waste for a long time. The summer
quarters of the Belqa tribes are gradually being filled up with
fellahin, and even their summer watering-places are occupied
by Circassian colonists. Regarding the Jewish colonies, which
have reclaimed much waste land, see p. 189 f. The valley of
the Orontes was formerly an Arab camping-ground, and is
still frequented in dry seasons by a few sheikhs of the Hasaneh
and the 'Anazeh tribes ; but the bulk of the Bedouin have
been driven off by cultivation.
Nomads
The principal Bedouin tribes in Moab and Gilead live in
scattered camps, often containing as few as 20 tents together
or less. Every father of a family has his tent, and as a rule
five persons may be reckoned to a tent. A council of elders
deliberates on the time and direction of their migrations, the
settlement of which is the business of the sheikh. Especially
where the Bedouin are owners of land, their movements are
generally governed by rule, though raiding may take them
into unfamiliar regions. There are, however, tribes which
have no fixed haunts even at the time of the summer drought.
In October of each year, before the first rains fall, the larger
tribes of the Haurān, the two branches of the ‘Anazeh, the
Wuld 'Ali, and the Ruweileh, leave their summer quarters for
M 2
180
INHABITANTS
the Syrian desert. This is the half-yearly march of the
tribes, differing from the fortnightly change in the situation
of the camp. The Wuld ‘Ali take with them during their
migrations many thousand head of camels ; the goats and
cattle are left behind in the Jaulān in the care of those mem-
bers of the tribe who have elected to settle in the country.
The grazing grounds of the Wuld ‘Ali are becoming more and
more restricted, owing to the encroachments of the Circassians
and the immigration of peasants from Samaria.
As a rule the Bedouin make their raids on one another
rather than on the sedentary population, who are protected
by their villages. On long raids the plunderers will ride
three hundred or four hundred miles to the scene of opera-
tions. May and June are the great seasons for raids ; earlier
than this the Arabs do not like to take away the mother
camels, whose milk is required for the horses. Moreover
the business of caring for young animals of all sorts is too
engrossing to permit of much raiding.
To a considerable extent it has recently been a part of
Turkish policy to assist the nomads to settle and substitute
agricultural for pastoral life. Sometimes the lands on which
it has been suggested that they should settle are too dry to
admit of profitable cultivation. In spite of this difficulty
all along the western edge of the desert (and especially from
Hama to Aleppo) the Bedouin are beginning to cultivate the
soil, and are therefore forced to establish themselves in some
fixed spot near their crops. In the initial stages these new-
made farmers continue to live in tents, but the tents are
stationary. In places the Bedouin have low buildings which
they use for storehouses. The sheikhs of the richer tribes
have town houses in Damascus.
Where the Bedouin own agricultural land, it is largely
their practice not to cultivate it themselves, but to employ
fellahin for the purpose, who while employed enjoy their
protection, are provided by them with instruments, and are
allowed to appropriate a portion of the produce. The labour
thus hired is more often Christian than Moslem. This is, or
DISTRIBUTION AND DENSITY OF POPULATION 181
was till recently, the case with the southern, central, and
eastern lands of Palestine. The fellahin at times wander
far in search of such employment.
The principles whereby land is held are very variable, and in
parts of the country were undergoing rapid change in the years
which preceded the war. The tendency is to treat land which
is used for the cultivation of fruit and vegetables or flowers as
private property; such areas are ordinarily surrounded with
used for the cultivation of cereals is the property (normally) of
tribes; there are cases where such land is annually divided
among the branches of a tribe, with further subdivision
among the smaller groups of these branches. Pastoral land
in contrast to these has a tendency to be treated as ownerless,
though the same tribes from year to year usually bring their
flocks and herds to pasture there; custom does not prevent
a tribe from betaking itself to ground on which it is unfamiliar ;
circumstances will decide whether in such a case it will put
itself under the protection of another tribe more accustomed
to visit the same area, utilizing one of several formulae known
to Bedouin law.
The wealth of the nomad tribes consists mainly in camels,
oxen, sheep, and goats, on which they pay tax to the
Turkish authorities; from the numbers which are quoted
in official lists their wealth appears often to be considerable,
though doubtless it varies very much from year to year,
especially where owing to inter-tribal raiding it is apt to
change hands frequently. Horse-breeding has largely been
abandoned by the nomads, owing to the prohibition by the
Turkish Government of the exportation of Arab horses.
The purpose of the prohibition was not, of course, to dis-
for use in the country or the empire.
INCREASE AND DECREASE
There are no statistics by which the birth or death rates
or the rate of increase of the population may be determined.
182
INHABITANTS
Emigration has seriously drained the country for many years,
and this, together with a high death rate, seems to have made
the general growth of the population slow. On the other
hand some of the towns of western Palestine have increased
rapidly in recent years (Jerusalem, Jaffa, Haifa, Nazareth).
Beirut has probably doubled its population since 1880 and
the coast towns generally have grown in the same period
(e. g. Tripoli and Lādiqīyeh). The growth of these and
other smaller towns (Zahleh and Salt) is not, however,
evidence of the general rate of increase. Many districts are
quite stationary and others have largely decreased in popula-
tion. The ease with which the population moves from one
point to another, even within country districts, is a charac-
teristic feature. The frequent changes of the seats of govern-
ment (e. g. in the sanjaq of the Haurān) affect the populations
of some of the smaller towns. Recently the influence of
emigration has been most marked in Lebanon, the Jebel
Ansarīyeh, and the neighbourhood of Homs and Hama.
The movement began amongst the Christians of Lebanon
and was there due partly to the over-population of the district
and partly to the influence of foreigners and foreign education.
A special cause affecting Jews and Christians has been their
liability to military service, following the revolution of 1908.
To what extent the population has been drawn from the
villages to the towns cannot easily be estimated. It seems
well attested that in recent times villages have been aban-
doned after a rainless season, when the inhabitants were
either frightened away by raiders, or compelled to go else-
where to seek a livelihood; but there is reason for believing
that such abandonment is in most cases temporary. It is
asserted that the increased burden of taxation renders it
more and more difficult for the peasants to live by agriculture;
but this seems to be true only of the less fertile regions,
for example at Kerak any fellāh can earn 1,000–1,500 piastres
a year, and has little occasion to spend money except
to pay the capitation tax, or, since the Constitution, to
buy himself a substitute for military service. In Lebanon
INCREASE AND DECREASE
183
it is asserted that there is a scarcity of agricultural labour,
owing to the vast scale on which emigration has taken
place; yet here too we read of the growth of villages
into towns. It is therefore probable that the exodus from
the villages to the towns has in most cases simply left
the villages at their original size, and that the appearance
of a village being deserted has often been deceptive, the
migration being for a particular season, in accordance with
a practice which is common among the semi-nomad tribes.
In bad years the peasants of the drier districts go to Aleppo
to find work.' To the south of the Haurān and in north-east
Syria towards Aleppo and the Euphrates the traveller often
comes across villages where the grain-bins stand empty and
the houses are untenanted ; if a villager happens to be at
home, he says : 'We live here in years when there are har-
vests; other years we go to the cities.
Of what may be called internal migration, i. e. the removal
of whole communities from one part of the country to another,
numerous cases are recorded. The great movement of Druses
from Mt. Lebanon to the Haurān in the eighteenth century
and again after 1860 is a striking instance. The present
inhabitants of Umm Keis (Gadara) are settlers from
Samaria. At Qastal (east of the north end of the Dead Sea)
in 1905 some forty or fifty families from Jerusalem, Hebron,
and elsewhere took up their abode in the ruins of an old city;
in 1912. it was asserted that they were planning to return,
life having proved harder than in their old homes through
drought. In 1907, after the construction of the railway, the
government settled about sixty families from Salt, Hebron,
Nāblus, and other places at Zīza south of Qastal.
An interesting case of internal migration on a consider-
able scale, and one of which we possess a detailed account,
is that which has peopled Mādeba. It is of special interest as
bringing before us a community of Christian Bedouin,
who appear to have preserved their religion from pre-
Islamic times, at the same time maintaining various Bedouin
institutions, including polygamy, though on a small scale.
184
INHABITANTS
Their original home was Kerak; owing to a series of dis-
putes with their neighbours they decided to emigrate and
obtained permission from the Turkish Government to repeople
a ruined city. The first tribe which thus emigrated was the
‘Azeizāt; they placed themselves under the protection of
the Hamā'ideh, and were presently followed by two other
Christian tribes. It appears that their migration gave great
offence to their former neighbours, who however were unable
to make their resentment felt owing to the protection which
the tribes now enjoyed.
Minor cases of migration, confined to individuals or to
families, are brought about by blood-feud, the Bedouin
institutions rendering absence for three generations necessary
before the feud can be allayed. Similar effects are produced
by the Bedouin custom of punishing certain offences by
permanent outlawry.
The growth of the Jewish population of Palestine in the
nineteenth century, and down to 1914, can be more exactly
estimated. In 1839 the Jews of Palestine were reported to
number between eleven and thirteen thousand. In 1880 they
are estimated to have numbered about 35,000, in 1900 about
70,000 and in 1910 about 86,000. This last figure is probably
an over-statement. Ruppin, from whom it is taken, after-
wards gave 85,000 as the number of the Jewish population
just before the war. Beyond the borders of Palestine the
largest Jewish communities are found in Aleppo (15,000),
Damascus, (10,000), and Beirut (5,000).1 In 1839 the Jews
of Damascus were reported unofficially to number 5,000 and
in 1873 the official estimate of the Jews of Aleppo was 5,000.
Possibly in both cases women and girls are not included.
The Jewish populations of Safed, Tiberias, and Hebron are
given by Ruppin (for 1914) as 8,000, 4,000, and 1,000 respec-
1 The figures of 1839 are those of a Commission of the General Assembly
of the Church of Scotland. The other figures, up to this point, are from
A. Ruppin (Jews of To-day, 1913, and Syrien als Wirthschaftsgebiet, 1917).
Probably 3,000 would be more accurate than 5,000 for the Jewish population
of Beirut.
INCREASE AND DECREASE
185
tively. In Hebron the Jewish community is not increasing,
in Safed and Tiberias it would appear to have been stationary
or decreasing for some years. The advance of the Jewish
population of Palestine has taken place in the new agricul-
tural colonies (to the extent of 10,500) and in Jerusalem,
Jaffa, and Haifa.1 The following table shows the increase in
the three towns last-named:
1839. 1875. 1881. 1891. 1904.
1914.
Jerusalem 5–7,000 13,000 13,920* 25,322* 41,000*
45,000
or 50,000
1880. 1895. 1905. 1910. 1914.
Jaffa ·
8.000
2,000*
·
10.000
·
5,500*
1892. 1895.
1908. 1914.
Haifa
450* 810
1,600* 3,000
100
Whoo
Emigration
Syrian emigration is dated by some as far back as the
year 1860. In 1876 a missionary asserted that for the ten
preceding years the Syrian peasants had seen the fruits of
their labours taken away by organized robbers, whence all
who could get away left for Egypt and the large cities, so that
the country was getting depopulated. In that year certain
Syrian merchants are said to have discovered America'at
the centennial exhibition, and from that time there has been
a stream of emigration to Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, the
United States, the Pacific Islands, Singapore, Australia, New
Zealand, and the Transvaal. It was asserted by one well-
informed writer that the emigration fever seized all classes ;
farmers, planters, mechanics, merchants, doctors, teachers,
preachers, young men and women, boys and girls, and even
old men and women were setting out in crowds for the El-
Dorado of the West. As a company of peasants would pay
high wages for an English-speaking boy or girl to go with
them as interpreter, there was a premium on the English
1 The figures of the following table marked * are taken from D. Trietsch,
Palästina-Handbuch, 1912. He and others make the Jewish pre-war popu-
ation of Palestine (and of Jerusalem) much higher than is probable. Cf.
also p. 189.
186
INHABITANTS
language. The British occupation of Egypt in 1882 produced
a further stream whose destination was considerably nearer
home. The deinand for English-speaking and English-
trained doctors, lawyers, surveyors, engineers, clerks and
accountants, for the Anglo-Egyptian military and civil service,
after the British occupation, tempted the best-trained youth
of Syria to go to Egypt. In 1907 the wealth of the Syrian
residents in Egypt was estimated at £E.50,000,000 or one-
tenth of the whole wealth of the country. The opening for
Syrian dealers in Oriental wares and fabrics in North and
South America, Mexico, and Australia, sent constantly
increasing numbers to seek their fortune beyond the seas.
Then steamship and emigration agencies visited the towns and
villages, and by the praises which they bestowed on the
United States, Brazil, the Argentine, &c., induced numbers
to join the movement.
Of places in Palestine where emigration is common the
most notable would seem to be Bethlehem ; little colonies
from this place, whose inhabitants are particularly enter-
prising, are to be found not only in America, but also in
Hayti, Australia, East Africa, and other lands. In 1913 the
emigration from the sanjaq of Jerusalem was estimated at
3,000, chiefly young men—Moslems, Jews, and Christians in
about equal proportions. Quite recent writers also speak of
a movement from Galilee. The chief centre of emigration
would, however, seem to be Lebanon, which native writers
usually describe in this context. It is calculated that the
population of Lebanon diminished by at least one quarter
(100,000) in consequence of emigration between 1900 and
1914. The long connection of the Maronites with Rome and
the strong American influence have rendered the notion of
emigration to foreign countries more familiar here than
elsewhere. In 1905 emigration had taken place on so vast
a scale that there was difficulty in obtaining the necessary
labour for cultivation of the corn, the mulberry, and the vine.
The population is mainly Christian; but large numbers
of the sect called Metāwileh, who dwell in the province,
INCREASE AND DECREASE
187
have also migrated especially to America owing to the
difficulties placed in the way of their cultivation of tobacco,
which for a time had brought them great prosperity. The
Government monopoly rendered both sale and purchase by
private contract risky, and while no tobacco was allowed to
be used which did not bear the Government stamp, the price
which the authorities paid the producers was insufficient to
render the cultivation remunerative. After the monopoly
had been in existence ten years, the land owned by the
villagers had been sold to the merchants of the towns, or
had become the property of money-lenders, while the culti-
vators had emigrated to America.
Statistics of the total number of the emigrants are not
obtainable. In 1905, when the process had been going on
for at least thirty years, it was calculated that a quarter of
a million Syrians had emigrated during that period, about
a quarter of the whole number going to the United States,
50,000 to South America, 25,000 to Central America, 10,000
to Australia, the rest to Africa, India, the Philippines, &c.
In 1914 calculations varied from 570,000 to 1,000,000;
the latter figure was, however, thought to include children
born to the exiles.
For the Argentine Republic there are official figures.
According to these the years 1880–90 together brought some
1,000 Syrian immigrants. From 1890 to 1897 the numbers
did not exceed 100 annually, until the last year, which brought
1,000; 1906 brought 7,000; and 1909 over 7,000. The
proclamation of the Ottoman constitution in 1908 did not,
as might have been expected, reduce the immigration but
rather increased it; this increase being due partly to the
confusion which followed on that proclamation, partly to the
objection to the military service which the Constitution
enforced on the Christian and Jewish subjects of the Porte.
It is asserted that the Syrian immigrants into America
rarely take any part in agriculture, preferring trade. In
Argentina the original immigrants all followed this occupa-
tion, chiefly taking goods to villages where there was a lack
188
INHABITANTS
of shops, or to railway stations. The Syrian, it is asserted,
is better at this business than any other race; he is able to
carry a weight of eighty kilogrammes on his back. This
faculty is attributed in part to the primitive character of the
appliances in Syria, where work is done by human beings
which in more developed countries is accomplished with the
aid of cranes and the like. When the numbers of the immi-
grants increased and there were as many as two or three
hundred in a place, the more talented opened shops, or even
factories, and organized labour, employing the others in
various capacities ; thus the Syrians for a time formed close
corporations. At a third stage they took to obtaining
possession of forests or agricultural lands, and cultivating
them like ordinary proprietors. Whereas then, in the two
former periods, the Syrian immigrants had been regarded as
birds of passage by the natives of Argentina, it was now
recognized that they meant to remain, and this was confirmed
by frequent intermarriage and the adoption by the Syrians
of the customs of the country.
This new departure was of value to the immigrants in two
ways. First it enabled the settlers to acquire wealth to
a degree which would not have been possible to them as
traders ; secondly it had the effect of uniting them more
closely to the land of their adoption ; though many still
made a point of retaining the customs of their native land
in their new conditions.
Probably the history of the Syrian colony in Argentina
does not differ seriously from that of the colonies in other
countries which are open to immigration on a large scale.
So a writer from the U.S. says 'in England and far more in
America the Syrian is a familiar figure; we know him chiefly
as a factory hand or vendor of small needlework'.
The degree of absorption of the emigrants in the country
to which they have gone is very variable; in general the
number who return, especially to Lebanon, is very great.
In almost every village returned wanderers are found who
speak English. The large number of Arabic newspapers and
INCREASE AND DECREASE
189
journals maintained in America is evidence that many of the
emigrants have no intention of permanently abandoning
their nationality. These journals, which largely reproduce
the matter issued by the presses of Egypt and Syria, serve
to keep the wanderers in touch with the affairs of their
native country.
Immigration
In Syria, and especially in Palestine and the Lebanon
district, there is a permanent foreign population of mission-
aries and members of the religious orders which is continually
being replenished by new arrivals. In addition, during the
last fifty years there has been a considerable immigration of
Jews and Circassians and a small but perceptible influx of
Germans.
By far the most numerous of these immigrants have been
the Jews, who have settled in Palestine and are the chief
cause of the modern growth of Jerusalem and Jaffa. The
net gain from this immigration between 1880 and 1914 is
estimated at 40,000 (Ruppin). This number does not include
the natural increase of the Jewish population (see p. 184) nor
those Jewish immigrants who have not remained permanently
in the country. The chief results of this immigration have
been that Jerusalem has again become, predominantly, a
Jewish town and that prosperous agricultural colonies, with
a population of about 10,500, have been established through-
out Palestine. The land belonging to these colonies in 1914
was about 90,000 acres in extent, of which 26,500 acres lay
in S. Palestine, 20,000 acres in western Samaria and 43,000
acres in Galilee. The most populous of the townships or
villages established in these colonies are Pethah Tiqwāh
(pop. 3,000), Rīshon le-Sīyān (pop. 1,300) and Zikeron
Ya‘aqob (pop. 1,100).
The colonization movement, apart from temporary experi-
ments which for one cause or another proved abortive, com-
menced in 1882. Agricultural colonies, worked by immi-
grants from Russia and Rumania, were in that year founded
190
INHABITANTS
in the neighbourhood of Jaffa, in Samaria, and in Galilee.
The foundation of these colonies aroused considerable sym-
pathy among the Jews of Europe and others, and various
societies were founded with a view to encouraging their
development; a conference of these societies held at Katto-
witz in Prussian Silesia in November 1884 resulted in a con-
centration of further effort in this direction. In 1890, with
the permission of the Russian Government, the Odessa Com-
mittee was formed, which endeavoured to furnish the colonies
already formed or in process of formation with the necessary
equipment. Liberal support was also given by Baron
Edmond de Rothschild of Paris, who bought land to provide
for the growth of the colonies already started and for the
establishment of new ones. He appointed agents to assist
the colonists, and allowed them to draw upon him almost
without limit. He assisted and encouraged the colonists to
improve their land and to introduce new forms of cultivation.
He constructed for them great wine presses and wine cellars.
Finally he transferred the administration of the colonies to
the Jewish Colonization Association, an institution formed
and endowed by Baron Hirsch. This society still continues
to support the Jewish colonies in a systematic and effective
manner.
The account given by Jewish writers.of the progress of these
colonies before the outbreak of the war is highly optimistic.
Not only had the productiveness of the soil been largely in-
creased by the improved methods of cultivation introduced,
but the relations between the immigrants and the native
population had become more intimate as the advantages arising
from this increase to the wealth of the whole country came to
be realized. Meanwhile the serious problem caused by the
unemployment of the older class of Jews congregated in Jeru-
salem and other cities of Palestine was finding its solution
partly in the need of labour which the new colonies produced,
partly in the other wants which the growing prosperity of the
colonists occasioned.
The recent Jewish immigration into Palestine has been
INCREASE AND DECREASE
191
much helped and stimulated by what is known as the Zionist
movement. Modern Zionism, in a broad sense, grew up
under the influence of the Russian pogroms in 1881-2.
The present organization dates from the first Zionist Congress,
held at Basle in 1897. The movement was essentially one
to promote the return of the Jews to Palestine, although
some of its adherents desired most of all to see the establish-
ment of a national home' for the Jews anywhere that might
be available. The rejection of the British offer of land in
East Africa, made in 1903, put an end to projects of settle-
ment elsewhere than in Palestine. The first president of the
Zionist organization, Dr. Theodor Herzl of Vienna, gave the
movement for some years a political direction. He hoped to
obtain from the Turkish Sultan a charter for the establishment
of the Jews in Palestine and regarded this as an essential
preliminary to really successful colonization. After it was
found that no special terms could be got from the Turkish
Government, Zionism devoted its strength to the system-
atic acquisition of land in Palestine and to the economic
development of the existing colonies.
Many influential Jews are opposed to Zionism on the
ground that it endangers the national rights which they have
obtained in the countries of their adoption. They claim that
Jews should be treated as the adherents of a special religion
and not as all belonging to one and the same people.
Next to the Jews, in numbers, come the Circassians, who,
since 1880, have settled at various points along the eastern
borders of Syria (sanjaqs of Aleppo and Homs, districts of the
Jaulān and 'Ajlūn, sanjaq of Kerak). They have already
twice left their homes, in the Caucasus and in Bulgaria, in
order not to be subject to Christian rulers. They were
established in Syria with the approval and assistance of the
Ottoman Government, and are said to number altogether
about 20,000. They have brought under cultivation land
previously unoccupied and have greatly improved some parts
of the frontiers of Syria. Their advent has gone hand in
hand with the imposition of Turkish rule on the Bedouin,
192
INHABITANTS
whose freedom in the matter of raiding they have greatly
restricted.
The German Templar colonies in the neighbourhood of
Haifa, Jaffa, and Jerusalem were established by immigrants
who came to Palestine under the influence of peculiar religious
views. They belonged to a Christian sect ( the Temple ),
which was formed in Würtemberg about 1854 and exists now
practically only in Palestine. Their chief settlements with
the dates of their establishment are Haifa (1869), Jaffa (1869),
Sarona near Jaffa (1872), Jerusalem or Rephaim (1874),
Wilhelma (1904), between Jaffa and Ramleh, and Beit Lahm
(1906), between Haifa and Nazareth. At first the settlers were
weakened by internal dissensions and financial difficulties
and by the inevitable hardships .imposed by the climate
and the conditions of the country. Twenty years passed
before they could be said to have overcome their initial
difficulties. In 1879 they admitted to the colonies Germans
who were not members of the Temple. After the Kaiser's
visit, in 1898, they obtained useful financial support from
Germany on the ground that they represented German
interests in Palestine. The first settlers numbered about
250, in 1878 they had increased to 850 and in 1903 to 1,371
(of whom 1,116 were Templars). A considerable part of these
settlers are townspeople (shop-keepers and craftsmen) but
they have also been pioneers in agriculture and in wine-
making and in this way have contributed materially to the
progress of the country.
RACE AND LANGUAGE
Racial Conditions
The frequency with which Syria has been subdued and
governed by foreigners is a remarkable feature in its history.
Equally striking is the smallness of the contribution which
these foreigners have made to the racial character of the
Syrian people. The smallness of the occupying garrisons,
as in the case of the Romans and the Turks, partly explains
RACE AND LANGUAGE
193
the discrepancy. But the determining factor has been the
continuous replenishment of Syria, in times of peace and
war alike, from the tribes of the Arabian desert. This Arab
infiltration has created and maintains the specific racial
character of the population. The distinction between the
Arabs and the Syrians, although important, is cultural rather
than racial. The Syrian people are cultivators of the soil
and dwellers in towns. They have native industries and,
generally speaking; a civilization and a history that sharply
mark them off from the Arabs. These latter, on the Syrian
border, are a pastoral people organized in tribes and always
disposed to war at the expense of their neighbours. Examples
of transition from the nomad Bedouin to the Syrian fellahin,
or peasants, may, accordingly, be seen at any time all along
the eastern border. Thus the Arab conquest of the eighth
century was only the flood tide of a never-ceasing overflow
from the desert into the cultivated lands of Syria.
Such elements of the population as the Ansarīyeh and the
Druses may preserve more purely than most the blood and
customs of an early period. But they are not, therefore,
distinct races. The native Christians, also, are a part of the
same Syrian people as their Moslem neighbours. Even the
Arabic-speaking Jews, as distinct from recent Jewish immi-
grants, cannot be very sharply distinguished in a racial point
of view.
The oldest resident community would appear to be that of
the Samaritans of Nāblus. They are the sole representatives
of ancient Israel. They are said to be the tallest people in
the country. Since the numbers of this community have been
steadily dwindling, and at the present time are said not to
reach two hundred, among whom the males are a considerable
majority, it is unlikely that it has any future before it.
If M. Dussaud's conjecture: be right that the Ansarīyeh
(or Nuseirīyeh) are to be identified with the Nazerini of
Pliny, this would be the second oldest community that has
maintained its identity in the country in spite of political
vicissitudes.
SYRIA
194
INHABITANTS
It is generally agreed that the fellahin are in the main the
descendants of the earliest known inhabitants of the land, the
Canaanites, found there by ancient Egyptian and afterwards
by Israelite invaders. Their relation to such invaders was
not unlike that which in many places up to the commence-
ment of the war subsisted between them and the Bedouin.
In the different parts of the country they have been racially
affected in various degrees by immigrants. Thus the popu-
lation of Gaza is said to be distinguished by darkness of
complexion due to the presence of Philistine and Egyptian
elements. The inhabitants of Ludd are fairer and more like
those of Hebron.
. It does not appear that the fellahin throughout the country
retain any recollection of earlier. nationalities which they
constituted in historical or pre-historic times, although there
are numerous local varieties of dialect whose differences may,
in fact, be due to the influence of earlier languages (such as
Aramaic). The survival of the Christian religion in some
places and the Aramaic vernacular of the villages of Maʻlūla,
Bakh'a, and Jubb 'Adīn are also traces of former historical
conditions.
A negro element is found in the dark-skinned, thick-lipped
people who inhabit the torrid Ghor on the east side of the
Dead Sea and its southern end. Their presence is attributed
by some to a settlement from the Sudan, by others to the
introduction of negro slaves purchased at Mecca or Jiddah
by pilgrims, and retailed at Maʻān. Their frequency in the
Ghör is accounted for by a process of natural selection.
Individuals with thick lips, curly hair, broad noses, and dark
skins are better fitted for life in the fierce perpetual heat than
are those of the ordinary Arab type.
Traditions about the immigration of ancestors at the period
of the Arab conquest are not to be relied on. The Druses
profess to be able to name the Arabian families whence they
are descended, but their tables inspire no confidence. The
special Druse type is quite explicable on the ground of their
lengthy isolation in the mountains. Again, we are told by
RACE AND LANGUAGE
195
a foreign consul that in and about Damascus you may see the
finest Arab population that can be found anywhere and that
they are the descendants of the original invaders, who came up
on the first great wave of the conquest, and have kept their
stock almost pure. This is not really credible, since Damascus
was for nearly a century the capital of the empire, and, after
it had ceased to hold that position, endured for centuries
violent political changes and catastrophes. Each of these
was of necessity accompanied by some shifting in the con-
stituents of the population ; and the same is true of other
cities.
It is generally agreed that the Jews, originally an Oriental
people, have in course of time largely absorbed racial elements
from the European countries in which they have lived for
centuries. Palestine is now a gathering-ground for the
numerous Jewish types that have been evolved in other lands.
Quite a small part of the Jews of Syria are descended from
the ancient communities which still existed, for example in
Damascus, at the date of the Arab conquest. Until 1880
most Syrian Jews were descended from the Sephardim, or
Spanish Jews, who settled in the Turkish empire in the
sixteenth century and received then a cordial welcome from
the Turks. In the seventeenth century they were joined by
considerable numbers of Ashkenazim, or Yiddish-speaking
Jews, from Central Europe. Most of the Jewish immigrants
since 1880 have been Ashkenazim from Russia or Rumania.
But some have been Sephardim from Bokhara, Persia, Yemen,
North Africa, and elsewhere.
The most obvious foreign elements in the population of
Syria, besides immigrant Jews and Circassians (pp. 189–91),
are Turks and Turkomans, Kurds, Armenians, Persians, and
various Europeans.
In most parts of Syria the only Ottoman Turks, during the
period of their government, were soldiers and officials. There
is, however, a Turkish-speaking territory in northern Syria
with a population estimated at about 80,000. Killiz, north
of Aleppo, lies within it and the coast-line as far south as
N 2
196
INHABITANTS
Ras el-Baseit, just to the north of Lādiqīyeh. There have
been some recent cases of Turkish immigration e.g. from
Bulgaria to Masyād and from Crete to Sālihīyeh, near
Damascus. The Turkomans are roving pastoral tribes of
Turkish race, similar in some respects to the Bedouin. They
are found mostly in the vilayet of Aleppo but also on the
eastern borders farther south (e.g. near Homs and Ba'albek
and in the Belqa). There are only a few thousands of them
altogether. Sometimes they settle down and become part
of the sedentary population (as in Aleppo and Homs).
The Kurds are found chiefly in the vilayet of Aleppo,
where they have been restive and troublesome under Turkish
rule. There are Kurds in the Jebel Ansarīyeh, who now
speak Arabic, and some in Hama and Sālihīyeh.
Armenians are found, to a limited extent, in Aleppo,
Damascus, Beirut, and Jerusalem, engaged in trade and
commerce. They are most numerous in the vilayet of
Aleppo. A small number of Persians also carry on business
in the larger towns.
Europeans (and Americans) reside chiefly in the coast towns
(e.g. Beirut, Haifa, and Jaffa) and in Jerusalem, but also in
Damascus and Aleppo. They are largely members of religious
orders or agents of missionary or educational societies, the
remainder are engaged in trade and industry.
It may be of interest to note that small numbers of gipsies
(Nawār) have their homes in Syria.
Language
One of the ancient languages of Syria, Aramaic or Syriac, is
still spoken in a few villages, Maʻlūla, Bakh'a, and Jubb 'Adīn,
near Damascus. The dialect differs very considerably from
the vernacular Syriac of the Nestorian Christians in Persia and
Kurdistan, so that the communities are not mutually intelli-
gible. The dialect of these villages is said to be largely mixed
with Arabic, and is never written. Classical Syriac is here and
elsewhere used in the liturgies of some of the churches.
In the Jewish colonies Hebrew has been revived, and is said
RACE AND LANGUAGE
197
to be making steady progress. When families began to multiply
in the new colonies, “it was recognized that the only means of
dealing satisfactorily with a heterogeneous mass of children
coming from all points of the compass and speaking a score of
tongues, was to give them a common language.' Of Hebrew
the immigrants all knew something, and there were strong
national reasons for making it the language of the Jews
restored to Palestine. The first school where it was used as the
language of instruction in all subjects was the Higher Grade
Girls' School in Jaffa, and it has thence spread to other schools,
including kindergartens. The Odessa Committee, which
founded several of these institutions, subsidizes Hebrew
libraries and newspapers and publishers of educational and
other works in Hebrew. A Teachers' Union has' codified and
elaborated a Hebrew educational terminology'. The employ-
ment of this ancient language as a means of expression for
modern needs was prepared for by reformers in Germany and
Russia during more than a century, by the translation into
Hebrew of modern novels and by the establishment of a
periodical press. It is hoped to crown the system of Hebrew
education in Palestine by the establishment of a national
university in Jerusalem.
Turkish has been the language of the rulers of Syria ever
since the rise of the Mamluk dynasties of Egypt, who suc-
ceeded to the Ayyubids in the thirteenth century A. D. It was,
however, at ng time used in either Egypt or Syria much
outside court and official circles, though Mohammed ‘Ali seems
to have tried to make it a medium of education, and recently
the Young Turks ’ aroused opposition by endeavouring to
make it the language of the whole Ottoman Empire. The
Turkomans speak a Turkish dialect and the native language of
the Turkish inhabitants of northern Syria is Ottoman Turkish.
Other foreign languages used in Syria to a small extent are
Kurdish, Armenian, and Circassian. The languages of the
Jews, in addition to Hebrew, are chiefly Yiddish (Judeo-
German) and Ladino (Judeo-Spanish), in about equal measure,
also Arabic, Bukharic, and Persian.
198
INHABITANTS
The European languages most taught in schools and under-
stood by educated Syrians are French and English. In 1909
the Electric Tramway Company of Beirut required its con-
ductors to have a knowledge of either French or English, in
addition to Arabic. The influence of the German Templar
colonies and the fact that many Jews speak or read German
has given German some prominence in Palestine.
Since the Arab conquest Arabic (Syrian Arabic) has been
the common language of the country. It is spoken with con-
siderable dialectical variation in different parts (e.g. in Lebanon,
Damascụs, and Palestine). But only the Bedouin, on the
borders, speak an Arabic so peculiar as to be almost unintelli-
gible to the Syrians proper. The general literary language is
Arabic, which Christians, Jews, and- Samaritans even write in
their own scripts, especially in the case of religious works. The
Arabic script is also employed for the other Islamic languages,
with only slight modifications.
Probably the secular literature of the Moslem Arabs is
regarded as the national possession of all those whose native
language is Arabic, whatever their religion; and Christian insti-
tutions, such as the Jesuit College of Beirut (the University of
St. Joseph) have done much for the scientific editing of secular
Moslem texts. Two members of the Greek Catholic community,
the Yāzijis, father and son, are famous as imitators of and
commentators on this classical literature. Controversial
literature, in the sense of theological treatises directed against
Islam, was not tolerated by the Ottoman Government before
the proclamation of the constitution ; and the experiment of
a perfectly free press, afterwards, was only continued for a
brief period; but between the Christian sects there has
been a considerable amount of controversy conducted in
Arabic, as the common literary vehicle of the communities.
The efforts of European and American missions have been
directed towards supplying translations of the Bible and other
religious literature in Arabic; and they have also done much
to furnish Arabic manuals for the instruction of the natives in
modern science.
RACE AND LANGUAGE
199
Owing to the fact that Syria has long been directly governed.
from Constantinople, whereas Egypt has always been less
dependent on the Ottoman capital, and even, since the rise of
Mohammed ‘Ali, founder of the present dynasty, practically.
independent of it, there has been, on the whole, less literary
activity in Syria than in Egypt; editions of Arabic classics,
though not altogether wanting, have been produced in far
smaller numbers, and the original productions have rarely had
more than local or provincial interest. Since the British occu-
pation of Egypt the literary talent of Syria has found greater
scope for itself in Egypt than in Syria. Even earlier in the
nineteenth century the encouragement given by some of the
Khedivial family attracted gifted Syrians to Egypt.
EDUCATION
Previous to the nineteenth century such schools as existed
in Syria were almost confined to the education of Moslem
ulema and Christian priests. The movement to provide
education for the laity was initiated by American missionaries
and quickly extended by the religious orders of the Roman
Church. Their success stirred the native Syrian Churches to
emulate their example and in time the Turkish Government
authorized a national system of education, in other words
established a scheme of elementary and secondary Moslem
schools. At the beginning of the twentieth century the
government schools were by far the most numerous but the
number of their pupils was not greatly in excess of those
in the various Christian schools and the education they
imparted was much inferior. The Jews, in proportion to
their numbers, were well provided with schools of their own
and were steadily improving the quality of the instruction
given. The higher education of the country was almost
wholly concentrated in Beirut, where the leading institutions
were the American (Protestant) College and the (Jesuit)
University of St. Joseph.
The religious orders, collectively, have a larger number
of schools and pupils than the Protestant societies have.
200
INHABITANTS
Amongst these orders the Jesuits hold the foremost place,
owing to their strong position in the centre and north of
Syria. In conjunction with the Maronites they control
a large part of the primary education of Lebanon, and in
Beirut the University of St. Joseph is directed and staffed
by them. Previous to the building of a college in Beirut
(1875), Ghazīr, in Lebanon, was their chief educational centre
(from 1848). There is still a theological seminary there.
The University of St. Joseph includes a large preparatory
department in which instruction is given on the standard
of a secondary school. The power to grant degrees was con-
ferred on the university by Pope Leo XIII in 1881. A school
of medicine was established by the authority and with the help
of the French Government in 1883. Since about 1896 its
diplomas qualify their holders for medical practice in France.
The staff of the university includes some whose reputation as
scholars is world wide and numbers in all 80-90 teachers.
The. Lazarists come next to the Jesuits in the number:
of their schools. They have high schools at ‘Antūra (in
Lebanon, founded 1834) and Damascus and a mission in
Jerusalem. The Franciscans carry on work in Palestine as
well as in other parts of Syria. They have a good high school
in Aleppo. The Frères des écoles chrétiennes take an important
share in providing education in Palestine and elsewhere.
Of the Roman Catholic sisterhoods the Sours de St. Vincent
de Paul and the Sours de Charité conduct many schools and
orphanages. Along with them the Dames de Nazareth and
the Scurs de St. Joseph may be named.
These various orders are very largely French in their
.membership and influence. A French agency that has no
specific religious character is La mission laïque française,
In 1909 it opened a college in Beirut which was intended to
rival the University of St. Joseph.
The Presbyterian Board of Missions of the United States
is the principal Protestant agency in the centre and north of
Syria and the American College in Beirut, which is supported
by it and derives its charter from the State of New York,
EDUCATION
201
Saria. The Abeih (in 266. The
CO
is perhaps the most influential educational institution in
Syria. The American College was a development of a school
established at 'Abeih (in Lebanon) in 1846. The transference
to Beirut took place in 1866. The medical school was opened
in 1867 and a school of commerce in 1900. Previous to 1880
all instruction was given in Arabic, since that date only in
English. Three-quarters of the students are Christians, the
largest proportion being adherents of the Greek Orthodox
Church. As in the Jesuit College a large part of the students
are enrolled in a preparatory department. The progress of
the college is shown by the following figures of enrolment :
1869–70 1880 1890 1900 1903 1906 1909
Faculties of arts and
medicine
77. 69 94 171 236 248 318
Total enrolments
77 108 228 435 629 - 769 876
The diplomas granted by the college up to 1906 were
300 in arts, 330 in medicine, and 162 in pharmacy. The staff
in 1908 numbered 74.
The chief centres of the educational work of the Presby-
terian Church of the United States are Saida, Beirut, Tripoli,
and Lādiqīyeh. In 'Aintāb and Mar‘ash important work is
carried on by the American United Board of Foreign Missions.
There is an American College at ‘Aintāb, founded in 1874.
There is still a theological seminary at 'Abeih. The work of
the American missionaries for the education of girls deserves
special mention. The first girls' schools in Syria were opened
by American missionaries in 1830 (in Beirut and Lebanon):
As the result of a friendly arrangement between the Pro-
testant societies British agencies carry on their work chiefly
in Palestine and Damascus. The British Syrian Schools
Society (founded in 1860) - works, however, in central Syria.
It conducts more than 30 small schools, mostly for girls, in
the country between Beirut and Damascus. There are also
Presbyterian schools (Scotch, English, and Irish) in Beirut,
Damascus, Antioch, and Aleppo.
The schools of the Church Missionary Society are found in
the chief towns of western Palestine, and at a few centres
202
INHABITANTS
east of Jordan. The number of pupils in these schools
shortly before the war was reported to be about 2,500. The
educational work of the society commenced about 1870
and one of its early schools was a girls' school in Jerusalem
(founded 1873, afterwards removed to Bethlehem). The
society now supports the English College in Jerusalem and
Bishop Gobat's school (founded by Bishop Gobat in 1855
and transferred to the C.M.S. about 1876). The St. George's
Boys' School (St. George's College) is connected with St. George's
Church, and is intended, especially, for better class children.
The London Society for promoting Christianity among the
Jews is another agency of the Church of England which carries
on educational work. Its principal stations are at Jerusalem,
Jaffa, Safed, and Damascus.
Next to the nationalities that have been named, the Russians
the war. Their intimate association with the Greek Orthodox
Church enabled them to establish and maintain their position.
The Jewish communities are inspired by an ancient educa-
tional tradition and their schools have enjoyed the generous
support of individual benefactors and of associations which
exist only to foster Jewish education. Prominent amongst
these associations are the Alliance israélite universelle, repre-
sentative of French culture, and the Hilfsverein der Deutschen
Juden, whose members are German Jews. The first of the
Alliance schools in Syria was opened at Beirut in 1878. The
older rabbinical, or Talmud Tõrāh, schools are assisted by
a society whose head-quarters are in Frankfort. One of the
best of the schools founded by private benefaction is the
Evelina de Rothschild school for girls in Jerusalem (opened
1868). There are numerous schools for Jewish girls in
Palestine. The Jewish Colonization Association (ICA) gives
valuable support to the communal schools of the Jewish
colonies.
One of the best of the Jewish schools is the Theodor Herzl 1
school in Jaffa (founded in 1907). Another is the Lämel
1 See p. 191.
EDUCATION
203
school in Jerusalem. The Takhkemõni school in Jaffa
(opened 1909) represents orthodox Judaism. There is
a certain amount of duplication of Jewish schools, caused by
the division between the conservative and the liberal sides of
Judaism.
The provision of industrial and agricultural training is
a valuable feature of recent Jewish enterprise in Palestine.
An agricultural school at Jaffa (Miqweh Israel), conducted
by the Alliance israélite universelle, was founded in 1870.
The technical institute at Haifa, which was on the point of
being opened when war broke out in 1914, will take a high
place amongst the educational institutions of Syria. The
use of Hebrew as the language of instruction in Jewish schools
has been tried and is making good progress. Before the war
the way for the establishment of a Hebrew University in
Jerusalem had been well prepared.
In the face of all this activity of foreign agencies, the
native Churches and the representatives of Islam have judged
it needful to provide, themselves, education of all grades for
the members of their communions. Possibly those Churches
that are in communion with the Church of Rome, being
helped by the religious orders, have succeeded best. The
Greek Catholic College at Beirut (founded in 1866) is said
to stand in the first rank of the purely Syrian institutions,
The Greek Catholics also provide higher education at Damas-
cus. Aleppo, and Zahleh. The Maronites have a tradition of
learning independent of modern movements, although
fostered by long association with the Church of Rome.
Possibly their schools in the beginning of the nineteenth
century were the best then existing in Syria. Their principal
college is now in Beirut and was founded in 1875. The
numerous schools of the Greek Orthodox Church are supported
by funds which come from Russia. The leading Moslem
colleges are two, both in Beirut and both established by
private enterprise. One is known as the Dār el-Funūn.
It was founded in 1880 by an Indian scholar, Mohammed
'Abd el-Jabbār Kheiri, and represents to some extent English
204
INHABITANTS
and American influence. The other, the Osmānīyeh College,
founded in 1895 by Sheikh Ahmed ‘Abbās, has more kinship
with French culture.
Some European Governments have granted, froin time to
time, large sums of money in support of the schools which
represent their interests in Syria. In 1900 the French
budget included a sum of £32,000 (800,000 francs) for this
purpose and in 1911 £40,000. In 1882 £6,000 was provided
by the French Government for the establishment of a medical
department in the University of St. Joseph, and since then
a large annual grant has been paid for its maintenance.
The Italian Government has also subsidized schools in Syria,
especially since 1878, when Signor Crispi advocated this
policy. In 1883 the amount granted was £3,200 (80,000 lire)
in 1887 £60,000, and in 1910 £80,000. Some of the religious
communities, as well as the Dante Alighieri Society, conduct
Italian schools. The Austrian Government has made grants
in support of Franciscan schools and the German Government
has assisted the schools in the Templar colonies (p. 192).
RELIGION
At least three-quarters of the population are Mohammedans
(Moslems) and the proportion is still greater if the Ansarīyeh
and the Druses are included. The Christians number, possibly,
seven hundred or eight hundred thousand; the Jews con-
siderably more than a hundred thousand. Amongst the
Kurds are a few Yezīdis (so-called devil-worshippers). Moslems
are subdivided into Sunnites and Shi'ites. The former are
generally dominant in Moslem countries and are sometimes
spoken of as orthodox. In Syria the Shi'ites are represented
by several distinct communities. The Metāwileh and the
Ismā'īlīyeh (Ismailians) are Shiʻites, also the Circassians and
the Kurds. The Ansarīyeh and the Druses, although distin-
guished by peculiar doctrines and practices, have important
Shi'ite affinities. The fundamental difference between the
Sunnites and the Shi'ites is their divergence regarding the
khalifate. The khalifs recognized by the Sunnites from the
RELIGION
205
In est or on in ecognize me the
time of the first Ommayad are held by the Shi'ites to have
been all illegitimate. The Shi'ites expect a reincarnation of
their last ' Imām 'to resume the broken line of succession and
they will not recognize any khalif whose title is based on
descent or on inheritance from the ‘Abbāsite khalifs.
In Syria both the main division between Moslem and
Christian (or Jew), and the subdivisions of the Moslem and
Christian faiths constitute lines of cleavage that are more
noticeable and influential than racial distinctions. Internal
rivalries and conflicts arise from these and each separate reli-
gious association has a kind of tribal or political significance.
The Ottoman Government, willingly or unwillingly, has treated
the various Moslem and Christian communities as in a measure
separate political entities
Christians
Of all the Christian communities of Syria the Maronite
Church perhaps most directly represents the ancient church
of the country as it was before the Arab conquest. Its adhe-
rents are also more numerous than those of any other com-
munion (? 300,000). Two-thirds of them live in Lebanon and
the remainder in some of the larger towns (Aleppo, Beirut,
Damascus, Tripoli). Since the time of the Crusades they have
been in close relation with the Roman Church and are now in
full communion with it, although their liturgy is distinct and
their clergy may marry. They were definitely recognized by
the Roman Church in 1445 (Council of Florence) and received
their present constitution in 1736. The language of their
liturgy is ancient Syriac.
The name Maronite, according to some, is derived from
Saint Mārūn, who is said to have died in A.D. 400,1 according
to others from Mārūn their first patriarch (A.D. 685–707).
The official title of the head of the Maronite Church is
Patriarch of Antioch and of the whole East. His residence is
1 The Druses and Metāwileh, their neighbours, assert that Mārūn had only
one eye ; and if any one wishes to raise the ire of a Maronite, all he has to do
is to put his hand over his eye.
206
INHABITANTS
in the monastery of Qannūbīn, in the gorge of the Qadīsha
river, but in recent years the patriarchs have spent their
summers in the monastery of Bdīmān on the top of the cliff
opposite Qannūbīn, and their winters at Bkerki in the district
of Kesrawān. Their revenues amount to several thousands
of pounds annually, partly derived from a poll-tax of three
piastres on each male member of the church.
The parish priests are elected by the people, who usually
choose some one belonging to the district. Owing to the
influence of Rome, celibacy is becoming the rule among them.
At the monastery Deir el-Kreim, overlooking the Bay of
Jūneh, there is a college of priests, known by a small red
cross at the top of the cap, who act as itinerant preachers.
The Holy Orthodox Church (Greek Orthodox) comes next in
point of numbers. Its adherents are found chiefly in the larger
towns throughout the country. It was given special recogni-
tion by the Ottoman Government from the time of the Otto-
man conquest, and until the nineteenth century the patriarch
of Constantinople, as its official head, represented all the
Christians of the empire except the Armenians. There is a
patriarch of Antioch whose authority extends over the greater
part of Syria (as far as Tyre and Safed), and a patriarch of
Jerusalem. Both are ecclesiastically independent of the
patriarch of Constantinople. The patriarch of Antioch resides
in Damascus. The language of the liturgy is Greek but the
people are Arabic-speaking Christians who dislike the intrusion
of Greek priests.
The matters wherein the Orthodox Church differs from the
Church of Rome are partly of doctrine, partly of practice ;
in some of both, though not in all, it agrees with the Anglican
Church, e.g. permitting the communion of the laity in
both kinds, and rejecting the doctrine of indulgence and
purgatory. The chief matter wherein the Greek Orthodox
and the Anglican communities are in agreement is their
common rejection of the authority of the Roman Pontiff.
The Greek Orthodox community, though it is somewhat
smaller in numbers than the Maronite Church, possesses a
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207
larger number of dioceses, and is more generally distributed
over the country.
Other Eastern Churches represented in Syria, but only to
a small extent, are the Jacobite, Armenian, and Nestorian
Churches (total membership not more than 60,000). Of these
the Jacobites are most numerous. Before 1873 the Armenian
Patriarch of Cilicia (Sīs) represented in civil matters all Arme-
nians who were Ottoman subjects, and also the Jacobites and
Nestorians. When the Ottoman Government officially recog-
nized the Jacobite patriarch many Jacobites chose to remain
attached to the Armenian patriarch (both Churches being
monophysite in doctrine). There is an Armenian patriarch
in Jerusalem who has simply the jurisdiction of a bishop. The
ecclesiastical heads of the Jacobite and Nestorian Churches
live outside of Syria.
A title peculiar to the Jacobite Church is Mafrian,
'theoretically a sort of suffragan-patriarch to represent
the Patriarch in the Far East, Persia, and Arabia'. The
metropolitans (Matrān, plural Matārineh) differ from the
bishops (Usquf, plural Asāqifeh) in being chosen from the
monks, whereas the latter are chosen from parish priests who
are widowers ; these last are not eligible to the patriarchate.
The parish priests must be married before ordination ; they
should keep their heads close shaven, and should wear a beard.
Like the Maronites they retain the title khūri or Chorepiscopos,
which is usually given to the chief priest of a town. The term
deacon (shammās) is applied to various officials with different
duties, including readers and singers. The deacons (and
probably some of the priests) carry on some trade in addition
to their clerical duties.
The language of their services and of their theological
literature is classical Syriac; otherwise their language is
Arabic, which they often write in Syriac characters ; it is
then called Karshūni, a name of uncertain origin.
Uniate (Catholic) Churches. Of the five Eastern Churches
already mentioned, only the Maronite Church is in communion
with the Church of Rome. In consequence of Roman propa-
208
INHABITANTS
ganda, however, seceders from the other Churches have now
organized themselves into separate communions, recognizing
the authority of the Pope but retaining their ancient liturgies
and diverging from the general practice of the Roman Church
in many particulars. There are thus what are called Uniate
(or Catholic) Greek, Armenian, Syrian (i. e. Jacobite), and
Chaldean (i. e. Nestorian) Churches.
Of these the largest is the Greek Catholic (or Malchite)
Church. It has about half the membership of the Greek
Orthodox Church. Its chief dignitary in Syria is the Patriarch
of Antioch, who resides in Damascus. It was organized as a
distinct communion early in the eighteenth century.
The line of succession to the patriarchate of Antioch, as
recognized by the Greek Orthodox and the Greek Catholics,
is identical until 1724. Up to 1857 the Greek Catholics
followed the Eastern Calendar, which is twelve days later than
the Roman ; it was not, however, till 1865 that the Roman
Calendar, introduced by the patriarch in 1857, was generally
adopted within the community ; its introduction was at first
the signal for a new schism. Further accommodation to
Roman practice has, it is said, been creeping in without official
introduction ; thus though no pressure is supposed to be put
on those who are in training for the priesthood not to marry,
in fact they rarely take this step.
The Uniate Syrian Church (Syrian Catholic) may number
50,000 adherents, who are spread over Syria and are
more numerous than those adhering to the monophysite com-
munion. Their patriarchs, who resided for many years in
Mārdīn, now live in Beirut, and are officially styled patriarchs
of Antioch (date of first appointment 1783). The Armenian
and Chaldean Catholics, found chiefly in the vilayet of Aleppo,
are small religious bodies.
Latin Church. The members of the Latin Church (Roman
NU
1 It may be noted that there are two patriarchs of Antioch (Greek
Orthodox and Syrian Catholic, the former resident in Damascus) and
three patriarchs of Antioch and of all the East (Maronite, Jacobite, and
Greek Catholic, the latter also resident in Damascus).
RELIGION
209
Catholics in the narrowest acceptation) are mostly Europeans
or members of the religious orders, and are few in number
(15,000 ?). If, however, the membership of all the Churches in
communion with Rome be taken together it includes more than
one-half and possibly three-fifths of the whole Christian popu-
lation. There is a Latin patriarch of Jerusalem, whose juris-
diction extends over Palestine, and an Apostolic Delegate who
resides at Beirut and represents the interests of the Roman
Church in the rest of Syria.
Of the religious orders which conduct mission work in Syria
mention may be made of the Franciscans, Carmelites, Jesuits,
and Lazarists, and of the Sisters of St. Vincent de Paul and
the Sisters of St. Joseph as among the more important. The
Frères des écoles chrétiennes, the Dominicans, and the Mis-
sionaires d'Afrique and others are also represented.
Protestant Churches. The members of the Protestant
Churches are also few in number (10,000–15,000). Native
converts have been gained chiefly by British and American
societies. The former (Church Missionary Society, London
Society for promoting Christianity among the Jews, United Free
Church of Scotland, Edinburgh Medical Mission) are prominent
in Palestine and Damascus ; the latter (Presbyterian Church
of the United States) in Beirut, Lebanon, and central Syria
generally. There is an Anglican bishop resident in Jerusalem;
Previous to 1887 he was appointed by the Queen of England
and the King of Prussia alternately. Three bishops held office
under this arrangement (1841-81).
Protestant missions have been conducted in Syria since
early in the nineteenth century, though for the first half of
that period their activity was chiefly confined to educational
work, proselytizing from the existing religious communities
being on the whole discouraged. In 1848 the first Syrian
Evangelical Church was organized in Beirut with eighteen
members, including four women; by 1857 there were four
such Churches in Syria with 75 members ; by 1912 the whole
numbers of the native Protestants had risen to about 10,000,
said to be the result of the operations of some 38 European
SYRIA
210
INHABITANTS
and American agencies. The native Protestants do not form
a single community, but a number of congregations, similar
in type to those from which the missions to which they owe
their existence emanate; hence the forms of Christianity
Sweden, and Denmark are represented. At times, bodies of
adherents to other Churches have made advances to Pro-
testant congregations, or have even temporarily joined them,
with a view to obtain concessions from their former com-
munity on condition of their return to it.
Jews
The Jewish sacred day of the week is Saturday, the Sabbath,
whereon a religious service is held in the synagogue, and where-
on no work whatever may be done ; 'work ’is classified by the
jurists in 39 categories, and includes such operations as writing,
kindling fire, &c. Their chief festivalis Passover, during which
leavened bread maynot be used; minor feasts are that of Weeks
or Pentecost, beginning on the fiftieth day counted from the
second of Passover week, and lasting two days ; Tabernacles,
commencing on the fifteenth day of the Jewish New Year,
and lasting nine days, the whole of which should be spent in
in commemoration of the Maccabaean victories, and lasting
eight days (celebrated by the kindling of lights every evening
of the festival); and Purim, in commemoration of the deliver-
ance of the nation through Mordecai and Esther, lasting one
day. The first ten days of the New Year are regarded assolemn;
on the first two days trumpets are blown, whereas the tenth,
the Day of Atonement, is celebrated by continuous fasting.
Another fast day is the ninth of the month Ab, which is sup-
posed to commemorate various disasters.
The Jewish calendar is lunar, but is accommodated to the
solar by intercalation in certain years of a cycle of nineteen.
The chief Jewish official is the Rabbi, who not only provides
the religious services of the synagogue, but is also consulted
on religious questions. For the congregations of the sanjaq of
RELIGION
211
Jerusalem there are 237 Rabbis, with one chief Rabbi, who
was recognized by the Ottoman Government as Khākhām-bäshi.
The Jews are divided into two main sects—the Rabbanites,
to whom the European congregations normally belong, and
the Karaites, who are chiefly found in Asia and Africa. The
split appears to have originated in the eighth century. In
theory the Karaites reject the Oral Tradition, usually called
the Talmud, which with the Rabbanites forms the basis of
jurisprudence. The two sects practise the same ceremonies,
and observe the same feasts and fasts; the Karaites maintain
as against the others that the Levitical law of purity is not
suspended in consequence of the destruction of the Temple, and
that the same sanctity attaches to any synagogue or meeting-
house for prayer as attached in ancient times to the Temple.
In consequence the Karaites are frequently unable to enter
their synagogues, which are apt to be empty at prayer-time,
while the vestibule, of which the sanctity is less, is crowded.
The observance of the law of purity in the household also leads
to great inconvenience, and so does the seclusion of members
of a household from each other and of the Karaites generally
from the other sect. Further, the table of affinities prohibitive
of intermarriage is greatly extended by the Karaite doctrine
which makes marriage count as blood-relationship between
the parties; even divorce does not annul this relationship.
Mohammedans
The great majority of the inhabitants of Syria are adherents
of Islām (Mohammedanism), with whom Jerusalem, and espe-
cially the Temple Area, counts as the second sanctuary of the
world, next in importance to Mecca, on the ground that it was
the spot of earth whence the Prophet ascended into heaven.
The formal creed of all Mohammedans consists of the two pro-
positions "There is no god but (the true) God and Mohammed
is the Messenger of God’; they further recognize the duty of
praying five times a day and celebrate public worship at noon
on Fridays; other important religious duties are the fast from
sunrise to sunset in the month Ramadhān, and the pilgrimage
02
212
INHABITANTS
made once at least in a lifetime to Mecca, when the pilĝrims
also ordinarily visit the tomb of Mohammed in Medina. In
addition, Moslems mostly celebrate as Feasts the first day of
the month which follows on the fasting-month, and the tenth
day of the pilgrim-month; there are besides other feast-days
whose popularity varies.
The division of all Moslems into Sunnites and Shi'ites has
already been mentioned (p. 204). The right of the Ottoman
sultans to style themselves khalifs has always been denied
not only by the Shi'ites but also by most Sunnites not subjects
of the Turkish empire. Recently the pan-Islamic movement
has tried with some success to foster amongst Moslems all
over the world the idea that they should regard the Ottoman
Sultan as in some sense their representative and head. The
view, however, that the khalif is a kind of Pope is modern
and is inconsistent with the past history of the office. The
princes.
The Sunnites are divided into schools, which differ on
various points of law, especially ceremonial law; the Ottoman
Government officially recognized the Hanifite school, named
after Abu Hanīfah, a jurist of the second Islamic century.
The religiously-minded often belong to some order (tarīqah)
codes enjoin ; the Shādilīyeh order, named after one Shādili
who was born about A. D. 1200, is said to be widely spread in
Palestine. Others that have a large following in Syria gener-
ally are the Qādirīyeh, Rifā'īyeh, Bedāwīyeh, Dusuqiyeh, and
Sa'dīyeh. The first of these represents the oldest order, and
the descendants of its founder, ‘Abd el-Qādir Jilāni, who left
a family of 45 children, were exempted by the Turks from
military service and enjoyed other privileges. The same
exemption was extended to certain other saintly families.
The Maulawīyeh, or dancing dervishes, have establishments
in Damascus and certain other north Syrian cities. The
Senūsīyeh, who represent one of the most modern orders,
are said to have some, but not many, open followers in Syria.
RELIGION
213
The members of the orders are in part persons who give
themselves wholly to the religious life; these are the minority.
The majority consists of persons who follow ordinary avoca-
tions, but attend religious meetings, and perform certain rites.
The meeting-houses are called zāwiyehs and tekkīyehs or
tekkes, which also form the dwellings of the leaders of the
orders, and those who are devoted to their service. The
orders have mostly a somewhat elaborate organization with
a hierarchy of officials. The doctrine which lies at the basis
of all is Sufic pantheism, and the rites practised have the
object of producing ecstasy, the state wherein the identity of
subject with object and of both with the Deity is thought
to be realized. The extent to which asceticism is enjoined
and practised varies very much ; but most enforce a period
of discipline on aspirants to membership.
In the matter of religious exercises there is great variety
between the classes of the population and the social ranks
within them. The most devout are probably the fellahin ;
the least devout are the nomads. The practices of fasting
and prayer are said to be more commonly observed by the
nomads of the Negeb than by those of the east of Jordan;
and among the latter the Ruweileh are said to be the most
devout, the Sherārāt the least so. The Turkish authorities
in their endeavour to introduce orderly government into the
territories occupied by these tribes have tried to teach and
even to enforce religious exercises; it is said, with little result.
In the towns the poorer population is usually more strict
about their observance than the wealthier.
The Metāwileh were a prominent and powerful political
force in the eighteenth century, but are now much reduced
in strength (? 25,000) and have become mostly peaceful agri-
culturists. They live in the qaza of Ba'albek, and in the
Lebanon districts of Jezzīn, Meten, Batrūn, and Kesrawān.
Their chief residence is in the region called Jebel ‘Amūd of the
Beshārah country, extending between the wādis Awwali and
Qarn, and divided into a northern and a southern portion by
the Nahr Lītāni. The name Metāwileh, which is said to be
214
INHABITANTS
modern, means 'friends', i. e. friends of 'Ali (sing. Mutawāli).
The community traces its origin to a Companion of the
Prophet, Abu Dharr Ghifāri, who is supposed to have first
taught his doctrines in the villages of Sarafend and Meis.
Their views are identical with those of the Ithnasharis of
Persia, who believe in a series of twelve Imāms, of whom the
last went into concealment in Samarra in the second half of
the third Islamic century, and whose reappearance they
expect. They differ from the Sunnites mainly on the question
of the khalifate, which they hold fell by right to ‘Ali ;
but there are also certain differences of law and ritual. They
decline to sit at the same table with those who do not share
their beliefs, will neither eat nor drink out of a vessel which
has been used by such a person, and go far beyond other
Moslems in intolerance.
It is not quite easy to account for the existence of this
community in Syria under a series of dynasties which regarded
its tenets as revolutionary, whence some suppose them to be
comparatively recent immigrants, while others with some
historical support assume that they normally concealed their
opinions in accordance with a permission granted in the
Koran, of which the Shi'ites make a liberal use: Some tra-
vellers declare them to be illiterate; but this reproach
cannot well be justified, since for some years before the war
they maintained a press at Saida, whence a series of valuable
works was issued, and which also maintained a well-conducted
magazine. In earlier times savants belonging to this com-
munity composed works which have acquired the status of
classics among the Shi'ites of Persia and India, whither mem-
bers of it have from time to time migrated, and where they
have been rewarded with high office.
The Ismāʻīlīyeh (Ismailians), numbering only a few thou-
sands, reside in the hills west of Homs (Qadmūs and Marqab),
and in the plains about Homs and Hama. They are relics of
a society founded in the fifth Islamic century by Hasan Sabbāh
at Alamūt in the neighbourhood of Qazwin, in Persia, and were
known in the history of the Crusades by the name Assassins.
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215
They are a branch of the party which for about two centuries
was dominant in Egypt and the neighbouring countries under
the Fātimite dynasty. The schism started by Hasan Sabbāh
aimed in the first place at a change of dynasty. The method
of the society was to seize and occupy fortresses, and in Syria
their strongholds were mostly in the Jebel Ansarīyeh. In time
their fortresses in Persia and Syria were taken from them by
Mongol and Egyptian sovereigns, and the head-quarters of the
sect were eventually transferred to India, where its head is
called the Agha Khan. This potentate is recognized by the
community in Syria and members of rival sects have an idea
that he is a woman, who sends yearly to collect money,
obtaining a few piastres from even the poorest. Little is
known of their doctrines and practices. A traveller asserts
that every female born on 27th Rejeb is supposed by them to
be an incarnation of the Deity. She never works; her hair and
nails are never cut, and she may not marry. Every man of the
village wears a piece of her clothing or of her hair in his turban.
Since the Turkish occupation of Egypt and Syria little or
nothing has been heard of any activities on their part in the
way of assassinating ’, or of their hypnotizing themselves
with the decoction of hemp (hashish) whence some authorities
suppose their name to be derived.
Ansarīyeh or Nuseirīyeh
The Ansarīyeh (not more than 100,000) live in the hills of
northern Syria (Jebel Ansarīyeh). They have, besides, colonies
outside this area, as at Mersina, Tarsus, and Adana. They have
been a very insubordinate element in the Ottoman Empire
and also under previous rulers of Syria. The name perhaps
occurs in Pliny in the form Nazerini and may therefore be very
old. At the present day it is generally derived from the Arabic
name Nuseir, diminutive of Nasr. The sect was in existence
at the beginning of the fifth Islamic century; and the doctrines
cited as characteristic of it at that time are identical with those
which are held by its adherents now. It is an extravagant
form of Shi'ism, in which divinity is assigned to 'Ali son of
216
INHABITANTS
Son of a unbe sot phenol is ca
20 god hole is Islam iphot; but like of the
Abu Tālib, the cousin and son-in-law of the Prophet Moham-
med, whom the Shiʻites regard as his sole legitimate successor.
The Ansarīyeh share with the Shi'ites their dislike of the
three immediate successors of the Prophet; but differ both
from them and from orthodox Islam in substituting for the
formula 'There is no god but God 'the attestation 'There is
no god but 'Ali, son of Abu Tālib’, who according to them is
eternal, unbegotten and unbegetting, is essentially the light,
and constitutes the meaning of phenomena.
The sacred book of the Ansarīyeh is called the Majmū“,
or 'collected'. It consists of sixteen short chapters. It
resembles various mystical forms of Islam, though assigning to
various personages of importance a position which differs from
that ordinarily given them. Besides ‘Ali, who is God, it
recognizes Mohammed as the Veil ', and one of Mohammed's
adherents, Salmān the Persian, as' the Gate'. The first letters
of these three names (ain-mām-sīn) form a mystery which is
communicated to proselytes, and serves as a symbol between
the members of the sect. Religious importance is also attached
to 'the five orphans ’, personages ordinarily reckoned among
the early followers of Mohammed, who are said to have
created the world, and to the members of “Ali's family,
i. e. his wife Fātimah and his two sons.
Moderate as is the size of the community, it is divided
into four sects : Heidaris, Shamālis, Kalazis, and Gheibis.
The first of these takes its name from one of the titles of
‘Ali, the second shows a tendency to sun-worship, the third to
moon-worship, the fourth to worship of the air. To all the
identification of ‘Ali with the Deity is the main dogma; their
differences lie in the interpretation of various phrases and
symbols.
They agree with orthodox Islam in the performance of
prayer five times daily, and the number five has for them
certain mystic values which are not usually recognized; they
interpret the ordinance of the pilgrimage symbolically; and
unlike the orthodox they are addicted to the use of wine,
which they employ in certain religious ceremonies.
RELIGION
217
In agreement with the Druses, but unlike most Islamic com-
munities, they make no proselytes, a condition of initiation to
their own community being that the neophyte should be of
Nuseiri parentage on both sides. Only males may be initiated.
Initiation is a lengthy process, and cannot be performed by the
father or any relative of the neophyte; it, however, creates
between him and his initiator a relationship which counts as
that of blood. The initiation has three stages which together
require the period of about a year. Highly elaborate rules
are given for the performances, especially the last, involving
the presence of large numbers of persons ; it is not clear to
what extent practice is in accord with theory.
The Ansarīyeh hold the doctrine of transmigration, and
indeed in a somewhat exaggerated form, as they believe that
the pious are destined to become stars, whereas the impious
will, in the migration of their souls, sink in the scale of animate
beings, becoming mules or sheep, or even descend into the
mineral world. The number of transmigrations through which
a believer has to go before he becomes a star does not exceed
seven.
The Ansarīyeh have no special places of worship such as
churches and mosques are, but meet on the occasions of their
feasts in private houses, or according to some in the house
of one of their number, who is called the Sheikh of the Faith.
Important members of the community are bound, each of
them, to select a day whereon he holds an assembly in his
house, at which sacred texts are read; and such a day is
called a Feast. To a certain extent they agree with other
branches of the Shi'ites in commemorating particular events
on certain days; of these the most important is 18 Dhu'l-
Hijjah, the Feast of the Pond, being the day whereon Moham-
med is supposed to have appointed 'Ali as his successor. The
Ansarīyeh amplify the account of this affair which is accepted
by the other Shi'ites, in accordance with the technicalities of
their particular system. ‘Ali, according to them, was on
this occasion designated by the name ma'na, the Meaning '.
Like orthodox Moslems they celebrate the feast of Breaking
218
INHABITANTS
Fast, i.e. the first day of the month Shawwāl, which succeeds
the fasting-month, and which they associate especially with
the name of Mohammed. The Day of the Sacrifice (10 Dhu'l-
Hijjah) is especially associated with the name of Ishmael,
whom the Moslems ordinarily substitute for Isaac in the
account of Abraham's sacrifice. The 21st and 29th of this
month are also feast-days, commemorating occasions in the
life of the Prophet Mohammed, wherein ‘Ali played a part of
some importance. On 10th Muharram, which with the Shi'ites
generally is the most important day in the year, as it com-
memorates the death of Husein, the Ansarīyeh take the oppor-
tunity to assert their conviction that this personage did not
really die. On 9 Rabī' II they celebrate another Feast of the
Pond, and in the middle of Sha‘bán another feast in honour of
Husein. Besides these they appear to have adopted certain
Christian festivals, notably Christmas, and certain which
belong to the Persians. For these they employ the calendars
of the communities from which they have been taken.
Like other Shi'ite sects they visit the tombs of real and sup-
posed saints ; one of the most.important of these is Ja'far the
Winged, brother of 'Ali. Two days after the death of a great
sheikh a funeral feast is held, and when the guests have eaten
of the meats according to their ability, they pay tribute to the
family of the dead, in sums varying from twenty to a hundred
francs. On every mountain-top they build a shrine which
marks a burial-ground. The trees which grow there are left
untouched.
Quite serious authors charge the Ansarīyeh with the en-
couragement of various forms of vice, and the facts that they
drink wine and allow their women to go about unveiled would
be sufficient to brand them as immoral in the eyes of orthodox
Moslems. It does not appear that they are chargeable with
anything more serious than their neighbours. In the face of
persecutions they have a tendency to identify themselves
with the communities with which they come in contact.
The origin of the Ansarīyeh is obscure, and the attempt that
has been made to find in their present system the survival of
RELIGION
219
an old pagan cult does not seem to be successful. They have
much in common with Druses and Ismā'ilīyeh, and these again
appear to exhibit varieties of a system which at any rate from
the third Islamic century produced numerous ramifications,
the elevation of 'Ali at the expense of Mohammed being a
feature common to them all. Their sacred literature implies
the existence of the Koran as its basis; and the identification
of the objects of their devotion with the heavenly bodies, so
far as it takes place, seems analogous to the historical develop-
ment of other systems, wherein the astronomical interpreta-
tions can make no claim to primitive character.
Druses
The Druses now occupy a part of four districts, southern
Lebanon, the western slopes of Hermon (Hās beya, Rāsheya,
and Wādi et-Teim), the Haurān, and the northern part of the
sanjaq of Hama. They migrated into the Haurān in the
eighteenth century and later, especially after their massacre
of the Christians in 1860. In the Haurān they have been
turbulent and disaffected subjects of the Ottoman empire.
In dependence on Cuinet, their numbers are generally given
as about 150,000—one-third, or more, resident in the Haurān,
one third in Lebanon, and the remainder elsewhere. Perhaps
the proportions are correct but the total seems to be excessive,
especially considering the losses they have suffered during
their insurrections against the Turks.
The name Druse is derived from one Darazi, who taught in
the time of the Fatimite Caliph Hākim (A.D. 996–1020) the
divinity of this sovereign, who ranks with the Roman Caligula
as a capricious and insane tyrant. The mode wherein he met
his well-deserved end being secret, it was easier in his case than
in those of many other real or supposed descendants of ‘Ali to
maintain that he was not really dead, but had temporarily dis-
appeared with the intention of returning; and this doctrine
was maintained chiefly by one Hamzah, who is supposed to
have done most to propagate the creed of the Druses. Though
the expectation of Hākim's return is the dogma which sepa-
220
INHABITANTS
rates the Druse community from others, many of their beliefs
are shared by sects that are on the fringe of Islam. Such is
the belief in transmigration, coupled with the idea that the
numbers of mankind are always the same; and apparently
some hold that this process takes place within the Druse
society, no Druse being born again outside it, but with variation
in his condition according to his deserts. Yet some at least
maintain that there is transmigration into animals, and a case
is quoted where a Druse believed that his mother's soul had
entered into a calf, because the birth of the calf was simul-
taneous with his mother's death. It is possible in this life
for a member of the community to quit it. But there is no
mode of entering it except by birth. The Druses agree with
certain other sectarians that the Prophet Mohammed embodied
the evil principle which is regularly represented on earth
at the same time as the good principle.
Amongst the Druses public worship is performed on Thurs-
day nights (i.e. Friday mornings) in a building called a khalweh
or 'retreat'. It is a simple square structure of stone with
a cupola, containing mats for the floor and a little other
furniture. The most important of these khalwehs is Khalwet
el-Biyādh, a short distance from Hāsbeya.
Druses recognize the Koran as a sacred book, but give it an
interpretation of their own. Hence, though they follow the code
of Islam in many matters, their divergence from it is also very
considerable. Thus they claim that Hākim abolished the tax
called Alms, and this may account for the early spread of the
system. It is stated that they do not tolerate marriage with
more than one wife simultaneously; they place no difficulties
in the way of divorce, but do not allow the remarriage of
divorced couples. Further, married women have no share in
the inheritance of their deceased parents. Unlike the Ansarīyeh
they communicate the mysteries of their religion to women.
They are divided into two classes, the ‘uqqal, 'intelligent',
and the juhhāl, 'ignorant'. The latter are not admitted to
the religious assemblies held in the khalweh. To the stranger
an obvious difference is that the intelligent' abstain from
RELIGION
221
tobacco, which the others enjoy. Of the 'intelligent' there are
two degrees; those who after two years' probation are initiated,
but continue their ordinary occupations; and those who devote
themselves to sacred duties. The different degrees of initiation
are accompanied by ceremonies; that whereby a man is intro-
duced into the order of ‘uqqāl has as part of it the eating of figs.
They have a cosmogony of their own, wherein they make the
duration of the world 343 million years, divided into seventy
cycles, each of which has had seven 'speakers’, seven 'trustees',
and seven “sovereigns'. The number seven has thus religious
importance, as has also the number five; their religious
literature consists of the 1ll treatises of Hamzah, the chief
missionary of their system. Some specimens of these have
been published; they are polemical in character, but contain
some historical matter, dealing with Hākim and his times.
The sect is identified in some of these with the Qarmatians,
who play a considerable part in the history of Islam in the
ninth and tenth centuries.
They adhere strongly to the idea of tribal revenge, and with
the inflexible resolve to take the life of an enemy for that of
a friend there coexists the equally binding duty to protect
a brother Druse who may have shed blood. In determined
courage, stubborn endurance and power of united action they
are superior to the Bedouin, who, however, excel them in
simple daring and personal intrepidity.
Before entertaining a visitor of whose religion they have no
previous knowledge, they will place two pots before him, one
empty, the other full of water. If the stranger pours the
water from the full vessel into the empty one, this is taken as
a sign that he is a believer in transmigration. To discover
whether a stranger is a true or false Druse, they ask : ' Are
there farmers in your part of the country who plant the seed
of the myrobalan'? The true Druse replies : 'They plant it
in the hearts of the believers'.
This sort of freemasonry is necessary, as like the Ansarīyeh,
they maintain the propriety of taqīyah, i. é. concealing their
sect if confession is accompanied with risk.
222
INHABITANTS
Samaritans
The Samaritan is probably the smallest religious community
in Syria, and the sole distinct representative of ancient Israel.1
They are (or were) petty traders, not agriculturists. Their reli-
gion is similar to that of the Jews in many respects, being pure
monotheism, but differs in a variety of ceremonies and obser-
vances. In prayer they face Mount Gerizim, where also they
sacrifice the Passover. They keep the Sabbath with the same
or even greater rigour than the Jews, and disapprove of both
images and pictures. They do not use phylacteries, fringes, or
the inscription on the lintel. They suppose the name of their
community to mean Observers of the Law', though it is
more probably to be derived from the old name Samaria.
Their present language is Arabic, though they have a version
of the Pentateuch in an Aramaic dialect, and retain an
ancient script for their copies of the Hebrew original, which
differs from the copies recognized by the Jews in various
matters, some of them connected with their sectarian differ-
ences.
Yezīdis
A few Yezīdi Kurds are to be found in the vilayet
of Aleppo. The head-quarters of this sect are in Sheikhān,
north-east of Mosul, where their chief resides, and an
annual festival is held in the shrine of Sheikh ‘Ādi. Their
system is still imperfectly understood, though some texts
belonging to them have been published. They are said to
hold that the world has been in charge of seven spirits, for
cycles of ten thousand years respectively, and that the
present ruler is Malak Tā’ūs. This personage being the
author of all evil things is constantly propitiated; whence
the system is often called Devil-worship. The relation
between this personage and Sheikh 'Adi, who is celebrated
in a hymn or hymns, is not very clear. The latter, however,
is supposed to represent the good principle; whereas the
former is said to be represented by an image called a sanjaq,
? See above, p. 193.
RELIGION
223
made of brass, and ordinarily covered with a cloth. Their
chief feast is said to be celebrated in the month of April.
Orders of priests are enumerated to the number of five, or
according to some seven; the political head of the com-
munity, called Amār or Khalāfah, enjoys with the chief
Sheikh the highest priestly prerogatives. A class of priests
called qawwāls, or speakers, are the musicians at the annual
festivals ; another class, called faqīrs, discharge the menial
duties at the Yezīdi shrines; their dress is a black or dark-
brown tunic of coarse cloth, reaching to the knee, and tight-
fitting, with a black turban, bound by a red handkerchief.
Among the ideas represented by their practices are rever-
ence for the sun, and for water; they have numerous sacred
springs, and are said to propitiate these by lighting lamps near
them, and throwing coins into the waters. They also taboo
the use of fish as food; as, too, of lettuce and cabbage; and
disapprove of wearing garments coloured blue. Wednesday
as well as Friday counts with them as a sacred day, and on
these days marriage is prohibited. The number of wives
permitted to the ordinary Yezīdi is six.
Older Cults
The attention of numerous travellers has been directed to
relics of old religious systems which have survived the whole-
sale conversion of the inhabitants of these regions to newer
beliefs, and are to some extent shared by all natives, being
forbidden only by Protestants. Such are the visits paid to the
tombs of various saints, who at times at least represent
transformations of older objects of worship, and whose
ability to procure certain objects of desire is not only widely
believed in these regions, but has prevailed over the scepticism
of some western travellers. The older cults are also perpetuated
in the practice of sacrifice, used to solemnize various occasions
in life; it survives especially among the nomads, but few
of the older communities reject the practice altogether.
The Moslem name for 'saint'is weli (plural auliya), and the
shrine of such a personage is called maqām and mazār or
224
INHABITANTS
visiting place? To the more important of them feast-days
are assigned which recur annually. In some cases the weli is an
ancient Prophet, e.g. Moses (Mūsa) or Aaron (Hārūn); some-
times he is the supposed founder of a tribe ; sometimes a hero
of the early period of Islam, e.g. the Prophet's cousin Ja'far,
who perished at the battle of Mu'tah, but was afterwards seen
by the Prophet with wings; his sanctuary is three hours south
of Kerak. Sometimes he is the hero of some quite recent
combat, whether between the tribes or a tribe and the
government. Sometimes he appears to be wholly mythical,
and may perpetuate some cult belonging to pagan days.
Though the weli is ordinarily male, there are a fair number of
female saints (welīyeh), who enjoy reverence. Recourse is had
to these personages rather than to Allah, when some object is
desired ; and their vengeance is very generally feared, in the
case of their being treated with any disrespect.
The reverence that is paid to the welis and the fear of
their vengeance that is widely felt enables the Bedouin to
use their services as protectors of their goods. Agricultural
implements and in certain cases objects of greater value are
confided to their care by being placed near their mazārs,
and the fear of disaster overtaking the robber usually renders
these objects secure. Further, owing to the belief that they
will inflict speedy and terrible vengeance on any one who
swears falsely in their names, many a case is decided by
compelling one of the parties to swear by the local weli.
It would seem that ordinarily their sphere of action is strictly
limited, unless in the case of the most famous welis, e.g.
Abraham (the Khalil of Hebron), Noah (of Kerak), Ja'far.
The Bedouin have a whole system of lucky and unlucky
days, which appears to have no connexion with specifically
Islamic beliefs. All days in the month which exhibit the
number 9 (9, 19, 29) are unlucky; neither a journey nor
a foray should be started on such a day. The same holds
good of such days as are multiples of 7 (14, 21, 28). Friday
is also unlucky. Sunday, Monday and Thursday are lucky
for expeditions. So too is the first Wednesday in the month,
RELIGION
225
provided it does not fall on the first day of the month. Thurs-
day and Saturday are unsuitable for new clothes. The
Bedouin are said to employ their own list of month-names,
which are drawn in part from the Christian, in part from the
Moslem calendar, and in part are peculiar to themselves.
This calendar appears to be solar, as several of the names are
taken from the seasons.
A great deal of ancient belief and practice is associated with
the operation of spells and incantations and with the popular
reverence for sacred stones and trees and wells. Charms
and incantations are used to ward off and to cure sickness
and as a defence against the evil eye. Every kind of sickness
is ascribed to possession by evil spirits, and the evil eye, itself,
is sometimes thought of as a kind of malignant spirit. Many
spirits are distinguished by names, and written charms and
incantations often contain these names as well as those of the
benignant powers, who are appealed to for protection. Sacred
trees, wells, and stones are sometimes the shrines of well-known
saints, but they are, also, in accordance with ancient belief,
supposed to be inhabited by spirits. The offerings and incense
which are brought to these sacred spots are no doubt intended
to please and propitiate the indwelling spirits. The sacrifices
offered in such cases have a ritual derived from traditions
much older than the beginnings of the Moslem and Christian
religions. Sacred trees may often be distingiushed by the
presence of pieces of clothing and rags hung upon the branches.
Sometimes the local shrines are still ministered to by members
of ancient priestly families.
RELIGIOUS FESTIVALS
The Great Feast of the year with the Moslems is that of the
Sacrifice, celebrated on the tenth day of the Pilgrimage Month.
Among the Bedouin a camel, if possible, is sacrificed ; else-
where a sheep or goat. Scarcely less popular is that which is
celebrated on the first day of the month Shawwāl, which
follows the fasting month ; this is kept with enthusiasm even
among tribes which neglect the fast. Among the Bedouin an
SYRIA
226
INHABITANTS
animal is slaughtered in every tent whose owners can afford
the expense ; poorer families club together to provide one. In
the towns and villages the people wear new clothes, and spend
part of the day visiting the graves of their relations. The
Christian Easter attracts great numbers of pilgrims to Jerusa-
lem, chiefly for the purpose of witnessing the sacred fire issue
from the Holy Sepulchre on Easter Eve; the notion that this
is miraculous, which was long believed, is now scarcely main-
tained. About the same time as the Christian Holy Week the
Moslems of Jerusalem and the neighbourhood celebrate the
Feast of the Prophet Moses (Nebi Mūsa), which lasts seven
days. It is largely attended by the fellahin, who, in the
course of it, visit the supposed tomb of Moses, which Moslem
tradition places about an hour and a half south-west of Jericho.
On the first day of this feast a religious service is held in the
Mosque of Omar, attended by the chief functionaries ; after
its conclusion the procession starts for the tomb. The chief
Feast of the Jews and Samaritans—the Passover-is celebrated
about the same time. Many of the local saints, Moslem,
Christian, and Jewish, have (as has been seen) yearly feast-days
when their tombs are visited by the devout.
Pilgrimages are a regular source of wealth to the inhabitants
of the places visited, since the pilgrims besides other needs are
apt to purchase mementoes of their journey in the shape of
various objects connected with their religion. On the other
hand, the confluence of numerous pilgrims belonging to
different Christian sects at Easter time has often been a cause
of turbulence and disorder, and the simultaneous Moslem
festival, said to have been established with the view of pre-
venting the Moslems being too seriously outnumbered at the
time by Christians, has been a source of danger to both com-
munities, whose religious enthusiasm is then very greatly
roused. The Mohammedan fasting month, owing to the hard-
ship which it occasions, especially when the month falls during
the hot season, has also a tendency to stimulate fanaticism.
The same appears to be the ordinary result of the Moslem
pilgrimage to Mecca, the hardships and dangers of which
RELIGIOUS FESTIVALS
227
have, however, been greatly reduced by the building of the
railway line as far as Medina, and will be still more reduced
when that line is extended to Mecca. This pilgrimage has
never failed to serve its original purpose of keeping alive the
sense of unity among Sunnite Moslems of different nationalities,
and religious revivals of Islam have had a tendency to start
from that city.
DOMESTIC AND SOCIAL CONDITIONS
The inhabitants of different areas, the members of differ-
ent nationalities, religious communities, sects, and orders,
are often if not always distinguishable by their dress, or at
least by their headgear; the varieties are therefore very
numerous. The names for the different articles of wearing
apparel vary very considerably in different districts. Notice-
able differences are between south Palestine and north
Palestine. In the former the fellāhān and fellāhīt wear
a plain long shirt with wide sleeves which reaches when
not held up by the girdle to the feet. The man's garment is
(originally) white, the woman's blue. The man's mantle (outer
garment, when worn), is brown and white, the woman's red and
black. In Samaria the prevailing colour in the man's garment
is blue, in the woman's white. In Galilee and northern Syria
blue baggy trousers are worn by both sexes. The women wear
in addition a blue skirt which reaches to the knee or a little
lower. There are numerous local varieties besides. The
white turban usually denotes a Mohammedan, but in some
places the old Qaisite and Yemenite tribes are distinguished
by the former wearing a red, the latter a white turban, and at
Bethlehem the Christians wear white turbans. The Bedouin
headdress usually includes the Iceffiyeh, a shawl kept in place
by a fillet of goats' hair called igal (pronounced agāl). The
Samaritan wears round his fez a broad sash of crimson silk.
The Polish Jews of Safed wear round-crowned pot-hats. A
conical cap of drab felt is worn by certain Dervishes, a black
turban by others. When European dress is worn by Syrians
their headdress is usually a Turkish fez.
P 2
228
INHABITANTS
The dwellings of the Syrian people vary from the primi-
tive tent to the solid structure of stone. From Masyād to
Aleppo there are to be found villages of mud-built beehive-
shaped huts; they are to be met with on the plains all the
way to Aleppo, and, though they closely resemble certain
villages sculptured on Assyrian monuments, are like no other
villages to-day save those that appear in travel-books relating
to parts of Africa. With increasing wealth the owner adds
another beehive and then another.
The Bedouin camps are partly composed of tents, which
are usually dark brown, with sometimes a strip of grey cloth
inserted. The tent is a long rectangular structure, composed
of pieces of cloth, strong and coarse, thrown over a framework
of poles, leaving one side open throughout its entire length,
except on the part occupied by the harīm, which is partially
closed to hide the family property. It is fastened by ropes
tied to pegs driven into the ground; an extra piece of cloth
is sewn to the covering at the heads of the props. With care,
it is said, a tent will last a generation. The loftiest part is
high enough for a man to stand erect, and from the central
ridge it slopes to the ground at the back and sides. A hanging
curtain divides the tent into two parts ; it is never more than
breast-high. The tent of the chief is conspicuous for its
length as well as its position, which is central ; it is often
120 ft. long or more.
The houses of the villagers consist of four thick walls,
composed of rough-hewn stones, with a hole for a door and
sometimes another to represent a window. Local conditions
are apt to influence the style and nature of the construction
and the materials employed. In the mountains timber is
scarce and stone abundant. This has led to the adoption
of domed stone-roofs, which in turn has led to the erection
of substantial walls, often three feet or more thick. The in-
terior is usually in two parts, a raised portion called mastabah,
occupying some three-quarters of the space, and a lower part
near the door, the latter being often used for the stabling of
animals. When the roof has been completed the walls are
DOMESTIC AND SOCIAL CONDITIONS
229
carried up two or three courses above the spring of the dome,
the corners being filled with masonry and the roof covered
with earth; in lieu of which a kind of rubble is sometimes
used.
East of Jordan, where there is a greater supply of suitable
timber, the roofs are made of beams across which lighter
rafters are laid ; these are covered with reeds, and on these
quantities of a local bush are laid ; over all earth to the depth
of a foot or eighteen inches is then piled and rolled till it
hardens.
The larger houses are built round courts, which correspond
to the lower part of the interior of smaller dwellings. Damas-
çus is famous for magnificent houses of an old style, built
round courts with a fountain in the middle, and having
staircases leading to the upper story. It is observable
that in the Oriental house an absolute distinction between
sitting-room and bed-room rarely exists.
In the larger towns the European style of architecture is
fast gaining ground.
The mode of life which exhibits the most striking peculiarities
is that of the Bedouin. This in many ways retains usages that
are at variance with the codes of Islam, though the greater
number of the tribes nominally profess adherence to that
system. The Ottoman Government in the years immediately
preceding the war, had been doing much to introduce Islamic
uniformity, though in some cases manifesting a certain amount
of respect for local usage. Bedouin law appears to differ from
that of the Koran chiefly as follows. It excludes women from
inheritance, whereas in the system of the Koran they have
shares, though on the general principle that a woman's share
is half that of the corresponding male. Further it gives the
owner of property the right to dispose of it at death as he
chooses, whereas the Koranic law limits his liberty in this
matter to one-third. Besides, it recognizes adoption, which the
Koran expressly rejects.
The raiding, which is a characteristic feature of Bedouin
life, seems rarely, if ever, to involve the displacement of one
230
INHABITANTS
.
tribe by another, It is, besides, restricted by a highly
complicated system of usages of which the purpose seems to be
to obtain some sort of security for life and property, by
rendering the consequences of robbery, at least when accom-
panied by bloodshed, serious. Thus there are various
modes whereby smaller clans can obtain the protection of
such as are more powerful, and individuals who are in danger
for one reason or another can obtain at any rate temporary
respite. Responsibility, whether for robbery or murder,
belongs to the clan not to the individual ; and there are tariffs
which differ with the different tribes for both death and the
infliction of bodily injuries which are not fatal. Bloodshed
is not ordinarily compensated by payment immediately,
and in places there is a theory that a blood-feud lasts five
generations.
Elaborate forms and ceremonies are used on occasions
when a blood-feud is laid aside. The following is a de-
wish the feud to come to an end, they meet in the tent of him
turns to the south, and draws a circle on the floor, calling upon
Allah. Then he takes a shred of the cloth of the tent and a
handful of ashes from the hearth, throws them in the circle,
and seven times strikes the line with the naked sword. The
offender leaps into the circle, and one of the relatives of his
enemy cries aloud: “I take the murder that he did upon me'.
Although in normal cases the responsibility for an extra-
tribal murder rests upon the whole tribe of the assassin, it is
permissible for an individual to undertake the full responsi-
bility, if he performs certain operations. He should affix a
white flag to the top of a lance or a staff, and go the round
of the neighbouring encampments, crying out that it is his
personal flag, that neither his tribe is to be disturbed nor his
family exiled ; and that he calls on the Arabs to attest that
he assumes the sole responsibility for the act. Having made
this announcement he awaits the suitable opportunity for
perpetrating it. In the same way the sheikh of the tribe has
DOMESTIC AND SOCIAL CONDITIONS
231
the right to expel from it any member whose conduct is calcu-
lated to bring disaster upon it. If such an outcast then falls
a victim, no vengeance is exacted for the murder. The
technical name for this sort of expulsion is the shaking out
of the mantle', and notification of it is given to the neighbour-
ing tribes.
Bedouin life lacks all the comforts and amenities of civiliza-
tion. But the tribes possess large flocks and herds, and in this
sense are wealthy. The corn they require for bread is obtained
from their neighbours by exchange or robbery, or is grown for
them on their own lands by fellahin. They pride themselves
on being free men and despise the fellahin as slaves. Their
flocks and herds require extensive pastures, and as they move
from place to place they pay little respect to the cultivated
fields that come in their way. The payment of tribute to the
Bedouin by the peasants on their borders, in order to secure
a measure of protection, is a recognized usage.
Although it is convenient and necessary to treat the Bedouin
as a part of the population of Syria, they belong really
to the desert that lies beyond the borders of Syria proper. The
Syrians, as contrasted with the Bedouin, or Arabs, are the
inhabitants of the cultivated land and the large towns. Most
of them live a simple country life engaged in agriculture and
village industry. These usually produce for themselves all
that is needed to satisfy their simple wants. Their food is
chiefly bread, vegetables, and fruit. Flesh is rarely eaten.
Their time is divided between the tasks of daily work, never
very strenuous, and pleasant social intercourse with friends
and neighbours. Domestic and village festivals are their great
events. Their highest level is reached in music and in poetry.
The music seems monotonous to Europeans. The instruments
are flutes and drums and various stringed instruments. Native
poetry and story-telling make a wider appeal. Being burdened
by a bad land system and a bad system of taxation, described
in next chapter, the peasants are poor and depressed by in-
creasing debts. The taxation is in kind, is crushing in amount,
and lends itself to arbitrary exactions. Debtors have to pay
232
INHABITANTS
exorbitant interest to rapacious money-lenders. The peasants
also suffer from a system of biennial redistribution of their
village lands which obstructs improvement and destroys
individual initiative.
The people of the towns much surpass those of the country
in their standard of comfort, in the acquaintance they have
with foreigners, and in their general intelligence. They are the
inheritors of an ancient civilization, of a long-established com-
mercialintercourse, and of numerous industries on a small scale.
These last now suffer greatly under European competition.
The people of the coast towns are most affected by contact
with Europeans and the influence of European education.
Hence their adoption of European dress and their knowledge
of European languages (especially French and English). Even
in towns life is still simple, and the amount of money spent by
an average household is not large. Prices are highest in Beirut,
Haifa, Jaffa, and Jerusalem ; next to these towns come Aleppo
and Damascus. Rents and the value of land are highest in
Beirut.
The fundamental divisions between Moslems, Jews, and
Christians, and all their many subdivisions, introduce a great
diversity of usage and custom into the daily life of the Syrian
people. Still, the cleavage is greater in theory than in practice
and is counterbalanced by many common elements of obser-
vance and belief. The deep-seated superstitions of the
country (survivals of ancient heathendom) are an important
link between the adherents of the different faiths (practice of
magic, reverence to sacred trees and wells, &c.). Local
saints are often reverenced by the whole neighbourhood,
irrespective of creed. Even distinctive holy days are honoured
in the same way to a certain extent. In practice most Moslems
are monogamous. Only rich men in towns can afford to have
more than one wife. Similarly, little wine is drunk by any
section of the people. The wine industry is being developed
by Jewish and German and French immigrants. On the other
hand in the larger towns both Moslems and Christians use
intoxicants more freely.
DOMESTIC AND SOCIAL CONDITIONS
233
Conflicts owing to religious differences occur between adhe-
rents of rival Christian churches almost as readily as between
Moslems and Christians or Jews. In the latter cases the con-
flicts have generally a political or economic cause associated
with the religious difference. For example, the emergence of
some bad feeling between the fellahin of Palestine and the
Jewish colonists is due primarily to the dispossession of the
former by the latter. Where religious fanaticism still exists
(e.g. in Homs and Hama)it is mainly directed against foreigners.
Even that is everywhere disappearing owing to increased
contact with Europeans and the influence of European educa-
tion. The custom by which Moslems, Jews, and Christians live
in separate quarters of large towns helps to minimize conflicts.
Similarly in the country districts villages are usually either
Moslem or Christian or Druse, and so forth. Villages with a
mixed population are exceptional. It must be added that the
improved legal status of Jews and Christians in recent times
has been mainly a concession to foreign pressure and that the
toleration hitherto granted by Moslems has been that of a
superior and a conqueror to an inferior and conquered people.
It is also true that a sense of alienation between adherents of
the various faiths is never far distant and may be fanned at
any moment into passionate animosity. In illustration it may
be noted that both Moslems and Christians believe that the
ritual murder of (Moslem and Christian) children at pass-
over time is practised by the Jews when they can secure
a victim.
Family groups as social units have still the wider scope that
used to belong to them in ancient times. Sometimes a man's
kindred are legally treated as his substitutes. Blood revenge
was forbidden by Ottoman law, but was still practised even by
the sedentary population and still more by the Bedouin. If a
murderer has evaded pursuit for a certain time his act may be
atoned by a payment of money. The position of women is
subordinate among all classes and faiths. The effect of Euro-
pean influence in this matter is specially noticeable amongst
Christians. The complete veiling of the faces of Moslem
234
INHABITANTS
women is a city practice, unusual in the country and least of
all amongst the Bedouin.
Of the three calendars in popular use (Moslem, Jewish, and
Christian) that of the Moslems, of course, has precedence and
is familiar to all. The day of twenty-four hours begins at
nightfall. The twelve hours of daytime are reckoned from
sunrise to sunset and so vary in length throughout the year.
The observance of separate days of public worship (Friday,
Saturday, and Sunday) causes little inconvenience because
the adherents of the different religions live so much apart and
because of the nature of the observance of the days. Moslems
do not treat Friday as a day of cessation from work.
It is hazardous to attempt to sum up the character of any
people and still more to draw a balance between their virtues
and their faults. English and American observers are struck
by the general prevalence of untruthfulness and ingratitude
amongst the Syrians. They condemn also their greed and
their readiness to accept bribes. As a people they are unkind
to animals. On the other hand, they display in a marked
degree the virtues of politeness and hospitality. They are
sociable and good-natured, and calm in the face of mis-
fortune. They have also a native pride which is a source of
strength. Their business capacity is evident. Courage and
fighting qualities are rather lacking, except amongst particu-
lar classes (Druses, Bedouin). The long predominance of the
Moslems over Jews and Christians introduces another distinc-
tion. Independence and the virtues which it fosters are
characteristic of the former, submissiveness and the faults
that accompany it generally distinguish the latter.
Any estimate of the economic capacities of the Syrian people
must allow for the bad conditions already described. Assuming
the necessary legislative reforms, it may be said, in summary,
that the people as well as the country show promise of great
future development. Europeans are struck by the contrast
between life in Syria and that of a modern industrial state.
Much time is wasted, as judged by the needs of production.
All classes appreciate the sweetness of doing nothing, and
DOMESTIC AND SOCIAL CONDITIONS
235
indulge themselves accordingly. Yet the town population is
highly intelligent and the people generally show a marked
business capacity when they have opportunity. The alleged
unreliability of the Syrian character does not affect the trust-
worthiness of the best commercial firms. The peasants are
distinguished by their simple and frugal manner of life. They
are diligent and painstaking in discharging the tasks which the
customs of the country demand. The rule of custom is, indeed,
a marked feature of the life of the country and a barrier to
progress. But Europeans generally over-estimate its strength.
It is giving way inevitably everywhere, in face of the demands
of modern conditions. The conservative influence of the
Moslem religion, also, is only a particular expression of the
force of custom and will not be a permanent obstacle to
changes which are to the manifest advantage of the com-
munity. It may be asserted with confidence that the Syrians,
in favourable conditions, are capable of much more rapid
progress than such a people as the Egyptians.
CHAPTER VI
TURKISH ADMINISTRATION
UNDER the constitution of the Ottoman Empire before the
reforms of the nineteenth century Moslems, only, had the
status and rights of full citizens. Valid witness in a court of
law could be given only by Moslems. The government officials
were all necessarily Moslems. On the other hand, disputes
in which both parties were Jews or Christians, and matters
such as marriage and inheritance were subject to the juris-
diction of the ecclesiastical authorities of the Jewish or
Christian communities. This provision worked the more
smoothly because Jews and Christians in the large towns
were grouped in separate quarters (hārah or mahalleh), and in
the country most villages contained the adherents of one
faith only. In the course of the nineteenth century, and
especially from 1856 onwards, the pressure of the European
powers secured better conditions for the non-Moslem popula-
tions of the empire. All Ottoman subjects were acknowledged,
in theory, to be equal before the law and became eligible for
employment as government officials. The process of reform
reached its climax after the Revolution of 1908.
The Moslem law known as the sherī‘ah, administered by
the Ottoman law courts, is based in theory on the Koran
and the authoritative traditions of Islam. It has, therefore,
the sanction of religious authority. Along side of it there grew
up in modern times another code, which rested upon the
decrees of the sultans and provided for modern conditions,
such as those due to contact with foreigners and to treaties
made with foreigners. As early as 1861 special tribunals
of commerce were established to administer an important
part of this code. Finally, in 1879, under the pressure of the
TURKISH ADMINISTRATION
237
European powers, a complete system of regulated courts'
(mehākim-i-nizāmīyé) was established throughout Syria and
the empire for the trial of cases under the new law. It is
misleading to say, without qualification, that the nizāmīyé
courts were secular and the sherīʻah courts religious. The
jurisdiction of the sherī‘ah courts was partly secular and partly
religious, the jurisdiction of the nizāmīyé courts was purely
secular but did not cover the whole field of secular affairs.
One result of the establishment of the nizāmīyé courts was
to diminish the resort of Christians and Jews to their own
special courts. They were satisfied with the jurisdiction of
the nizāmīyé courts in those matters for which they were
competent.
The needs of foreign residents and the treaties made with
.foreign powers led to the constitution in the Ottoman Empire
of a fourth jurisdiction, that of the consular tribunals. Cases
arising between foreigners were tried with few exceptions by
these consular courts, according to the laws of the countries
they represented. Where Ottoman subjects and foreigners
were involved cases were tried by the nizāmīyé courts with
a consul or dragoman as assessor.
TO
ADMINISTRATIVE DIVISIONS
During most of the period of the Turkish occupation of
Syria (from 1517 onwards) the provincial governors exercised
a large amount of independent authority (see p. 155 f.). During
the nineteenth century the control of the central government
in Constantinople was strengthened and the constitution of
the provinces was more strictly defined. The system here
described was based upon fundamental laws, which date from
1864 and 1871. According to these the Ottoman Empire
was divided into provinces called vilayets (Arab. wilāyah),
each under a vali (Arab. wāli). The subdivisions of the vilayets
were called sanjaqs (mutesarrifīyeh or mutesarrifliq or liwa)
and their governors mutesarrif. Sanjaqs were divided into
kazas (Arab. qadha), each governed by a kaimmakam (qā'im-
maqām), and these again into nahiyehs (Arab. mudīrīyeh and
2
1
238
TURKISH ADMINISTRATION
nāhiyeh), with a mudīr over each. A number of sanjaqs, at
first few, but latterly numerous, were not parts of any vilayet
and had governors who were responsible directly to the
supreme authority in Constantinople (Turk. elviyé-e-mustaqilé,
unattached liwas).
Under this system Syria was at first divided into two
vilayets, Aleppo and Sūrīya (Syria), and one detached sanjaq,
the province of Lebanon. Sūrīya included nearly the whole
of Syria, except the province of Lebanon. Aleppo included
four sanjaqs—Maríash, “Urfa, Zõr, and Aleppo—and so more
than belongs to Syria geographically or historically.
In 1887–8 the vilayet of Sūrīya was divided into three parts.
The eastern half retained the old name and is best referred to
as the vilayet of Damascus. The corresponding western half,
still excluding Lebanon and also the sanjaq of Jerusalem,.
was called the vilayet of Beirut. The south of Palestine
became a detached sanjaq, the sanjaq of Jerusalem. From
this time onwards Syria under the Turks consisted of three
vilayets (Aleppo, Beirut, and Damascus) and two detached
sanjaqs (Lebanon and Jerusalem). As, however, the boundaries
of these divisions have varied considerably from time to time
they do not provide, without further analysis, a reliable
basis for the comparative statistics of populations and areas.
The province of Aleppo has undergone most change. Zõr
was detached before 1901, 'Urfa in 1910, and Mar'ash in 1915.
The vilayet of Damascus has had a large area taken from it
in the extreme SW. Some authorities add this territory to
the sanjaq of Jerusalem and some do not. For its extent
see p. 240, note 4.
The following is a list of the sanjaqs of each of the vilayets
of Syria and of the kazas of each sanjaq.
ADMINISTRATIVE DIVISION
239
Sanjaqs.
Kazas.
I. Vilayet of Aleppo : 1
| Iskanderūn (Alexandretta).
Beilān.
Antāqīyeh (Antioch).
Killiz.
Hārim.
Haleb (Aleppo) Haleb (Aleppo).
Idlib.
Jisr esh-Shughr.
Ma'aret en-Nu'mān.
Bāb Jebbūl (or El-Bāb).
Membij.
“Aintāb.
‘Aintāb.
Rūm Qal'ah.
II. Vilayet of Beirut ::
(Lādiqīyeh.
Sahyūn (or Bāb Enneh).
Lādiqīyeh
Jebeleh.
(Marqab (or Bāniyās).
(Tarābulus (Tripoli).
Tarābulus
'Akkār. -
Sāfīta.
(Husn el-Akrād (or El-Husn).
( Beirūt.
Beirūt. .
Saida (Sidon).
Sūr (Tyre):
| Merj ‘Ayūn.
Akka.
Haifa.
Akka . .
Safed.
Nāsirah (Nazareth).3
Tabarīya (Tiberias).
Nāblus (or
( Nāblus.
Jenin.
Belga) · Beni Sa'b (oz. Tül Keram).
? When the sanjaq of 'Urfa was separated from this vilayet (see above)
part of the kaza of Membij was also taken away and the kaza of Raqqah
was eliminated. The sanjaq of 'Aintāb previous to 1915 was a part of
the sanjaq of Aleppo. The district round Aleppo, excluding the town and
its immediate neighbourhood, was once a distinct kaza (Jebel Shimʻān)
but seems latterly to have been absorbed in the kaza of Aleppo.
* A peculiarity of this vilayet was that its northern portion was divided
from its southern portion by the intervening province of Lebanon, and
Beirut, its capital, stood isolated and surrounded by the territory of Lebanon.
3 During 1906–8 the kaza of Nazareth, for the convenience of pilgrims,
was treated as a portion of the sanjaq of Jerusalem.
4 The alternative name Belqa is a survival from the time (before 1888)
when the sanjaq included the Belqa district east of Jordan. A fourth kaza,
Jemāʻīn, with Selfit as its capital, was absorbed in the kaza of Nāblus
between 1901 and 1906.
240
TURKISH ADMINISTRATION
Sanjaqs.
Kazas.
III. Vilayet of Damascus :
(Hamidiyeh,
Selemiyeh.
Hama.
Hama.
Homs.
Ba'albek.
Biqā'.
Hāsbeya.
Quneiterah.
Shām Sherif Nebk.
(Damascus) ? | Zebdāni.
Rāsheya.
Dūma.
Shām (Damascus).
Wadi el-'Ajam.
Sheikh Sa'd.
'Ajlūn (or Irbid).
Musmīyeh.
'Ezra.
Haurān 2
Der'a (or Haurān).
El-'Ahireh (or Ez-Zeidi ?).
| Suweida (or Jebel ed-Drúz).
Salkhad.
Salt.
Kerak.
Kerak 3. .
Tafīleh.
(Ma'ān.
IV. Sanjaq of Jerusalem :'s
El-Quds (Jerusalem).
Yāfa (Jaffa).
Ghazzeh (Gaza).
Khalil er-Rahmān (Hebron).
Bir Seba' (Beersheba).
i Quneiterah was transferred from the Haurān to this sanjaq between
1901 and 1906. Zebdāni, created before 1901, was originally part of the
kaza of Wādi el-'Ajam.
% This sanjaq has been very much rearranged from time to time. The
capital was moved successively from Der'a to Sheikh Sa'd, from there to
Sheikh Miskin (about 1894) and finally back to Der'a (about 1903). Salt
was separated from the sanjaq in 1894 and Quneiterah before 1906. The
list of kazas given by Ruppin for 1915 omits Sheikh Sa'd, El-'Ahireh, and
Salkhad. Musmīyeh and Ezra now include most of the territory that
belonged to Basr el-Harir (still given by Ruppin as a distinct kaza).
3 Previous to 1894 this sanjaq was called Maʻān and had its capital
at Maʻān. In 1894 Salt was added to the sanjaq and the capital was moved
to Kerak. See note 8 regarding territory transferred to Bir Seba'.
The kaza of Bir Seba' was formed from parts of those of Gaza and Hebron
before 1901. In 1908 steps were taken to make it a sanjaq having two
kazas, Bir Seba' and Hafir (or El-Aưja), and including territory to the
south that had belonged to the sanjaq of Kerak or had previously not been
ADMINISTRATIVE DIVISION
241
Sanjaqs.
Kazas.
V. Sanjaq of Lebanon : 1
Batrūn.
Kesrawān.
Meten.
Shūf.
Jezzīn.
El-Kūrah.
Zahleh.
Under the Ottoman constitution every vilayet, sanjaq,
and kaza had an administrative council associated with its
governor. These councils consisted of members ex officio and
elected members. The qadhi and the mufti of each district
and the dignitaries of the Christian churches were amongst
the members ex officio. The councils of the vilayets and of the
sanjaqs had four elected members each, two Moslems and two
non-Moslems, and the kaimmakam's council had three. The
chief officials of the vilayet, along with the vali and the
judges, were the defterdār (treasurer) and the maktūbji
(secretary). In a sanjaq the corresponding officials were
known as muhāsebēji and tahrīrāt mudīri, respectively.
According to the laws of 1864 and 1871 there should have
been a General Council in each vilayet, meeting once a year
for a session of not more than forty days. Such matters as
roads, agriculture, commerce, and taxation were to be the
subjects of its deliberations, though no business might be
discussed without the consent of the vali, who presided. Its
resolutions were to have the force of recommendations to the
imperial government. Each sanjaq was to elect four members
of the General Council, two Moslems, and two non-Moslems.
The law regarding these councils was a dead letter.
A valuable system of local self-government was provided
by the organization of the nahiyehs. The mudir and his council !
were elected by the district and were, therefore, of the same
religion as the inhabitants. In districts where the population
administratively organized at all. Probably it was intended to make this
a detached sanjaq like that of Jerusalem. The reorganization may not have
been complete even in 1914.
? Enclosed in Shūf was the unattached nahiyeh (mudīrīych) of Deir
el-Qamar.
SYRIA
242
TURKISH ADMINISTRATION
was mixed the rule was at first that half the council should
be Moslem and half non-Moslem (law of 1877). Afterwards
a more exact system of proportional representation was intro-
duced (1895). The mudir might not be an imam, nor a priest,
nor a government official. His appointment was for two
years and required confirmation from the vali. Members of
council held office for two years, half retiring each year.
According to the law of 1877 a council consisted of four to
eight members, in 1895 the number was fixed at four. An
important duty of the council was to apportion amongst the
villages their shares of the taxation of the district.
In supplement to this organization each village possessed
an elected council of elders, presided over by a mukhtār.
Under this arrangement the Jewish colonies enjoyed a large
measure of self-government. Villages inhabited by adherents
of more than one religious confession had a council and
mukhtār for each. The taxation of the village was equitably
apportioned amongst its families by these councils.
In the vilayet of Beirut the names mukhtār and elders were
designations for the heads of the nahiyehs and their councils.
The constitution of municipal councils was governed by
a law which dated from 1877. Large cities (Turkish shehir)
were divided into quarters (mahalleh), each of which had
a municipal council. In smaller towns (qassaba) there was
only one council. They were entrusted with the usual duties
of city councils (water supply, lighting, streets, sanitation,
control of bakehouses and slaughter-houses, city hospitals,
&c.). From six to twelve members were elected for four years,
half retiring every two years. The president of the council
was nominated by the government and was a paid official.
The city engineer, medical officer, and veterinary surgeon
were consulting members. Qualified electors were all resident
Ottoman subjects, males, 25 years of age, paying taxes to
the amount of at least 50 piastres annually.
Lebanon and the Haurān.-From 1864 to 1914 the sanjaq
of Lebanon had a special constitution guaranteed by the
European powers (Austria, France, England, Russia, and
ADMINISTRATIVE DIVISION
243
Prussia). Its governor (mutesarrif or mushăr) was necessarily
a Christian and its administrative council consisted of four
Maronites, three Druses, two Greek Orthodox Christians,
one Greek Catholic, one Moslem, and one Metawāli. The
sanjaq was divided into seven kazas, of which four were
Maronite, one Greek Orthodox, one Greek Catholic, and one
(Shūf) Moslem. The mudirs were nominated by the kaim-
makams and appointed by the governor. Each village had
its own sheikh. The judicial system was assimilated to that
of the empire in 1879. The judges of each kaza were appointed
by the governor in accordance with the religious character
of the inhabitants. There were two courts of appeal, civil
and criminal, including representatives of all the religious
persuasions of the province. The appointments were made
by the governor. Commercial cases were tried by the tribunal
of commerce in Beirut. The police were enrolled from the
various religious communities of the province in proportion to
their numbers. The head of the police was always a Maronite.
The province enjoyed a system of taxation of its own.
Until 1879 the Druses of the Haurān were entirely inde-
pendent of the Turkish administration of Syria and between
that date and the revolt of 1895–6 they still enjoyed a large
measure of independence. After the settlement of 1896 they
only retained the privilege of exemption from military
service.
JUDICIAL SYSTEM
The law courts under the Ottoman government were of
three grades, corresponding to the administrative units
kaza, sanjaq, and vilayet. Below the courts of first instance,
in the kazas, the councils of the nahiyehs and the villages acted
as courts of conciliation with a limited competence. As
already explained two systems of law were administered
throughout the empire, so that in each administrative unit
two courts divided the jurisdiction. The courts of the sherīčah,
regulated by the law of 1859, were under the supreme control
of the Sheikh el-Islām, resident in Constantinople, and the
Q2
244
TURKISH ADMINISTRATION
nizāmīyé courts, regulated by the law of 1878, were under
the control of the minister of justice.
The courts of the sherī'ah in each unit consisted of one
judge (nā’ib or qādhi), with whom a mufti was associated. I
It was the duty of the latter to prepare a preliminary state-
ment of the law applicable to the case (fetwa). Both officials:
were appointed by the Sultan, upon the nomination of the
Sheikh el-Islām.
The nizāmīyé court of each kaza consisted of a presiding,
judge and two assessors. It might be divided into two courts
civil and criminal, each with a presiding judge and twat
assessors. These courts could dispose of certain minor case
without appeal. The court in the capital of the sanjaq acte
as a court of first instance for the kaza in which it was situate
and also as an appeal court for the other courts of first instanct
in the sanjaq. It was divided into two chambers, each wit's
two judges and two assessors. It was competent to tra
commercial cases when there was no commercial court is
the vicinity. An appeal might sometimes be taken from thi,
courts of first instance directly to the appeal court of the
vilayet. The courts of appeal in the capitals of the vilayetl.
heard appeals from the courts in the capitals of the sanjaq
They each consisted of a presiding judge, two professions
assessors, and two laymen who held office for a year. The
might be divided into two chambers, civil and criminal
each with a full equipment of judges..
Special tribunals of commerce were established in place:
where they were needed, at the choice of the minister
justice. The system of appeal courts was similar to tha:
already described. In the capital of each vilayet there was i
a special court of appeal for commercial cases. It consiste
of two professional judges and four laymen representativ
of the business community. It acted also as a court of firs
instance for the surrounding kaza.
The subjects belonging to the courts of the sherī‘ah wer
defined in 1887 as being, principally, questions of marriag
and divorce, liberty and slavery, wills and inheritance, and



JUDICIAL SYSTEM
245
- compensation for certain personal injuries. Commercial
cases, criminal cases, legal damages, leases, and contracts
all fell to the nizāmīyé courts. Unspecified matters might
be tried by the sherīʻah courts if the parties to the case agreed,
if not they were taken to the nizāmīyé courts. The ultimate
Jourts of appeal were all in Constantinople. The Christian
: ?cclesiastical courts retained their jurisdiction especially
in questions of marriage and inheritance. In the Jewish
solonies Jewish judges decided all disputes between the
Bolonists.
TAXATION
The chief source of revenue under the Turkish government
svas the tithe on agricultural produce. Next to it in importance
tood customs, the land and house tax (wergho) and a tax on
ive-stock. A considerable revenue was obtained from
jovernment monopolies (tobacco and salt) and from the
nilitary service exemption tax. Other taxes were of minor
importance. The tithe, the wergho, and the tax on animals
re all very ancient taxes, well understood by the people
enerally. The inhabitants of Lebanon were not subject
o the payment of tithe. Foreigners resident in Syria paid
axes only in so far as they engaged in agriculture. The town
opulation was much more lightly taxed than the people of
he country districts.
Tithe
This tax was originally a payment in kind of one-
enth of the produce of agricultural land. It was increased
iny the Turkish Government at various times (1883, 1897,
9.900) until it amounted legally to one-eighth (12.63 per cent.).
in actual practice the payment demanded ranged commonly
etween 20 per cent. and 30 per cent. and sometimes reached
bivs much as 40 per cent. In bad years the tax was frequently
evied on the standard of a good harvest in the preceding year.
Peasant farmers had no means of defence against unjust
zaluations. The tithe was levied on gross returns, without
77.
246
TURKISH ADMINISTRATION
consideration of the cost of production. The provision that
its amount should be determined within three days of the
completion of the harvest was always a dead letter. The
practice of farming the tithes, i.e. of putting them up to
auction annually and making the highest bidder his own
collector, greatly accentuated the evils of the system. Between
1839 and 1889 several attempts were made to modify or
abolish the practice. But the want of trustworthy agents
and the difficulty of obtaining a sufficient staff of government
officials were insuperable obstacles. Besides the people
suspected and opposed the alteration. The provision that
a village might farm its own tithes worked well when thy
village was strong enough to undertake such a responsibility.
In the case of some products (e. g. olives and cocoons) the
tithes of a kaza or a sanjaq were put up to auction. But
the cereals of each village were farmed separately. The tithes
of olives were farmed for two years at a time because of th:
nature of the crop (see p. 261).
Town lands paid no tithes. The tithe of some perishable
products, such as vegetables, oranges, grapes, and a pricots,
was commuted for a money payment. Silk cocoons were
taxed at the rate of 12.13 per cent. and were valued and
collected by officials of the Public Debt from the year 1882
onwards. The tobacco tithe was, similarly, valued and
collected by officials of the Régie after 1895 (see p. 248).
Land and Building Tax (wergho)
After 1839 the land tax was levied upon all owners of land,
Moslems as well as non-Moslems. By the law of 1886 the
tax was per cent. in the case of land subject to tithe, and
6 per cent. in the case of land exempt from tithe. In 1887
the latter rate was made 5per cent., and in 1900 113 per cent.
The land of religious and charitable institutions, state
property, and communal pastures were exempted from the tax.
Properties were revalued every five years.
By the law of 1886 the rate of the tax on buildings varied
according to the value of the building. The charges were
TAXATION
247
1 per cent. on all houses not inhabited by their owners, per
cent. (afterwards į per cent.) on houses inhabited by their
owners and valued at less than 20,000 piastres (£180), or
4 per cent. when valued at more than 20,000 piastres. In
addition, however, surcharges identical with those on un-
tithed land were added to each of these rates. In 1900,
accordingly, the surcharge was 11 per cent., exclusive of
21 per cent. more to cover the cost of collection.
In 1910 the law was remodelled. Entire exemption was
given to public buildings, to houses inhabited by owners
whose yearly income was less than 250 piastres, and to cattle
sheds, &c. Exemption for a period of years after construction
was given to mills, factories, and industrial buildings generally,
to houses destined for nomads and immigrants, and to other
buildings the erection of which was specially desired. Build-
ings serving an industrial purpose were to be taxed at the
rate of 12 per cent. on the gross product, with a reduction of
3 per cent. when they were inhabited by their owners. In
other cases the tax was to be 6 per cent. on the value of the
buildings. None of these provisions were actually in force
between 1910 and 1914.
Taxation of Live-stock
This tax was paid in kind until 1868. Only sheep, goats,
pigs, and camels were taxed until 1904. In 1904 cattle,
horses, and asses were added to the list. The rate varied
from three to ten piastres per head, according to the animal.
Sheep, goats, and asses were taxed at the lowest rates. In
proportion to the value of the animals the tax was high.
The numbers of each class of animal in a particular
year were determined by the mukhtars, controlled by the
kaimmakams. Elaborate precautions against evasion were
required.
Customs
Between 1862 and 1908 the duty on imports was 8 per cent.
of the value, and between 1908 and 1914 11 per cent.
After the increase, goods from Egypt still paid only 8 per
248
TURKISH ADMINISTRATION
cent. After 1880 industrial and agricultural implements were
entirely exempt, and some institutions and individuals
(hospitals, orphanages, consuls, &c.) enjoyed a partial exemp-
tion. A refund of most of the tax was allowed on goods
imported and then re-exported. Before 1910 the value of
imported goods was estimated by government valuators, and
the only check upon their valuations was that the importer
might, if he chose, pay in kind. From 1910 onwards the value
of the goods was determined by the bill of lading.
An internal customs duty was payable previous to 1874.
After 1874 goods entering a port by sea from another Syrian
(or Turkish) port still paid a duty of 8 per cent. In 1900 the
charge became 2 per cent., and in 1909 it was abolished
altogether. There were always, however, a large number of
important exemptions (cotton, wool, silk, flour, &c.).
A general export tax at the rate of 1 per cent. was levied
from 1869 until a few years before the war. Minerals were
taxed at a much higher rate (5-15 per cent.).
Revenues derived from Monopolies
From 1883 onwards the Régie des tabacs de l'empire ottoman,
which controlled the growth and sale of tobacco in the empire
(p. 266), paid the government a fixed annual sum (£750,000)
in return for its privileges. Tobacco èxported to Egypt was
subject to a special tax. Between 1891 and 1912 timbek (see
p. 267) was similarly controlled by the Société du tombac. The
sum received annually by the government from this source was
£40,000. In 1912 the monopoly was cancelled and an import
tax of four piastres per kilo was imposed. Timbek grown in
Syria then became subject to a tax of the same amount.
LAND TENURE
In modern times, under the Turkish Government, five or
six different kinds of property in land were recognized-
mīrīyeh, mulk, waqf (Turkish merqūfé), metrūkeh, mewāt,
and jiftlik
LAND TENURE
249
Most of the land in Syria is mīrīyeh. It perpetuates a land
system inherited by the Turks from the days of the Arab
conquest. According to this system the state is the real owner
of the land. The annual payment by the holder to the state
is a recognition of this. Besides, he cannot sell the land nor
gift it without permission. Nor can be erect buildings nor
plant trees or vineyards upon it without permission. If the
land is not cultivated for three years it reverts to the state
(being mahlūl), and also if the holder has no legal heirs. Such
property cannot be disposed of by will.
Mulk land is found mostly in villages and towns and is, more
strictly, private property. It reverts to the state only if the
owner dies intestate and has no natural heirs.
Waqf land is assigned to the support of religious or public
institutions (mosques, schools, libraries, &c.) and provides
funds for poor relief. Much of it was granted by the state at
the time of the Arab Conquest. Some of it is transformed
mīrīyeh or mulk land. Mīrīyeh land cannot become waqf
without the sanction of the state. The owner of mulk land
determines the conditions upon which it shall become waqf.
He may transfer it free of all taxation and may require that
he and his heirs shall continue to cultivate it, subject to a fixed
annual payment. The tithes payable on mulk land are also
capable of conversion into waqf. The supervision of waqf
land under the Ottoman régime was entrusted to a local judge
and to a special department in Constantinople.
Metrūkeh land is communal property used as market-places,
pasture lands, roads, &c. Mewāt land is unoccupied and
unused. It may be taken into cultivation by any one, with
official sanction, and then becomes mīrīyeh land. Since 1908
crown property, jiftlik, has become national property and
may be distinguished as a sixth kind of property in land.
The most extensive of these domains are in the Jordan valley
and the neighbourhood of Aleppo.
A very large part of Syria, perhaps the greater part, is
cultivated by métayers, who pay the owner of the land
a proportion of their harvests in kind, usually one-fifth part.
250
TURKISH ADMINISTRATION
Waqf land and jiftlik are both regularly cultivated in this
way. Until recently much mīrīyeh land had been cultivated
for generations by peasant families who had no registered
title (kushān), although, legally, they could have acquired
one. This land has now been largely purchased over the heads
of the peasants from the state by wealthy townsmen, who
form a new class of large landowners or effendis. The peasants
continue to cultivate the land as métayers, and, so far, are
no worse off, indeed may be better off than previously. But
they are now subject to dispossession if the land is resold to
others, such as Jewish colonists, who desire to cultivate it
themselves, and this has already been a cause of grievance
and of conflict. The burdens to which agricultural land was
subject, under the Turks, and the bad administration of the
land laws, have induced peasant owners, in other cases, to
sell their land willingly to the effendis and become métayers.
By this means they might escape the direct payment of tithe
for which the landowner could take the responsibility. The
operation of the law that land uncultivated for three years
reverts to the state has been another cause of the decrease
of the independent peasant class. Liability to military service
often made it impossible for peasants to cultivate their land
continuously, and no allowance was made in such cases. Still
it was estimated in 1907 that 15 per cent. of the land in
Eastern Palestine, 20 per cent. in Galilee, 20-30 per cent.
in North Syria, and 50 per cent. in Judaea was in the hands
of peasant owners (Auhagen). In such cases the property
generally belongs to the village and is redistributed for
cultivation amongst the village families every two years.
Such land is called mushā'. The system of biennial redistribu-
tion hinders progress by discouraging personal initiative and
preventing the expenditure of capital and by stereotyping the
methods of cultivation.
Before 1856 Jews and Christians could not legally acquire
land in Syria, and until 1867 a similar prohibition applied
to the case of all foreigners. When these general disabilities
were removed it was still found by individuals belonging to
LAND TENURE
251
these classes that it was very difficult for them to obtain the
official permission necessary for the purchase of mīrīyeh land.
The ownership of land in detached lots, separated from one
another by the land of other proprietors, is very general in
Syria, and places a serious obstacle in the way of an exact
determination of boundaries and the acquirement of a clear
and valid title. The consolidation of such lots into continuous
properties is a condition of the satisfactory economic develope
ment of the country.
CHAPTER VII
AGRICULTURE
TAKING Syria as a whole, the cultivation of cereals (wheat,
barley, dhura) is the principal part of agriculture. The
value of the annual yield in cereals is probably much more
than that of all the other vegetable and fruit crops together.
The annual return from live stock is difficult to calculate.
According to Ruppin's figures 1 it is higher than the combined
values of the fruit crops. But the cultivation of fruit is
generally diffused, whereas the flocks and herds of the country
are concentrated in the hands of the Bedouin on the borders.
Leguminous plants (chickpeas, lentils, beans, vetches, &c.)
take a foremost place among the vegetable products of the
country. Amongst the fruit trees olives and grapes are about
equally important. Oranges (with lemons) grow in a few
districts only, but are specially remunerative and are rapidly
increasing in value. Sesame is also a valuable crop. The
rearing of silk cocoons, although limited to certain districts,
nearly ranks with olives and grapes. Tobacco, nuts and
cotton are quite secondary in comparison with the crops that
have been named.
The great variety of rainfall, temperature and soil in Syria
divides it into many different districts of cultivation. The
rainfall increases progressively from south to north. The
hilly regions are wetter than the belt on the coast. The
driest district is the Jordan valley and next to it come the
plains in the south round Gaza. The climate ranges from
that of the Jordan valley, which is tropical or sub-tropical,
to that of the hills in the extreme north where very severe
1 A. Ruppin, Syrien als Wirtschaftsgebiet. Berlin, 1917. The best work
on the subject, referred to throughout as Ruppin.
AGRICULTURE
253
MIT
winters sometimes occur (e.g. 1910–11). The prevailing
limestone soil is an advantage in a country with a long dry
summer season. The weathering of the lava rock in the
Haurān and the adjoining districts produces a very fertile
soil. The coast belt and the central depression (Jordan
Valley, Biqā' and Orontes Valley) and some of the valleys
running east and west (Merj ibn 'Amir) have a deep rich soil.
On the coast there are extensive sandy stretches. Where the
sand has clay underneath at a small depth it is peculiarly
well suited for orange growing. Numerous bare hills reduce
the area of the cultivated land. But their sheltered slopes
and valleys are fit for cultivation and seemingly rocky surfaces
are sometimes covered with only a thin crust of stone (nāri)
beneath which is a layer of good soil in which trees find
nourishment. The best soil is called hamra (red) and next
to it comes samra (brown). The increase of pools and
marshes and the neglect of tree planting have much diminished
the productiveness of the country.
The dominating feature of the climate, in relation to
cultivation, is the rainless summer. The plants and trees
best suited to the nature of the country are such as grow and
ripen during the rainy season (e.g. wheat) or are capable
of enduring prolonged drought (e.g. olive trees). Cultivated
plants that are not native to the country and do not satisfy
these conditions (e.g. orange trees) need special treatment
(artificial irrigation, &c.). Corresponding to the two distinct
seasons are two harvests, one in spring, of the winter crops
(beans, barley, wheat, &c.), the other in autumn, of the
summer crops (dhura, sesame, and especially fruits, grapes,
olives, figs, almonds, &c.). The chickpea is intermediate,
being sown in February and gathered in June.
The Syrian farmer follows a system of rotation between
summer and winter crops. The land that in one year was
devoted to a winter crop is sown in the next with a summer
crop and vice versa. The system excludes the growing of two
crops on the same land in the same year and, of course, the
sowing of the land with the same crop in two successive years.
254
AGRICULTURE
The ancient wooden plough, drawn by oxen, and the
reaping hook and the threshing sledge are still in general use
in Syria. The peasants, who cultivate most of the land,
cannot afford to purchase and maintain modern European
implements. Besides, deep furrow ploughs are not suited
to the requirements of the summer crops. Iron ploughs,
reaping machines, harrows, and similar implements are being
introduced where the ground permits and where capital is
available (e. g. in the Jewish and German colonies). They
involve necessarily certain changes in agricultural methods
(e. g. more thorough clearing of the land from stones). In
recent years the Turkish Government has established depots
at Aleppo, Homs, Der'a and elsewhere for the sale of agricul-
tural implements. In 1914–15 seventy-nine European ploughs
are said to have been sold in Aleppo.
The most serious defect in Syrian agriculture is its failure
to supply the ground with sufficient manure. The difficulty
of keeping live stock, owing to lack of pasture, partly accounts
for this, but not wholly. Terraces are an important, feature
in the cultivation of the land. They are needed to check
the rapid disappearance of the soil from the hills. A com-
plete restoration of those which have deteriorated or disap-
peared would greatly increase the productiveness of the
country. In most parts of Syria many summer crops, and
especially the vegetable gardens, need irrigation. In the
neighbourhood of Jaffa numerous petroleum pumps are used
for watering the orange plantations. Many districts that
are nearly waterless in summer would become highly pro-
ductive if ancient systems of irrigation were restored or new
systems created.
In Palestine the general experience of the Jewish colonies
is that a district wholly dependent upon grain crops does not
prosper. Failures of the harvest are frequent owing to
irregular or insufficient rains. It is estimated that in the
district of Gaza three harvests out of ten are complete failures.
In the Jewish colonies in Galilee disastrous successions of bad
harvests have been experienced. Delay in the early (Novem-
AGRICULTURE
255
ber) rain postpones the sowing of seed, shortens the period
available for growth and injures the quality of the harvest.
Failure of the late (spring) rain is specially injurious to
wheat. Barley suffers less from this cause. The traditional
methods of cultivation already, in a measure, practise the
principles of 'Dry farming'. Possibly a fuller application
of the system, as used in America; is needed to secure the
best results. In any case small cultivators ought to have
gardens and some live stock, to protect them against the
failure of their principal crop.
In the Jewish colonies good results have been obtained by
combining agriculture and fruit growing. Fruit growing,
however, involves considerable initial outlay and gives no
return for several years after planting. Vines produce in
their fourth year, oranges, apricots and almonds in their
fifth year and olives in their seventh or eighth year. Of these,
vines require least capital expenditure. Oranges cost most
in initial outlay and in annual working expense but, on the
other hand, give the highest return. Vineyards are reckoned
by Ruppin to give 18 francs net per dunam 2 when fully
productive (i. e. 198 fr. per hectare on a yield of 22 qantars),
almonds and apricots 22 fr. and olives 25 fr. Orange planta-
tions, assuming the yield to be 80 cases (each containing
100–150 oranges), give 115 fr. net per dunam (1,260 francs
per hectare). Just before the war 880 cases per hectare
had been attained, and sometimes surpassed, in the best
Dry farming has been extensively practised in the United States since
about 1900. It is a system applied to the cultivation of arid land, when
irrigation is not available. Its methods are directed to maintain a loose
surface and a firm subsoil, so that evaporation may be delayed and the
rainfall readily absorbed. As soon as the ground is sufficiently dry it is
thoroughly loosened to a depth of about three inches, and this process
is repeated at intervals as often as the ground dries after rain. The soil is
moist when ploughing takes place, and after the ploughing there is a process
of 'packing' which makes the subsoil firm. It has been found most
profitable to allow the land to lie fallow for a season, during which time the
season's rain is stored by the means first described. See also p. 451.
? See p. 324.
256
AGRICULTURE
Jewish plantations. A yield of 20 qantars of grapes per
hectare (600 kilos) is very good.
The following average returns from wheat and barley are
estimates by A. Bril based upon experience in the neighbour-
hood of Jaffa (Ruppin, p. 91). On good land wheat should
yield 140 kilos per dunam (1,540 kilos per hectare) and be
worth 30 francs (320 fr. gross per hectare). For medium
land the figures are 98 kilos, valued at 21 francs (231 fr. gross
per hectare). The yield of barley on good land should be
160 kilos per dunam (1,760 kilos per hectare), valued at
24 fr. (264 francs gross per hectare). On medium land the
figures are 120 kilos and 18 francs (198 fr. gross per hectare).
After deduction of tithe and of all expenses the net return
is less than one half these figures. Gross average returns of
200-240 fr. per hectare have been attained by the best Jewish
colonies only in recent years.
Agricultural schools have already been established in Syria.
The oldest and most important is Miqweh Israel, near Jaffa,
under Jewish management (founded 1870). Small govern-
ment schools have been recently established at Selemīyeh
(near Hama) and Moslemīyeh (near Aleppo). A Jewish
training school for young women near Kinnereth (SW. of
Lake Tiberias), founded in 1910, promises well. An agricul-
tural experiment station, established by American Jews at
‘Athlīt, has already given excellent results.
AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTS
Wheat
This is the most extensively cultivated crop in Syria and
the staple food of the country. There are numerous varieties,
each suited to some special soil or district. Dalā’ikeh
flourishes on soil of volcanic origin, such as that in the Tiberias
district from which its name is taken. Zer'in wheat prefers
soil of a limestone character. The name Salamūni is given
to a red and a white variety (the latter also called mushrakāni).
It is rich in starch. The hard Haurān wheat (haurāni) is
AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTS
257
ed for mange when rem. Frenchmann the mal
made into burghul (a native dish of crushed wheat) and
is exported for manufacture into macaroni (see p. 278).
It degenerates quickly when removed from its proper soil.
A foreign species introduced by a Frenchman, Deschamps,
and called dushāni, supplies a cheap grain for the making
of starch. It requires abundant moisture and is cultivated
in central Syria (neighbourhood of Damascus). .
The Haurān, and generally the country east of Jordan, the
Merj ibn 'Amir, the Biqā', the plains of Homs and Hama and
parts of the vilayet of Aleppo (kazas of Killiz, “Aintāb, and
Idlib) are the chief wheat producing districts. Their relative
productiveness in a good year (1913) is partly expressed in
the following figures : in the Haurān a measure of seed
produced 25 fold, in the plain of Damascus 174 fold, and in
the northern districts 15 fold (Austrian consular report).
The average returns in the Jewish colonies are much lower
than any of these figures. A return of 12 fold in Palestine
is held to be good. Ruppin estimates the total wheat pro-
duction of Syria at 1,000,000 tons (value about £8,000,000).
The amount is not more than sufficient for the needs of the
population. The quantity of imported flour is greater than
that of the wheat exported.
The period of the wheat harvest in the earlier districts is
April and May and in the later districts May and June. It
precedes the barley harvest.
Wheat grows wild in the north of Palestine and on the
eastern side of Jordan, and it may be claimed that Syria was
the original home of its cultivation. It is generally agreed
that the country could produce very much more grain than
it does at present.
Barley
The production of Syrian barley is also large, at least one
half of the amount of the wheat crop and possibly more.
The principal varieties are "arabi, grown in the Haurān, and
rūmi, which requires more moisture and is grown chiefly
in the north and round Damascus. Barley flourishes in
SYRIA
R
258
AGRICULTURE
a drier climate than wheat and so is an important product
of the plains of Gaza. It is the chief product of the plains of
Homs and Hama. In Syria it is largely used as fodder (oats
not being much grown). It is exported from the districts of
Gaza and Homs for use in English breweries. The Gaza crop
is ripe at the end of April and ready for exportation in July.
Dhura
After wheat and barley this is the principal cereal (Sorghum
vulgare, i. e. sorgho or mais blanc). It is a summer crop and
does not need much moisture. It gives a high return in
proportion to the seed sown (60 to 80 fold). It is an im-
portant substitute for wheat in districts where wheat cannot
be grown and is made into a second quality of bread.
Bread is also made from dhura mixed with flour.
This is the plant known as Indian millet, Turkish millet,
and great millet (Indian juār) and is sometimes referred
to simply as millet, although it is to be distinguished from
millet proper which also grows in Syria (Panicum miliaceum,
Arab. dukhn). As the Arabic word dhura denotes maize as
well as sorgho (see below) the latter is distinguished when
necessary by being called dhura beidha. In Egypt sorgho is
known as dhura shāmi (Syrian dhura) and maize as dhura
misri (Egyptian dhura).
Other Cereals
Other cereals are of less importance. Maize is a summer
crop of foreign origin. It needs a high temperature and
considerable moisture. Both the ordinary yellow maize
(dhura safra) and a small amount of reddish maize (dhura
hanira) are grown. Rice is also of foreign origin. It grows
only in very moist ground. The district of Lake Hūleh is
suitable for it. It is more cultivated in the neighbourhood
of Mar‘ash, which, however, lies beyond Syria proper. Rye
and oats are very seldom grown. Millet is indigenous to the
country. Its seeds are used for feeding birds and are ground
and mixed with wheat and barley to make bread.
AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTS
259
Leguminous Plants
Of these chickpeas (Arab.hummus) specially suit a dry climate
and give excellent returns. There are several distinct species,
each appropriate to the soil and climate of particular districts.
Some are adapted to a relatively heavy rainfall. The seed
is sown in February and the harvest is gathered in June
(or July). The leaves and stem of the Palestine chickpea
are covered with corrosive crystals which seem to collect
moisture from the atmosphere (Aaronsohn). These crystals
attack the hands of the women who gather the peas. There
is a considerable export of chickpeas to France and Egypt.
Lentils, beans, vetches and lupines are all cultivated in Syria.
The carob tree (kharrūb) is not much planted although it
grows well and yields very nutritive pods. It is said to give
a good yield with little labour. The lentils grown in the
Haurān are the red kind which is more esteemed than the
white variety of the Homs-Hama district. ‘Adas is the
name of lentils fit for human food, kersenneh of those that
are used as fodder. Vetches supply most of the fodder of
the country, hay being little made.
Vines
Grape growing is universal in Syria. At least one half
of the annual crop is eaten as fresh fruit. Large quantities are
also made into raisins and into dibs (grape syrup). Only
a small part of the crop is made into wine or spirits. The
chief producers of wine are the Jewish colonists in southern
Palestine. Next to them are the Jesuit communities, whose
vineyards are in the Biqā', and the German colonies beside
Jaffa and Haifa. In the vilayets of Damascus and Aleppo
more arack than wine is manufactured.
From the data given by Ruppin it would seem that
the most extensive vineyards are in the vilayet of Aleppo,
although their yield in 1913 was far behind the standard of
other parts. Ruppin estimates the annual vintage of Syria
at 270,000,000 oqqahs (340,000 tons) or in terms of money,
R 2
260
AGRICULTURE
£1,200,000. In many places the vines are not being renewed,
and the crops are therefore poor. The Damascus district
in a good year (1910) produced 13,000 tons of grapes. The
Hejaz railway has opened a new market for Syrian (especially
Damascus) grapes. There is also a great demand for fresh
grapes from Egypt.
The cultivation of the vine on terraces is general. The
vines are planted at intervals of 12 ft. in rows which are
8–10 ft. apart. Terraces vary greatly in width (from 3 ft.
to 12–15 ft.). The vine needs much more attention than
the olive or the fig to produce good results. Its branches
undergo hard pruning at the end of the winter. The ground
in which it grows is dug or ploughed after the early rain and
several times in spring. After the fruit appears, vigilant
watch must be kept against the depredations of men and
animals. The vintage commences in the low-lying districts
in July, in upper Galilee not before the end of September.
August and September are the general vintage months.
In October wine and dibs are made. Fresh crops of grapes
ripen even in October and November
When the Jewish colonists began to manufacture wine they
planted their vineyards with French vines because of their
superior quality. After some years they were attacked and
destroyed by phylloxera and American vines were substituted.
It is not unlikely that Syrian varieties have been unduly
neglected by the wine-producing colonies. Vines when
properly treated bear fruit in the fourth year after planting
and produce to their full capacity in the sixth year. The
yield of grapes per hectare in the Jewish colonies with the
best returns (Rīshon, Zikeron and Qatrah) now ranges between
20 and 24 qantars. Less successful colonies obtain 17-21
qantars per hectare.
Olives
The principal olive-groves within the coast belt are found
beside Antioch, Lādiqīyeh, Tripoli, Saida, Sūr, 'Akka, Haifa,
Jaffa, Ludd, and Ramleh. In Palestine they occur near
AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTS
261
The news the vilayer of 1910
Hebron, Nāblus, Nazareth, and Safed ; in Lebanon in the
Shūf and Kūrah districts; in the north beside Rīha, Idlib,
Killiz, and ‘Aintāb (from Weakley, with the addition of
Nazareth). The distribution agrees with the conclusion that
olives everywhere show a preference for coastal regions.
In the Haurān olive-trees are conspicuous by their absence
and they are seldom numerous east of the central depression.
The neighbourhood of Damascus is one exception. Many
trees in the vilayet of Aleppo were destroyed by a severe
frost in the winter of 1910–11. Large groves were being
planted before the war near Ludd (at Ben Shemen) and
El-Khuldeh (a few miles south of Ramleh) by Jewish colonists.
Olive-trees must be planted at wide intervals : 20–24 ft.
(Weakley) is a minimum distance, 32 ft. (10 metres) is usual
in recent Jewish plantations (i. e. 9–10 trees per dunam). New
groves are formed either by transplanting and grafting wild
olives or by planting shoots from cultivated trees. The former
(Weakley). While irrigation is not required the soil round
the trees must be well loosened several times a year. Manure
is needed to produce the best results. The berries, when ripe,
are usually shaken from the branches or knocked down with
long poles. It has been suggested, but is not yet proved,
that the cause of the trifling yield of olive-trees every second
year is the rough treatment of the branches during harvest.
district and Lebanon the berries are allowed to ripen until
they fall from the trees (Weakley). Apart from the biennial
cycle just referred to climatic conditions rather frequently
render the crop a failure. The years 1908, 1909, and 1910
were on the whole bad years, followed in 1911 by a specially
good year.
The earliest olives to be gathered are those for table use
and are not completely ripe. The remainder, perhaps four-
fifths of the crop, is harvested about the end of October and
1 Ernest Weakley, Report upon the conditions and prospects of British
trade in Syria. London, 1911.
262
AGRICULTURE
the beginning of November, and is made into oil, the better
qualities being used with food and the inferior qualities in
the manufacture of soap. The berries when gathered are
dark green or black according to their species. In Damascus
the best black variety is known as dan and the best green
variety as maʻasami. Other species, which are made into
soap, are jelūt, tuffāhi, and sūri. The same names in different
localities do not always denote the same varieties.
Rāmeh, near Safed, is distinguished for the productivity
of its trees and the quality of its olive-berries (Aaronsohn).
The berries of Nāblus are said to give from 20 to 30 per cent.
of their weight in oil, compared with the 10–20 per cent.
that is usual elsewhere (Ruppin). The yield of oil per tree
in Lebanon is said to be 12-20 gallons (G. M. Mackie). The
crop of a mature tree in a good season is given by Ruppin as
10-20 oqqahs (121–261 kilos) and by Weakley as 12–15 oqqahs
(35–42 lb.). In modern plantations 100 trees are planted on
each hectare (23 acres). Olive-trees live and bear well to
a great age.
Mulberries (and Silk Cocoons)
Of the two species of mulberry tree, white and black, the
white only is cultivated to produce leaves for the rearing of
silk worms. It is grown for this purpose on the coast from
Saida northwards and especially in the Lebanon district.
Ducousso 1 estimates the area covered by mulberry trees in
the Lebanon district to be 14,000 hectares, and the ground
on the coast, chiefly in the kazas of Tripoli and Lādiqīyeh
and exclusive of the territory of Lebanon, to be 4,500 hectares.
The area similarly occupied in the interior (chiefly in the
Biqā' and the plain of Baʻalbek and the slopes of Jebel
esh-Sharqi) is only 1,760 hectares. For the vilayet of Aleppo
Ruppin's figure is 75,000 dunams (6,800 hectares). It has
been an advantage to the rearing of silk worms in the adminis-
trative district of Lebanon that the cocoons have not been
. 1 A. Ducousso, L'industrie de la Soie en Syrie, Paris, 1913.
AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTS
263
subject there to the payment of tithe. Palestine does not
supply the amount of moisture that mulberry trees require.
Mulberry trees are usually grown from seed and grafted. They
yield a maximum crop of leaves 15–25 years after planting
and live 80–100 years. The ground round the stems must
be dug up two or three times a year. The trees are pollarded
both to make the foliage thicker and to allow of its being
stripped off easily. There is a second crop of leaves which is
used as fodder for sheep and cattle.
The eggs from which the Syrian silk worms are reared
come chiefly from France. About one-fifth are Syrian eggs.
A smaller proportion is imported from Asia Minor (Brussa).
An ounce of eggs (25 grammes) is supposed in Lebanon to
yield 25-30 kilos of (green) cocoons. Ducousso makes the
average yield 224 kilos. Both results are very low compared
with those of France and Italy. Between the hatching of the
eggs and the completion of the cocoons there is a period of 5-6
weeks. The season extends from the beginning of April to the
beginning of June, being earliest in the coast plain and latest
in the hills. The feeding and tending of the silk worms is
often a family occupation in which women and children are
employed. Since 1880 the production of cocoons in Syria has
much increased and it is still increasing. In 1910 and 1911
it reached a total of more than six million kilos (Ducousso)
and in 1915 the quantity was similar (Ruppin). After the
cocoons are completed they are dried. The process used to
take ten weeks in the open air. It can now be accomplished
in a few hours by the use of hot air. It is reckoned that
three kilos of green cocoons (i. e. fresh cocoons) =one kilo of
dry cocoons and that 5 kilos of dry cocoons produce one kilo
of spun silk (Weakley). Another calculation shows that
114 kilos of green cocoons give one kilo of spun silk (Ducousso).
The return of silk from the cocoons is, in fact, very variable
and depends upon the character of the eggs and of the weather
at the time when the cocoons are formed. The extreme
layers on the outside and the inside of cocoons are unsuited
for the process of “reeling' (p. 284). The average length of
264
AGRICULTURE
continuous thread that may be got from a cocoon is 800 m.
(Ducousso). Recently the price of green cocoons has been
3-4 francs per kilo and of dry cocoons 9–12 francs per kilo.
Orange growing in Syria is of comparatively recent date
but has proved very remunerative and is still rapidly extend-
ing. The Jewish colonies in the neighbourhood of Jaffa
have greatly contributed to its development. The chief
orange plantations in Syria are in the Jaffa district. The
groves of Saida and Tripoli come next. Oranges of good
quality grow also at Jericho and Gaza but not in large quantity.
There is not much cultivation of oranges in northern Syria.
Those exported from Alexandretta come chiefly from the
of Syria but have been joined to Asia Minor under Turkish
administration (Payas, &c.). The oranges exported from
Jaffa in 1912 and 1913, chiefly to England, had an annual
value of £300,000. Ruppin values the annual production of
all Syria just before the war at £600,000. The area of the
Palestine orange plantations in 1912 was about 2,100 hectares
(5,250 acres) of which about one-third belonged to Jewish
owners (Nawratzki 1).
Orange cultivation demands much labour and expenditure
of capital. The ground round the trees must be dug and
cleared four times in the year. Both the trees and the fruit
are very liable to disease and require protection accordingly.
Above all, orange gardens in Syria must receive extensive
artificial irrigation (every 6–10 days during the dry season).
Motor-pump installations, such as are now used in most of
the gardens near Jaffa, cost from £400 to £600, exclusive
of the cost of the irrigation system itself (Nawratzki). The
expense of the transport of the fruit on camel back to Jaffa
and of the packing cases, which are made of imported wood,
does not as a rule fall on the grower, who sells his fruit
* C. Nawratzki, Die jüdische Kolonisation Palästinas, Munich, 1914.
AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTS
265
as it grows upon the trees. The surplus of income over ex-
penditure in the case of new plantations does not begin until the
seventh year after planting. The culture is therefore profitable
only to those who have a considerable amount of capital.
The oranges of Jaffa (shamūti) are thick-skinned and
therefore specially suited for exportation. The stocks are
young lemon trees, of the sweet variety, grafted. The thin-
skinned oranges of other districts (Saida, Tripoli, &c.) are
the fruit of trees grown from orange seed, which are also
grafted (abu sfeir or nāranj). Grafted lemon trees do not bear
fully until the eighth or ninth year. Their period of pro-
ductivity is 30–35 years. Grafted orange seedlings do not
produce fully until the fourteenth or fifteenth year and do
not bear with as much regularity every year as the grafted
lemon trees; but their period of productivity is 40–50 years.
The mandarin orange grown in Syria is called Yūsuf Effendi.
Orange trees are planted at intervals of 10–12 ft., or, in:
the best plantations, at intervals of 20 ft. Sixty trees per
dunam is reckoned an average number. A tree may be
expected to yield 150–200 oranges. In the Jewish plantations
80 cases per dunam (880 per hectare) is a very good yield,
although 90 and even 100 cases have recently been obtained
in the very best years. One of the varieties cultivated near
Saida yields 3,000 fruits per tree and even more (Aaronsohn).
The fruit gathering season begins at the end of September,
or later, and continues throughout the winter. Exportation
goes on concurrently all the time.
Sesame (Simsim)
This is the most valuable of the Syrian herbs and is culti-
vated for the sake of its seed (mostly exported to France
and Italy). The seeds produce an excellent oil similar in
quality to olive-oil. In Syria they are also used in the
making of sweetmeats (halāweh).
The plant requires a high temperature and is cultivated,
therefore, in the lowlands (e.g. the Jordan valley and
the coast belt of Palestine and the Merj ibn 'Āmir). The
266
AGRICULTURE
neighbourhood of Haifa produces a specially good quality
of sesame in a soil of volcanic origin. This quality sells at
400 francs per ton (Ruppin). The plant does not flourish
if rain falls after it has been sown. The explanation given
is that it cannot break through the crust that forms after
rain on the pulverized soil (Aaronsohn). Still it must have
a well-moistened soil to grow in.
Sesame plants are peculiar in that they do not ripen
together and so must be gathered individually as they ripen.
For this and other reasons their cultivation demands par-
ticular attention and extra labour. On the other hand the
harvest gives 40-50 times the seed sown.
Tobacco
Under Turkish rule tobacco was a Government monopoly,
controlled by the Régie des tabacs de l'empire Ottoman. No
tobacco could be grown without a permit from the Régie
which was also entitled to purchase the crop at a price fixed
by its own valuators. The restrictions so imposed and the
difficulty of securing a reasonable profit hindered the legitimate
development of tobacco growing and fostered the growth and
sale of contraband tobacco. A host of inspectors, appointed
to enforce the regulations, only added to the confusion.
In 1914 in order to facilitate supervision the planting of
tobacco was limited to the districts (kazas) of Saida (Sūr),
Lādiqīyeh (Jebeleh and Sahyūn), El-Kūrah (in north Lebanon)
and 'Aintāb. No tobacco could be sold by the cultivator
to purchasers within the Turkish empire but it might be
exported under the control of the Régie.
Previous to 1914 tobacco was grown chiefly in three
districts, viz. the kazas of Lādiqīyeh, El-Kūrah, and Saida.
The principal tobaccos of these districts were named abu
rīhah, kūrāni (or jubeili) and Sheqif (or Jebel Rīhān). Other
qualities grown in the district of Lādiqīyeh are shakk el-bent
and jedār. In the sanjaq of 'Aintāb there are several local
varieties, amongst which husn-z-keif is a strong tobacco which
is exported to Egypt to the value of about £4,000 annually.
-
AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTS
267
The sowing of tobacco varies, according to the district,
between April and May and the harvest between June and
July. The soil must be rich and land previously occupied
by sheepfolds is often preferred. Abu rīhah ( the possessor
of odour ') is a black tobacco which, after being dried as
usual in the open air, is hung on the rafters of the houses and
smoked. It finds a ready market in Egypt and is largely
exported to England. The tobacco of Sheqif is similar.
Jubeili is counted the best Syrian tobacco. Every district
produces, however, several qualities. The production of
jubeili is diminishing because of the competition of Turkish
tobacco' (see below). Previous to 1914 the annual yield
was estimated as follows : abu rīhah, 900,000 kilos or more,
shakk el-bent about 500,000 kilos, jubeili 100,000 kilos
(before 1911 about 150,000), sheqif about 50,000 kilos (in
1912 about 70,000).
During the five years preceding the war an increasing
amount of 'Turkish ’tobacco was being grown in the districts
of El-Kūrah and Saida. The plants were introduced from
Macedonia and the tobacco is used chiefly in the manu-
facture of cigarettes. In 1910 the crop was estimated
at about 45,000 kilos, in 1911 at 75,000 kilos, and in
1912 at 110,000 kilos or more (80,000 kilos in Lebanon
alone). The demand for cigarettes is greatly increasing.
In 1909 a factory employing 300 workmen and able to
turn out seventy-two million cigarettes per annum was
built in Damascus. Most of the tobacco used in the factory
is imported.
Timbelc is a species of tobacco used for the narghileh.
It is mostly imported from Persia but is cultivated in con-
siderable quantities in the district of Lādiqīyeh' and in small
quantities on the Syrian coast and beside Jerusalem and
Nāblus.
00 kiloos in 1919 the chiený
Cotton
This is a summer crop, requiring plenty of moisture.
It is, therefore, most cultivated in the extreme north of Syria.
268
AGRICULTURE
The chief centre of production is the district of Idlib in which
it is reckoned that about 12,000 bales (containing 250 lb.
each) are produced annually (Weakley). There are also fields
in the neighbourhood of Killiz and ‘Aintāb. “Sowings com-
mence towards the end of July and continue till about
the middle of August and the bolls ripen and are gathered
about the end of September and on into October.' The
separation of the fibre from the seeds (ginning) is still generally
done by hand, although machinery for the purpose has been
introduced. The bales are also pressed by hand and so are
bulky. The staple of Syrian cotton is very short, about
2 cm. (Ruppin), suited only for coarser yarns and of less
commercial value. The crop is mostly exported. What is
retained is used chiefly for stuffing mattresses, pillows, and
quilts, also for packing purposes. The seed might be much
more fully utilized than it actually is. What is not required
for sowing is employed in feeding cattle.
In most of central and southern Syria artificial irrigation
must be supplied to the cotton fields. During the American
civil war all the coast of Palestine was planted with cotton,
which was profitable owing to the high prices of the time.
Recent experiments on a small scale near Jaffa and in the
Jordan valley and the Merj ibn 'Amir and the Biqā' have
not yet had any permanent success. The returns have not
been good and the difficulty of obtaining labour for gathering
and ginning has been a hindrance. The Egyptian seed used
does not yield the same return as in Egypt. Better results
are hoped for from a new perennial species (caravonica)
which does not require artificial irrigation. The areas under
cotton in the Merj ibn 'Āmir and the Jordan valley in 1909–11
are given as amounting to 1,250 acres, 1,300 acres, and
650 acres respectively (Nawratzki). The average annual
crop was 1,300 qantars (about 860,000 lb.). The returns
were proportionately highest in 1911 (1.78 qantars per
feddan). An Egyptian company is said to have purchased
60,000 dunams (13,000 acres) of land for cotton growing
in the plain of 'Akka about the year 1911. But its cultivation
AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTS
269
WL.
does not seem to have commenced before the war. See
further, pp. 489 f. and 546.
Nāblus and Lādiqīyeh are said to produce specially good
qualities of cotton.
Hemp and Flax
Hemp grows well in some parts of Syria, principally in the
neighbourhood of Damascus where it supplies material for
the local string and rope industry. The annual production
of fibre there is estimated at 1,300 tons and might be largely
increased (Weakley). The seed is used as bird seed and the
stems for fuel. In the vilayet of Aleppo a much smaller
quantity is grown. The rope industry of Aleppo uses hemp
brought from 'Urfa and from India and even so does not
supply all the requirements of the district. Flax, although
an ancient product of the country, is now very little grown.
Sugar Cane
Sugar cane is grown to an insignificant extent on the coast
of Syria and in the Jordan Valley, where the necessary
moisture is available. It is planted in February and March
and is ripe in October and November. See pp. 452, 477, &c.
Figs
The fig-tree grows throughout Syria and supplies one of the
important foods of the people. It is most abundant in the
north Syrian plains, in Jebel esh-Sharqi (Anti-Lebanon) and
in the neighbourhood of Maʻlūla. Plantations are infrequent
except in northern Syria. There are numerous species of figs
distinguished, in part, by the colours of the fruits. The chief
colours are greenish yellow, purple, and white.
August and September are the months in which ripe figs
are abundant. Some trees produce a small early crop
a month before the principal crop. These figs (deifūr) are
prized more because of their early date than because of their
quality. There is also a late autumn crop which is not of
270
AGRICULTURE
such good quality as the summer crop. In Lebanon there are
species which produce only a late crop.
Where figs are abundant the greater part are dried by
exposure to the sun for some days and packed for preservation
in air-tight masses. Only some kinds of figs are suited for
this treatment (especially kharrūbi and byādi). Such figs
are allowed to remain on the trees until they can be detached
by shaking. The Hejaz railway has opened good markets
for the dried figs (quttein) of Jebel esh-Sharqi and of the plains
of the north. Saida is a centre of the dried-fruit trade.
But it has not yet been extensively developed anywhere in
Syria.
The sycomore or mulberry fig (jummeiz) produces abundant
fruit of a quality inferior to the ordinary fig. The tree is
valued mostly for its wood. It grows chiefly on the coast of
southern Syria, as far as Beirut. The fruit is of a pink colour.
Apricots
Apricots (mishmish) flourish where a good supply of water
is obtainable. The most extensive and productive planta-
tions are those of the neighbourhood of Damascus and the
exported fruit comes chiefly from there. The tree grows well
in parts of the Biqā' also and elsewhere. In Palestine the
Ramleh district produces a steadily increasing yield of
apricots.
There are early and late varieties which may be grown in
the same district with a difference of two months in the
period of ripening. The variety known as mishmish kelābi
has bitter kernels, the others have sweet kernels which may
be eaten like nuts. In Damascus the cultivated apricot is
grafted on the mishmish kcelābi, in other places the almond
tree is generally used as a stock.
Apricots are exported in two forms, as dried fruit and as
apricot paste (qamr ed-dīn). This latter is used in Syria as
a sweetmeat and in making sherbet (a native drink), and
when exported to Europe it is made into jam. The apricots
are first beaten into pulp and stoned and then spread out on
AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTS
271
boards in thin sheets and dried in the open air. The industry
is profitable and the demand is increasing. Apricot kernels
also find a market abroad, being exported for the manufacture
of marzipan.
Dates
The date palm is really a tropical tree and so produces ripe
fruit in Syria only in the valleys of the Jordan and its tribu-
taries and in the extreme south of Palestine. Its diffusion
at the present day is more limited than it used to be. Large
plantations are found only in the valleys of the Yarmūk
(El-Menādhireh) and the Zerqa Mā'īn. In districts where the
fruit does not ripen naturally the bunches are sometimes
wrapped in cloths soaked in vinegar in order to make them
fit for eating.
in Egypte seeds alike nuts.ate (Aral
Melons, Pomegranates, and other Fruits
Melons are of two principal varieties, large (batīkh ahmar=
water melon) and small (batīkh asfar). They grow without
artificial irrigation and are specially suited to the coast plain
between Jaffa and Haifa. The abu taba' variety is early ripe
and specially suited for exportation because of its thick skin
(compare the Jaffa orange). There is a large demand for
Syrian melons in Egypt. In the district of El-Arīsh melons
are used as fodder. The seeds are then extracted for export
to Egypt, where they are eaten like nuts.
Of the less common fruit trees the pomegranate (Arab.rummān)
is one of the chief. It grows all over Syria in a great number
of varieties. One of these, found near Gaza, is called bint
el-basha because of its excellence. Rāmeh in Galilee is noted
for its pomegranates. The tree grows both in dry and in
well-watered soils. The skins of the fruit can be used in the
process of tanning. Apples and pears grow especially in the
neighbourhood of Damascus and in the Biqā'. Peaches, also,
grow in some parts in considerable quantities.
272
AGRICULTURE
Liquorice and Colocynth
Liquorice is obtained from the roots of a plant which grows
wild abundantly in northern Syria (Antioch, Killiz, ‘Aintāb)
and in the adjoining districts (e.g. at Raqqah on the Euphrates).
The roots are dug up by peasants and sold to an American
company (McAndrews, Forbes & Co.) which has a factory at
Alexandretta and exports the products to America to be
used in the preparation of chewing tobacco. The root is also
found in central Syria (e. g. near Damascus).
Colocynth (hondhol) is another wild plant with a fruit for
which there is a market abroad. It grows in the neighbour-
hood of Gaza and Beersheba and is like a small melon. It
is exported mostly to England and the United States.
Vegetables
Vegetables, generally, are grown in great variety and with
much success by the peasants for their own use and for the
consumption of the town-dwellers. Onions are abundant
and are an article of export from Tripoli. Potatoes are of
modern introduction and do not grow to advantage every-
where. They are most cultivated in the neighbourhood of
Aleppo and Damascus and are chiefly asked for by foreign
residents. The seed for each year's crop has to be imported.
Nuts
The nuts of Syria are chiefly consumed by the inhabitants,
but they also provide an article of export. Pistachio nuts
(fustuq) are abundant in north Syria (Aleppo, 'Aintāb, Rūm
Qal'ah), to a lesser extent in the centre (Tripoli, Beirut,
Damascus). The sanjaq of 'Aintāb is said to have a revenue
from pistachio nuts of £15,000 yearly. It is still the most
valuable of the nut crops. Walnuts (jöz) are produced
chiefly in the neighbourhood of Damascus and in other well-
watered districts. Almonds (lõz) are found chiefly in Palestine,
where they have been planted extensively in the Jewish
AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTS
273
colonies. Previous to the war only a small part of these
new plantations (area 4,000 acres in 1912) was productive.
The trees are planted in rows which are about 12 ft. apart,
they begin to bear in the fifth or sixth year and are fully
productive in the seventh or eighth. When fully productive
they give a yield of 40 kilos per dunam (50 trees) and are
very profitable. The Palestine almonds are of two varieties,
both sweet. One is thin shelled ( Princess ') the other thick
(Victoria'). The former is more subject to disease and
does not give so good a return as the latter.
they give a Ya
The Palestined ( Princess") to
LIVE-STOCK
In Syria sheep and goats and cattle and other domestic
animals are reared chiefly on the borders by the Bedouin.
The principal cattle markets are in the extreme north. The
animals sold there come mostly from countries beyond Syria,
from the north and north-east and east (Armenia, Meso-
potamia, &c). So do the droves which pasture for a few
months in El-Amq (beside Antioch) before exportation.
Syrian cattle are usually small sized and produce only small
quantities of milk. This is due principally to the climatic
conditions and to the scarcity of pasture during most of the
year. From June to November pasture is very scanty, in
most parts, and even during April and May it is insufficient.
The plains of Damascus provide good pasture and so do the
Orontes valley and the valley of the Kuwaik (near Aleppo).
In these districts the cows are of a superior breed and give
a good yield of milk (3,000-4,000 litres annually). In Lebanon
mulberry leaves supply excellent fodder for the cattle which
are therefore also of a better breed. Elsewhere cattle
are bred mostly to supply oxen for ploughing. Dairy farming
and the formation of good herds have also been hindered by
the prevalence of cattle disease. The Turkish Government
never took proper measures to stamp it out.
Milk and, to a small extent, meat are generally obtained
from sheep and goats. Sheep's milk is used for the making of
AY
SYRIA
274
AGRICULTURE
horsesia, with the cam
cheese and leben, a favourite dish. Olives take the place of
butter among the fellahin. Butter is made chiefly by the
Bedouin. To keep it from becoming rancid it is commonly
melted and thus becomes semen (=ghi). The sheep are
a variety of the fat-tailed kind. Their wool makes their
breeding very profitable. The shearing time is in April or May.
The goats are mostly of two kinds, the horned mountain-goat
and the long-eared goat (Capra mambrica). The Angora goat
is found in a few localities in northern Syria. There is a con-
siderable export of sheep and goat skins. In 1910, 30 tons
of goat skins and 77 tons of lamb skins were exported from
Beirut, chiefly to Germany and France. In 1911 the quan-
tities were 20,000 goat skins, 160,000 lamb skins, all untanned,
and about 100,000 tanned sheep skins.
Camels, horses, and asses are kept in varying proportions
throughout Syria, without any one of them being, on the
whole, predominant. The camels and horses are generally
bred by the Bedouin. The former are owned mostly by the
Bedouin and were the chief means of transport before the
railways were constructed. A camel's burden varies between
200 and 300 kilos. As a measure of quantity it denotes
150-200 kilos. The camel yields its owner milk and hair.
Its flesh is sometimes eaten and its skin made into shoes.
The horses of Syria are serviceable without being specially
good. Poor feeding diminishes their value. Asses are every-
where used by the peasants as their beasts of burden and
their usual riding animals. Sometimes they are employed
along with oxen in ploughing.
Buffaloes require much water, so that herds are found chiefly
in the Jordan valley and the plains of Damascus and beside
Antioch. They are used in ploughing, for which their great
strength and long working life (30 years) specially fit them.
Mules are bred chiefly in northern Syria. There is a national
prejudice against swine. It is more strongly felt by Moslems
than by Christians, but is shared by the latter also.
Fodder.-Owing to the scarcity of pasture leguminous
plants are important as fodder. Vetches, lupines, and lentils
LIVE-STOCK
275
(kersenneh) are so used, and melons in the district of El--Arīsh.
Clover and lucerne are found only in well-watered districts ;
lucerne abounds in the meadows of the Damascus plain. The
use of hay is rare. Tibn (chopped straw) and barley are the
usual fodder of horses and mules. The Jaulān is one of the
few places where hay is produced.
82
CHAPTER VIII
INDUSTRY AND TRADE
INDUSTRY
THE want of coal and iron in Syria prevents an industrial
development of the character and on the scale of that now
general in Western Europe. European factories draw away
much of the raw materials upon which native industries
might be based (e.g. wool and silk). Only in favourable
circumstances are these retained to be worked up at home.
Most of the wool and cotton of Syria is exported and manu-
factured into yarn abroad. The textile industries now use,
almost exclusively, imported yarns. The other chief indus-
tries provide articles of food and clothing from the raw
material of the country. Flour, oil, soap, and silk thread are
the most valuable products. Wine and tobacco are not so
important, although their output might be much increased,
Wine, not being much consumed in Syria, must be manufac-
tured more for export than for home use. A government
monopoly has interfered with the cultivation of tobacco (see
p. 266). It is still uncertain whether cotton can be produced
on a much larger scale than at present (see p. 268). Tanneries
are numerous and flourishing. Other industries, such as
pottery making and the building trade, although fundamental,
are not highly organized and generally do not supply any
material for export.
Most of the machinery in use is imported from Europe.
There are, however, two machine factories in Jaffa, one in
Haifa, and one in Beirut. They supply, partially, irrigation
plants and milling machinery. The construction of rail-
ways has led to the establishment of well-equipped railway
workshops.
INDUSTRY
277
Ruppin 1 estimates that 60–70 per cent. of the Syrian people
depend directly upon the cultivation of the land, and only
10-15 per cent. upon industries and handicrafts. He says
that there are probably fewer than 100 factories having more
than 50 hands, and less than 12 that employ as many as
100 hands. Most manufactures are organized as home
industries or are carried on in quite small workshops. The
development of industries on a larger scale was at first the
work of foreigners, who alone had the necessary capital and
experience. But the Syrians themselves are now sharing in
the new movement.
The industrial future of Syria seems to depend upon the
safeguarding and development of already existing industries
rather than upon the erection of new industries. There can
be no question of creating new industries for which the
economic foundations are entirely wanting. The only known
industrial resource that has not yet been largely exploited is
the water power of the Syrian rivers. On the other hand,
with better methods and machinery it should be possible to
retain all such raw materials as wools, hides, and silk for
manufacture at home. Thus even the industrial prosperity
of the country depends, in the last resort, upon its agriculture.
Flour, Starch, and Macaroni 2
The old handmills for grinding corn are still found in every
village. They produce 10–15 kilos of flour per day. Mills
driven by water power are common where water power is
available. Damascus, because of its good water supply and
its proximity to the Haurān, has long been a centre of the
milling industry. In 1912 it possessed 78 water mills and
12 driven by steam power. The opening of the Haifa branch
of the Hejaz railway has favoured the direct transportation
of grain to the coast and is lessening the share of the Damascus
mills. In the vilayet of Aleppo there are about 310 power
mills, mostly using water power. In 1913, 55 of these were
1 See p. 252 note.
2 The particulars are mostly given by Ruppin, op. cit., pp. 152-4.
278
INDUSTRY AND TRADE
driven by motor power. In Jaffa in 1912 there were ten mills
driven by steam power and in the same year five in Gaza.
The number of mills equipped with European machinery is
steadily increasing. They are driven by steam engines or
petroleum motors or gas engines. The largest in the country
are two in Beirut, which are capable of grinding together
40,000 kilos daily. Steel rollers are exceptional even when
European machinery is used. The mill-stones are generally
made of hard basalt from the Haurān.
A large amount of European flour is imported. It is of
better quality than the Syrian product and sells at a higher
price. The native wheat, being harder than that from which
European flour is made, requires expensive machinery to
grind it as finely. On the other hand, it is well suited for the
manufacture of macaroni and is exported to Italy for this
purpose. There are macaroni factories in Jaffa, Jerusalem,
and Beirut.
Starch is made in small factories in Damascus and Aleppo.
In Damascus there are about thirty such factories with
2–6 hands in each ; in Aleppo there are twice as many. The
starch is used in the making of native food stuffs. Some is
also exported.
Burghul is wheat which is boiled before being milled. It
supplies a favourite Syrian food and is exported to Egypt
and to parts of the Turkish empire, as well as to South America
(for Syrian settlers there).
Olive Oil and Soap
The industries based on the cultivation of the olive tree
are amongst the most important in Syria. The annual
production of olive oil of all qualities is reckoned by Weakley
(on a two years' average) at 17,450,000 oqqahs (22,000 tons).
Of this about 5 million oqqahs are produced in Palestine, about
6 millions on the remainder of the Syrian coast and in Lebanon,
and about 51 millions in the north. The yield of the vilayet
of Damascus, which is substantial, is apparently not in-
cluded in these figures. The proportions of each district vary
INDUSTRY
279
necessarily from year to year according to the crop. Ruppin
estimates the number of oil presses at from 600 to 800, the
number of people engaged in the industry at between 6,000
and 10,000, and the value of the annual output at £1,000,000,
The table oil produced is consumed in the country and
requires less than one-half of the usual crop. Its quality is
injured by the rough treatment of the olives during the
harvest, and the amount obtained is diminished by imperfect
methods of crushing and pressing. Modern machinery is,
however, being introduced in all the principal centres of
manufacture. Weakley ascertained that 100 hydraulic
presses were in use in the Lebanon district, 22 in Damascus
and the Haurān, and 30 in the country lying round Haifa and
‘Akka. Before the introduction of modern machinery Killiz
table oil had a specially good reputation.
The chief centre of soap-making is Nāblus and its neighbour-
hood (with about 30 establishments). In Tripoli in 1911
there were twelve soap factories, producing, in a good year,
5,300 tons of soap. Other important centres are Jaffa,
Damascus, Antioch, and Aleppo. The soap of Nāblus, of
pure olive oil, has a high reputation. Other ingredients,
e.g. talc and caustic soda or qili (=alkali), give a special
character to the soap of each locality. Round Antioch oil
made from the berry of the ghār (bay tree) is mixed with
olive oil to produce perfumed soap. The soaps of Aleppo and
Antioch are highly esteemed. “Aintāb, also, manufactures
what is called Aleppo soap. The destruction of the olive
trees of Killiz in 1910–11 has injured the soap industry of
'Aintāb. There are good markets for Syrian soap in Egypt,
Arabia, Mesopotamia, and Asia Minor, so that this industry
is constantly expanding.
In recent years the supplies of olive oil in the country have
been insufficient for the soap industry and have been supple-
mented by importation. In 1911 the importation of olive oil
through Jaffa from Smyrna and Mitylene was 647 tons and
in 1912 1,100 tons. Even cocoa-nut oil, cotton oil, and
maize oil are imported, to be used in combination with olive
280
INDUSTRY AND TRADE
oil in making soap. Soap made from these mixtures has not
the same qualities as soap made from pure olive oil and does
not satisfy those accustomed to the latter.
The Syrian soap factories, which are usually small, number
about 150 and employ two or three thousand hands (Ruppin).
Their annual output is estimated at 20,000 tons, worth
£600,000. It is reckoned that 100 oqqahs of oil will produce
130 oqqahs of soap (Weakley).
After the oil has been extracted by pressing from the olives
there is a remnant of about 50 per cent. of the original weight;
known in Arabic as jift. It is used as fuel. Factories for the
extraction of oil from jift by a chemical process exist at
Tripoli and Beirut. Two smaller factories in Haifa and Ben
Shemen (near Ludd), owned by a Jewish company (“Āthid),
were closed in 1912,1
Wine, Dibs,' and Raisins
The preparation of raisins and of dibs (grape syrup) is much
more extensive than the manufacture of wine and spirits.
When grapes are to be made into raisins they are first soaked
in a preparation of alkali to which some oil has been added.
This makes the berries soft and prevents them from being
scorched by the sun when they are drying. They are after-
wards laid out to dry in the sun for 10-15 days. The best
raisins of Damascus, made from a fine species of grapes, are
known as darbeli. Raisins are produced most largely in the
vilayet of Aleppo and in the Biqā'. Important centres in
southern Syria are Hebron and Salt. The annual value of
the raisins of these two districts is estimated at £20,000.
The quantity of Damascus raisins exported in 1909 was
200,000 oqqahs (250 tons), and in 1911 700 tons (Austrian
Consular Reports).
In preparing dibs the grape juice is extracted and mixed
with a preparation of lime and then allowed to stand overnight.
Next day the liquid is poured off and then boiled until it reaches
the required consistency. The quantity of grapes devoted to
? See further pp. 391, 454, and 491 f.
INDUSTRY
281
the preparation of dibs is similar to the amount made into
raisins, according to Ruppin's figures.
The ancient process of wine-making is still practised to
some extent by Syrian Christians (e. g. in Lebanon). But, as
already stated (p. 259), the wine production of the country is
chiefly in the hands of European settlers, who employ European
processes. The Jewish colonies of Rīshön and Zikeron are the
greatest centres of wine production. They obtained their
capital and equipment originally from Baron Edmond de
Rothschild. The crisis through which these and other wine-
producing colonies passed at the beginning of the twentieth
century was not so much due to overproduction (as is often
said) as to a combination of other causes, particularly the
high prices paid to the colonists for grapes (25 francs per
qantar), the want of a proper organization for the sale of the
wines and, possibly, an erroneous choice of the kinds of wine
to be manufactured. The remedial measures, which included
the uprooting of a portion of the vineyards, proved entirely
successful.
The wines most easily made on the coast of Palestine are
such as have a high proportion of alcohol and are deficient in
bouquet. The slight fermentation, which alone gives a good
flavour to the wine, is hindered by the high temperature.
Expensive cooling processes were therefore introduced by
the Jewish colonists. This greatly increased the cost of
production and was one of the causes of the financial difficulties
of the industry.
The Turkish system of taxation imposed considerable
burdens on the manufacture of wine. The grape growers were
subject to a land tax and to the tithe (amounting nominally
to 127 per cent. of the crop, but actually to much more). On
the value of the wine or spirit manufactured 15 per cent. was
payable. Half this last impost was remitted if the wine or
spirit was exported. In 1910-11 and in 1911-12 the yield
of the excise tax was about £20,000 (21 million piastres).
Ruppin estimates the value of the annual production of Syria
at £200,000. About half the amount exported before the war
282
INDUSTRY AND TRADE
went to Egypt. Germany took the next highest proportion
owing to its connexion with the Templar colonies (p. 192).
Sesame and other Oils 1
Sesame oil is manufactured chiefly in southern Palestine,
where there are about forty small factories in Ludd, Ramleh,
Jaffa, and Jerusalem). On an average they treat 150-200
kilograms per day. In Jaffa there are two Jewish factories
with hydraulic presses, one treating 2,000 kilograms per day
and the other 3,000 kilograms. These produce a purer oil
which sells at a higher price than the product of the smaller
factories.
The roasting of the seeds after the husks have been taken
off is part of the process in the smaller factories and gives the
oil a special taste which is absent from the oil made in the
Jewish factories. After the roasting the seeds are ground
and then trodden in troughs. About 45 per cent. of the weight
of the seed is obtained in oil. Halāweh, a favourite sweet-
meat, is made from a portion of the pulp of the ground seed
(sweetened with sugar). The pulp left after the treading
process is used for feeding cattle and even as human food,
by the poor.
Other oils and perfumes are manufactured in small quan-
tities (castor oil, geranium oil, the perfume of orange blossom,
&c.). Some of these industries are probably capable of
profitable development.
Raw Silic
A considerable proportion of the raw silk manufactured in
Syria is spun in the villages by means of spinning wheels.
But only injured and inferior cocoons and the waste of the
factories are available for these small spinners. The product
is coarse and (usually) not good enough for export.
The first spinning factory was established in Lebanon in
1840 by a Frenchman, M. Nicolas Portalis. In 1912 there
were 194 such factories in Syria (having 10,866 pans). One
The particulars in this section are taken from Ruppin.
17
INDUSTRY
283
hundred and fifty-five (with 8,669 pans) were in Lebanon,
mostly in the Meten district (Ducoússo 1). The industry is said
to employ 10,000–12,000 workers, of whom five-sixths are
women and children (Ruppin). In the busy season, following
the cocoon harvest, extra hands are engaged (July-August).
The exemption of the Lebanon district from Turkish Imperial
taxation and the presence there of a large Christian popula-
tion, from which women workers can be drawn, are reasons
for the concentration of the industry in Lebanon. The fac-
tories which are now mostly the property of Syrians, are far
from equal to the factories of France and Italy. They spin
their thread from two strands only instead of four or five),
and the temperature of the water in which the cocoons float
during the unwinding process cannot be kept as uniform as
it should be.
Syrian silk thread is famed for its elasticity and for the good
results with which it can be dyed (Ducousso). It has also the
advantage of coming early upon the European market. On the
other hand, faults of manufacture (unevenness and lumpiness)
are common and the thread is allowed to absorb and retain too
large a proportion of moisture. Since silk is sold by weight
there is a standard fixed for the amount of moisture it may
contain (11 per cent. in the European market).
Already a large part of the cocoon harvest is exported in
a dried condition to France. Ruppin estimates that 20–25 per
cent. of the production of Lebanon and the vilayet of Beirut
is thus exported. The cocoons of northern Syria (Antioch,
Lādiqīyeh, &c.) are nearly all exported. It is said that in 1910
the proportion of cocoons exported from all Syria was 35 per
cent. (Schulman). This export threatens the prosperity of
the spinning industry by taking away its best raw material.
The Ottoman Government during the war recognized the
danger by imposing a protective tariff. Altogether the
spinning industry just before the war was in a critical position,
The competition of Chinese thread in the French market
was one cause. Another was the loss of female labour in
1 G. Ducousso, L'industrie de la soie en Syrie. Paris, 1913.
284
INDUSTRY AND TRADE
Lebanon due to emigration. Another the want of capital
with which to purchase the equipment needed to compete
with European factories. In 1912 twenty-five factories in
Lebanon had been closed down.
After the process of unwinding the thread from the cocoons
is complete (filature, tirage, or reeling ’), two other processes
are required to prepare it for dyeing and weaving. The
weak threads of the raw silk (soie grège) need to be twisted
and united with one another (in twos, threes, or fours) and
so made into silk yarn. This process is called moulinage
(or “throwing '). Afterwards the yarn is steeped and so
freed from a large part of the gum or waxy substance (grès
or sericin) which holds the threads of the cocoons together
and still adheres to them (process of décreusage). The silk
is now a brilliant white and is ready for dyeing. Syrian
silk is exported in a raw state, i. e, before it has undergone
these two processes.
The production of raw silk for all Syria exclusive of the
vilayet of Aleppo is given by Ducousso as having been 527,000
kilos in 1910 and 524,000 kilos in 1911. This is a considerable
increase on the average of the preceding ten years. Very
likely the amount adds an allowance for the exported cocoons
(35 per cent. of the whole) and so includes more than the silk
actually produced in Syria itself.
Of the silk thread which is left in Syria for the native looms
the kind called dupions is made from double cocoons. Double
cocoons are the result of two worms spinning so closely together
that their work becomes entangled. Skandarāni silk thread
is the best of the inferior qualities that are made outside of
the spinning factories.
Textile Industries
These are concentrated in a few centres, principally Homs,
Aleppo, and 'Aintāb, to a lesser extent in Damascus, Hama,
and some villages in Lebanon (Deir el-Qamar, Beit ed-Dīn, &c.).
In southern Syria only Gaza and the adjoining Mejdel have
any appreciable share in textile manufactures.
• INDUSTRY
285
is also ur woollen sich most is juvancho. La dupions)
The stuffs woven are principally the dress materials used
in Syria and the adjacent countries. They are mostly made
of cotton or a mixture of silk and cotton. Pure silk fabrics
and woollen stuffs are much less common. The cotton, silk,
and woollen yarns employed are nearly all imported, the
cotton from England, Germany, and Italy, the wool mostly
from England, and the silk from China. Home-spun silk
is also used, especially in Homs. There are practically no
cotton or woollen yarns of home manufacture. The Chinese
silk thread of which most is imported is called Schantung.
Another quality is known as Vincho. In recent years an
increasing amount of Brussa silk thread (dupions) is also
imported. Regarding the native silks used by the looms,
see pp. 282 and 284.
The principal dress-stuff of mixed silk and cotton made
in Syria is called alajeh. Like most dress materials it is
striped. Mesrīyeh is a heavier cloth made principally in
Damascus for export to Egypt. Qutni is the name of the
material used for such purposes as the covers of dīwāns.
It is made in large quantities in Damascus. The principal
cotton fabric is known as dimeh and is the ordinary material
of men's dress (gumbāz, &c.). The principal silk fabrics are
melas (which is used for women's underclothing) and menüsh
(expensive figured silk). Valuable sashes of pure silk are
a speciality of the looms of Beirut and Deir el-Qamar. The
keffīyeh (a head covering) is made of silk or cotton or of mixed
silk and cotton. It is often shot with silver or gold threads.
The ‘aba (or "abāyeh), the upper garment of the Bedouin,
is the principal article made of wool. In Damascus and Sūq
(in Lebanon) the "aba is an important article of manu-
facture. As a ceremonial dress it is made of silk. The
weaving of rugs and carpets is not an important industry.
It flourishes chiefly among the Bedouin of northern Syria
and in some. Lebanon villages. It is one of the industries
that are being fostered by the Jewish association, Bezalel,
in Jerusalem. A large carpet factory in Aleppo, employ-
ing 1,000 women in 1911 and 1912, was afterwards closed.
286
INDUSTRY AND TRADE
The weaving of black goats’-hair cloth for tents is a speciality
of 'Aintāb.
The textile industry is diminishing under stress of European
competition. The demand of the Egyptian market is much
less. The home market is seriously affected by a growing
preference for European dress. The patterns produced by the
hand-looms of Syria are imitated and more cheaply produced
by the power-looms of Switzerland and northern Italy. Ex-
periments with power-looms in Damascus and elsewhere have
as yet been unsuccessful because of the want of repairing facili-
ties and because of deficient skill in the personnel. The best
hand-looms are those of the Jacquard type and even these
looms, the textile industries could be strengthened by more
use of the native raw materials. The manufacture in Syria
of woollen and cotton yarns would be profitable in itself and
would benefit the weaving industries. Since weaving is
period of the industrial revolution in England, from which,
therefore, some guidance may be got. In the case of silk
weaving, at least, it would seem to be the best policy to
preserve the good quality and the higher prices and the special
character of the local fabrics. The hand-loom weaver cannot
compete in cheapness with the power-loom factory.
Ruppin estimates the value of the annual output of the
textile industries at between 30,000,000 and 40,000,000 francs
(£1,200,000-£1,800,000) and the number of workers at from
30,000–40,000. He gives the number of looms in Aleppo
before the war as having been 4,200. Weakley's figure for
1909, 10,000, is presumably an over-estimate and may
possibly have included many that were standing idle. Accord-
ing to Ruppin's information Homs was the chief centre of
the industry in 1914.
The knitting of stockings by means of modern knitting
machines is a large and growing home industry. According
to Weakley it flourishes principally in Aleppo and to a lesser
extent in Damascus. In the former town 5,000-6,000 workers.
· INDUSTRY
287
were employed in 1909 and in the latter 1,500-2,000. The
material used is imported cotton thread, locally dyed. Ruppin
estimates the value of the annual output at £400,000. The
women workers are very poorly paid.
Dyeing Industry
This industry is closely associated with the textile industries.
Its chief centres are Aleppo and Damascus. Less important
centres are ‘Aintāb, Killiz, Hama, Homs, and Beirut. Ruppin
gives the number of dye-works in Aleppo before the war as
having been 80, of which 60 were exclusively engaged in
indigo dyeing. They employed about 300 workers in all.
The favourite dress-colour of the Syrian people is dark
blue, to produce which indigo is imported from India. Syn-
thetic indigo is also now generally used, being blended with
the vegetable product. For most other colours aniline dyes
are imported from Germany. For red, vegetable alizarin
is used as well as red aniline dye. Formerly most dyes in
use were vegetable products obtained in Syria itself. But
the introduction of aniline dyes has made the industry much
more profitable than it was formerly.
The dye-works vary in size from those having 5 vats to
those in which there are 60–70 vats. The number is usually
under 20. The busy season is from April to November,
when the working day lasts 10–11 hours. Winter is a slack
season because the hours of daylight are shorter and the
process of drying in the open air is difficult. Both piece goods
and yarns are dyed, except in the case of silk, which is always
dyed as yarn. Syrian dyed yarns can be sold much more
cheaply than the coloured yarns imported from abroad.
Homs and 'Aintāb make a specialty of dyeing yarns.
Tanning
The leather of which the uppers of native shoes are made
is called sakhtiyān. It is made from goat skins, chiefly in
‘Aintāb. Between three and four hundred thousand skins
288
INDUSTRY AND TRADE
are tanned there annually (Weakley). The best skins are
coloured red and the second quality yellow. The tanning
process occupies two months. The skins are imported from
the districts of Siwas, Kharput, Diarbekr, and Bitlis, to the
N. and NE. There is a market for this leather in all Syria
and in Egypt, North Africa, and Asia Minor. But the com-
petition of European leather tends to diminish the industry.
The soles of these native shoes are made of buffalo hide.
Homs, and to a less extent, Hama and Damascus are also
centres of the tanning industry. The materials are chiefly
sheep and goat skins. In Beirut and Zahleh there are tanneries
in which cow-hides are treated. In Zahleh in 1911 there
were about 30 small tanneries in which a good box-calf
(black) was the chief product.
Building
There is plenty of good building-stone, especially limestone,
in most parts of Syria, so that stone-built houses are common.
The limestone used for building is taken from the soft layer
(known as meleki) which lies below the thin hard upper layer
(called mizzeh). It is easily cut and hardens after some expo-
sure to the air. In Galilee and the Haurān basalt-stone is used.
Where sand is not available for making mortar, clay is mixed
with lime. Very often fragments of pottery, which are always
available, are added to give a better consistency to the mortar.
But the result is poor at the best. Modern Syrian masons are
skilled in stone-cutting, but the construction of their buildings
leaves much to be desired. The roofing is leaky and the walls
unstable, unless they are of considerable thickness.
In districts where stone is expensive, and especially in
small country villages, houses are built of sun-dried bricks.
The walls are then practically mud, faced with a kind of
plaster. In Jaffa and Jerusalem and elsewhere there is now
much building in which European materials and methods
are used. Concrete and iron beams and timber and tiles
are largely imported. In Beirut local kiln-burnt bricks are
used.
INDUSTRY
289
(e. 8. Gazeclay. The pr The piece of por
Pottery Making
This is important among the minor industries and widely
spread. The places with the highest reputation for pottery
(e. g. Gaza) are distinguished by the excellence of the local
deposits of clay. The process of manufacture is by the
well-known potter's wheel. The piece of pottery is completed
in several distinct parts. The bottom of a jug or jar is made
first and dried before the remaining parts are added to it.
The baking of the pottery takes place in a shallow basin
(kiln) 8-10 ft. in diameter and about 4 ft. deep, with the
oven built beneath it. The pottery is piled up in this basin
and then covered with brushwood during the process of baking.1
In some districts the industry is in the hands of women.
Other Industries
There are numerous other industries essential to the life
of the people and widely distributed over the country, but not
highly organized and not specially remarkable. Smiths,
saddlers, carpenters, and basket-makers may be named as
representatives of ancient crafts that play a necessary but
decadent part in the national life. The making of oriental
seats and tables and bowls or dishes of copper and brass is
still to some extent a specialty of Damascus. These and
prayer beads and souvenirs of olive wood and mother-of-pearl,
made in Jerusalem or Bethlehem, are extensively bought by
tourists. The making of rope and string has been referred
to on p. 269. Printing deserves special mention as a modern
industry that shows promise of growth. The printing presses
of Beirut and Jerusalem are specially active.
The glass industry is peculiar to Hebron. Rings and armlets
as well as dishes and jugs are made. A peculiarity is that
the articles are now all made from broken glass.
TRADE (GENERAL)
The most reliable figures for the export and import trade
of Syria are those officially published for the Turkish financial
1 Particulars from G. M. Mackie, Bible Manners and Customs.
SYRTA
290
INDUSTRY AND TRADE
year 1910–11. They are fairly representative of pre-war
conditions. They show exports to the value of £3,330,000 and
imports to the value of £6,590,000, distributed as follows:
Exports. Imports.
Alexandretta . . .
. 1,434,000 1,442,000
Beirut
. 1,035,000 3,710,000
Jaffa and other ports . . . 865,000 1,438,000
These figures do not include trade with other parts of the
Turkish empire. £500,000 may be added to the exports and
£400,000 to the imports on this account. On the other hand,
the share of Alexandretta, which includes the trade of Mersina
and Adalia, on the coast of Asia Minor, is overstated. The
Mersina trade of 1910 may be reckoned at £400,000 for exports
and at the same amount for imports. In the official figures,
above mentioned, neither wine 'nor tobacco are included.
The total export of wine and tobacco in this year was valued
at £206,000, and the import of timbek into Beirut at £63,000
(Ruppin). When allowance has been made for all these items
the total exports amount to £3,636,000 and the imports to
£6,653,000.
The great excess of imports over exports is a remarkable
feature of these figures. In this respect they agree with the
trade returns for the empire as a whole. In 1910–11 the
exports of the Ottoman empire, allowing £3,014,000 for
tobacco and wine and salt, amounted to £23,086,000, and
the imports, allowing £47,000 for timbek and other foreign
tobacco, amounted to £38,804,000. Large sums are remitted
every year to Syria from America and elsewhere by Syrian
emigrants. Numerous foreign residents, missionaries, and
others, and foreign tourists must also provide a part of the
money required to pay for the excess of imports. Government
loans and the capital raised abroad in recent years for the
building of railways also help to account for the difference.
It may be supposed that these are the chief factors in the case.
The fluctuations of imports and exports from year to year
are traceable by means of the estimates of the British Consular
TRADE (GENERAL)
291
Reports for the harbours of Aléxandretta, Beirut, and Jaffa.
In the case of Beirut it must be assumed that the figures for
imports, and to a less extent those for exports, are too low.
Other estimates for the imports of Beirut are therefore substi-
tuted in the following table (see p. 297). At least half as much
again should probably be added to the Beirut exports.
Exports.
1908 1909. 1910.
1912. 1913.
1911.
f
Alexandretta
Beirut
Jaffa .
1,466,000 1,308,000 1,301,000 1,044,000
919,200 . 791,700 822,500 550,500
556,300 560,900 636,100 710,600
2,941,500 2,660,600 2,759,600 2,305,100
1,020,000 931,000
525,600 630,800
774,100 745,400
2,319,700 2,307,200
Imports.
1908
1909
1910
1911
1912
1913.
C
Alexandretta 1,890,600 2,226,000 1,398,000 1,145,100 1,209,000 930,000
Beirut
[3,640,000 4,150,000 3,700,000 2,750,000]
Jaffa . . 803,400 973,100 1,002,400 1,169,900 1,090,000 1,312,600
- 6,839,100 6,550,400 6,015,000 5,049,000
This table shows that Beirut is the principal port of entry
and that Jaffa had advanced to the second place before 1913.
If the estimates of the values of the Beirut exports are increased
as they probably should be, they approach closely to those of
Alexandretta. Much of the apparent decline in the totals is
merely due to the diversion of trade from Alexandretta to
Tripoli (see p. 300). But the war with Italy and the Balkan
wars (1911–12) had an adverse influence, especially upon
Beirut.
The opening of railways to Tripoli and Haifa has diminished
the imports and especially the exports of Beirut. But
meantime Aleppo trade, diverted from Alexandretta through
Rayāk, has counterbalanced the loss. The decline of
Alexandretta as a port is probably only a passing phase.
Alexandretta serves a richer and more extensive country
than Jaffa and both its imports and its exports may be
expected soon to rise again towards their former level.
T 2
292
INDUSTRY AND TRADE
Regarding the special circumstances of Alexandretta in 1909-13
see p. 300.
Exports
The following detailed figures are those of the Turkish
official report of 1910–11. They show that the most
valuable article of export from Syria is raw silk (£420,000).
Next to it come cocoons (£292,000 including waste '), and
sheep, goats, and cattle (£260,000). Other important articles
of export are oranges and lemons (£226,000), soap (£206,000),
wool (£188,000), and tobacco (£160,000). In the returns raw
cotton stands above all these. But the export (under the
head of Alexandretta) is really from Asia Minor, not Syria.
Sesame also is very high (above oranges and lemons), but
again export from Asia Minor is included. The Syrian export
was about £125,000.-
Raw silk and cocoons are exported wholly to France, live-
stock is sent chiefly from Alexandretta to Egypt. Oranges
and lemons are largely shipped to England, also to Egypt and
Odessa; soap is sent to Egypt and parts of Turkey; sesame is
exported to Italy; tobacco mostly from Lādiqīyeh to England.
France takes the largest share of Syrian exports, chiefly
because of its special relation to the silk trade. In the period
1908–13 it took annually more than two-sevenths of the
exports of the three principal ports, according to the returns
of the British consular officials (£750,000). Egypt came next
with an annual average of £570,000. This, however, includes
goods in transit to other countries (see p. 295). After these
came Turkey and the United Kingdom. The following table
shows a remarkable decline in the exports from Alexandretta
and Beirut to the United Kingdom. The British Consular
Reports take no special notice of the circumstance. Syrian
exports to the United Kingdom were as follows :
1908. 1909. 1910. 1911. 1912. 1913.
Alexandretta
Beirut .
Jaffa
.
.
.
.
82,200
175,000
164,000
72,860
110,000
158,000
24,720
70,500
173,000
14,220
41,000
185,000
19,540
31,500
190,000
12,640
13,500
200,000
TRADE (GENERAL)
293
Imports
The greater part of the imports into Syria consist of
(1) yarns and textile fabrics, (2) food stuffs, (3) metals
and articles of metal. At the head of the list. come cotton
fabrics, valued in 1910–11 at about £1,400,000, apart from
cotton yarn (£400,000). The principal food stuffs imported
were sugar (£465,000), rice (£287,000), flour (£190,000), and
coffee (£105,000). Metals and articles of metal, excluding
engines and machines, were valued at £620,000. In this sum
iron girders, rails, &c., stood for £210,000. Motor engines,
railway engines, carriages, and agricultural machines are
credited with £190,000. Other important articles of import
are petroleum (£215,000), timber (£120,000—less than the
average), and skins, leather, and articles of leather (£240,000).
Cotton fabrics and yarns are mostly imported from the
United Kingdom and India, to a lesser extent from Italy.
Sugar comes chiefly from Austria and Russia, rice from
Egypt and India, flour from Russia, Rumania, Bulgaria, and
France, coffee from Brazil. Petroleum is imported from
Russia (Batum), and to a less extent from America and
Rumania. Timber is got from Transylvania and Bukovina.
Iron comes from Germany, Belgium, and France, motors from
England and Germany, railway material mostly from Germany
(for the Bagdad railway).
The imports of the United Kingdom into Syria far exceed
the combined totals of the three countries next to it on the
list. According to the British consular estimates for the three
chief ports its annual average share in the years 1908–13
(£1,786,000) 1 was more than two-fifths of the whole. Austria
in the same years had an annual average of £418,000, and
France one of £370,000. The corresponding figure for Turkey
(£475,000) 1 includes an unknown amount of European goods
which are reckoned Turkish because they are shipped to
Syria from a Turkish port.
· These two figures are calculated in accordance with the adjustment
made on p. 309 (cf. p. 296).
294
INDUSTRY AND TRADE
Shipping
Most of the Syrian ports are visited weekly by the steamers
of six shipping companies, the Messageries Maritimes (services
weekly and fortnightly), Oesterreichischer Lloyd (two ships
weekly), an Odessa company (weekly service), the Khedivial
Mail Line (weekly), the Marittima Italiana (two fortnightly
services), and the Servizi Marittimi (two fortnightly services).
The French line gives a connexion with Marseilles, Alexandria,
and Constantinople, the Austrian with Trieste and Alexandria,
the English with Alexandria and Constantinople, the Italian
lines with Venice, Genoa, and Greece. Other exclusively
merchant ships call at longer intervals (e.g. the ships of the
Ellerman, Moss, and Prince lines). The principal port of call
is Beirut, with Jaffa not far behind, and Tripoli rapidly
approaching Jaffa. Fewer ships visit Haifa and Alexan-
dretta, which take the fourth and fifth places in order.
As judged by the amount of their trade these ports stand in
another order (namely, previous to 1913, Beirut, Alexandretta,
Jaffa, Tripoli, Haifa).
The shipping of the five ports just named in the period
1908–13, measured by tonnage, was mostly British, Austrian,
Russian, and French, in that order. French shipping pre-
dominated in Beirut. The years 1910–13 do not show the
real position of Italian shipping. In 1909 it stood next to the
British. See table, p. 316 f.
TRADE OF JAFFA
Exports
The export trade of Jaffa depends mostly upon a few
articles for which there is a good demand. Of these, oranges
and soap are the most important. In 1912 they were valued
at £537,600, out of a total export trade of £774,100. In
1913 the corresponding figures were £497,700 and £745,400.
The export of oranges first exceeded 500,000 cases in 1906,
TRADE OF JAFFA
295
and a million cases in 1912.1 Of the 1,612,995 cases shipped in
1913, 861,172 were sent to England, 291,024 to parts of
Turkey, 233,291 to Egypt, and 152,942 to Odessà. The
remainder were sent to Trieste, Hamburg, Marseilles, Rumania,
and Bulgaria. In the season 1913-14, of 1,553,861 cases
895,868 were shipped to England, 268,942 to parts of Turkey,
and 149,846 to Egypt. The soap is made of olive oil (see p. 279)
and is exported chiefly to Egypt and to parts of the Ottoman
Empire.
Next to oranges and soap as articles of export come wine
and spirits, and then sesame. The average annual value of
the former in 1910–13 (£65,000) was much higher than in the
preceding four years (£36,400). The principal markets for the
wine are Egypt and France. Sesame is exported to Italy
Souvenirs from Jerusalem and Bethlehem are a special
feature of the exports from Jaffa. Almonds, although still
a small item, will increase because of the planting of new trees.
The only cereal of which there is a considerable export is
dhura. The barley grown in the south of Palestine is exported
through Gaza (see p. 258).
Since 1909 Egypt has taken the biggest share of the exports
from Jaffa, with the United Kingdom coming second. Since
1907 Egypt and the United Kingdom together have taken
much more than one half annually. The Ottoman Empire
comes next, and then Russia and France at a considerable
interval. The figures for Egypt include, however, goods in
transit for France and Russia and other countries. The follow-
ing are the estimated values of the exports to the United
Kingdom and to Egypt since 1908 :
1908.
1909.
1910.
1911.
1912.
1913.
United Kingdom
Egypt . .
164,000
165,000
158,000 173,000 185,000 190,000 200,000
255,000 277,300 270,000 290,000 265,000
Tho
1 According to the figures of the British Consular Reports.
Deutsches Handelsarchiv reports as follows:
1910.
1911.
1912.
Cases 1,115,495 1,058,589 1,385,703
296
INDUSTRY AND TRADE
Imports
The year 1906 showed a marked rise in the value of the
imports into Jaffa (from £464,000 to £660,000), and in
the year 1913 the importation was nearly twice in value
what it had been in 1906. Except that the importation of
cotton goods remains almost stationary the increases have
been well distributed over the chief imports. The greatest
increases are in timber and food stuffs (flour, rice, and coffee).
The timber is required for the making of orange boxes and for
building. Olive oil and caustic soda are required for the
manufacture of soap and petroleum for stoves and irrigation
motors. In 1912 and 1913 the importation of motor engines
and of coal showed marked increases.
The shares of the different countries in the import trade is
shown by a table on p. 309. The official figures, except in the
year 1909, credit British goods shipped from Beirut and
Smyrna to Turkey. As the necessary correction of these figures
cannot be made exactly it can only be said, generally, that
the imports from the United Kingdom greatly exceed those
of other countries and are steadily increasing. Judging by
the figures for 1909 the corrected estimates for the United
Kingdom, as given in the table, are still too low. Next to the
United Kingdom, and apart from Turkey, come Austria,
Russia, and France. The share of Germany is probably
understated in the official figures. It was exceptionally high
in 1913. Imports from the British colonies in the years
1911-13 were valued at £49,000, £54,000, and £69,000 respec-
tively.
Shipping
The table on p. 316 f. shows the tonnage of the shipping
of the nationalities chiefly represented during the years
1908–13. The decrease of Italian shipping in 1911-12
was due to the Turko-Italian war. British shipping main-
tained its pre-eminence throughout. The average number
annually of all steamers calling at the port in 1909-13 was
668. Of these 192 were British, British steamers in 1913
TRADE OF JAFFA
297
carried 10,215 of the 35,662 passengers who embarked at Jaffa.
The figures exclude passengers with return tickets other than
Russian pilgrims. The oranges exported to the United
Kingdom are shipped to Liverpool by the Ellerman and Moss
Lines (Liverpool), by the Prince Line (Newcastle), and by
Scandinavian boats chartered by a firm registered in London.
TRADE OF BEIRUT
Data for the trade of Beirut are specially difficult to obtain.
The British Consular Reports give estimates of imports that
are always less than those of the German and United States
consular officials. The difference is so great as to suggest that
some large class of imports has been included in the one case
and excluded in the other (e.g. re-exported goods or goods in
transit to Damascus). The higher figures are supported by
the Turkish official report for the year 1910–11. A smaller
discrepancy in the case of the exports may be explained in
the same way. Here the British estimates and those of the
United States are lower than the German estimates, which
are supported by the Turkish return. The table on p. 299
gives the data accessible to the present writer,
The imports into Beirut that were re-exported in the years
1909–12 had an average annual value of £598,000, without
much variation (Deutsches Handelsarchiv). The materials
for the detailed tables of exports and imports on p. 310 f.,
have been taken from the D.H.A. and from the Turkish
report for the year 1910–11. Estimates of value have been
found only for the years 1909 and 1910–11. It is evident
that the Turkish classification and that of the D.H.A. are not
always identical.
Exports
The most valuable article of export from Beirut is raw
silk (worth more than £350,000 annually). To this cocoons
(and “waste ') add about £80,000 annually. The amount
of wool exported fluctuates a good deal and has been
298
INDUSTRY AND TRADE
diminished by the opening of the Tripoli railway. But it
still ranks next in value to raw silk. Butter, apricot paste
(from Damascus), nuts, hides, and intestines (for making
sausages) are amongst the more important of the other exports.
During the years 1909–12 the wheat and barley harvests
were poor. Previous to 1909 cereals in a good year were
important exports from Beirut. They are now more likely
to pass through Tripoli and Haifa. For some years previous to
1913 there was a considerable export of lace, chiefly to the
United States. In 1912 it was valued at £87,500. In 1913
the demand ceased, owing, it is said, to a change of fashion.
Amongst the imports re-exported from Beirut cotton fabrics
stand for a large amount.
On the figures of the British Consular Reports France
takes fully three-quarters of the total exports of Beirut in
an average year. This large proportion is explained by the
exclusive export of raw silk and cocoons to France. The
share of the United Kingdom, on the same figures, has
diminished every successive year since 1908 (see p. 292).
Until 1912 its share was second to that of France. In 1913
Egypt, the United States, and Turkey stood before it.
e of them, nearly hich are 7
Imports
The cotton fabrics, which are the principal article of
import into Syria, nearly all enter by the port of Beirut.
The share of the other ports is usually re-exported from
there. Yarns and cloth and silk materials also swell the
Beirut trade. Metals and railway materials, on the other
hand, are distributed over the various ports, and Beirut
does not receive more than a one-third share. Food-stuffs
(especially sugar, rice, and coffee) come next in value to tex-
tiles and yarns. Hides and leather and petroleum are other
items of importance. Coal and briquettes remain at a con-
stant figure. Coal is used by the railway, gas, tram, and
electric light companies as well as, sometimes, for the coaling
of warships. Briquettes are used in the silk factories of
Lebanon.
TRADE OF BEIRUT
299
BEIRUT-EXPORTS
1908. 1909.
72,819 65,461
64,347 54,071
Weight in tons
After deduction of re-exports
1910.
50,934
40,332
1911.
52,926
38,980
1912.
53,000
41,134
1913.
64,107
49,248
919,200
791,750
822,500
692,000
525,600
630,800
United States Consular Reports .
German Consular Reports ..
Turkish Official Report, 1910-11 .
.
.
1,300,000
811,000
1,500,000
1,250,000
1,035,000
BEIRUT-IMPORTS
1908. 1909.
179,140 216,096
170,669 204,706
Weight in tons.
1910.
243,899
233,297
1911.
230,652
216,706
1912.
156,993
145,055
1913.
213,230
193,844
•
.
1,692,500
1,655,500
2,175,000
British Consular Reports .
United States Consular Reports .
German Consular Reports.
Turkish Official Report, 1910-11 .
2,153,200
3,685,300
4,150,000
3,710,000
1,920,400
3,538,700
3,700,000
1,497,500
3,089,200
2,750,000
3,640,000
300
INDUSTRY AND TRADE
The countries of origin of the various imports have been
named on p. 293. The United Kingdom stands at the head
of the list, chiefly because of its share in the import of textiles
and yarns. Italy comes generally second, Austria third,
Germany fourth, and France fifth. Some of the Austrian trade
should probably be reckoned to Germany. Amongst the
articles of import not named on p. 293, coal comes chiefly
from the United Kingdom and briquettes from the United
Kingdom and France.
In 1910 the imports were specially high, in 1911 and 1912
the unfavourable conditions caused a decline, in 1913 there
was a recovery towards normal. The large increase of transit
trade to Aleppo has fully compensated for the recent loss of
trade to Tripoli and Haifa.
Shipping
During the years 1908–13 the highest proportion of the
shipping of Beirut (measured in tonnage) was always French.
British and Italian ships came next, close together in normal
years, and not far behind the French ships. After these came
Austrian and then German shipping. See p. 316 f.
TRADE OF ALEXANDRETTA
The period covered by the table of exports and imports
(on p. 314 f.) was very unfavourable for the trade of the north
of Syria. In 1909 the harvest in the vilayet of Aleppo was
a failure and the political conditions were disturbed (Armenian
massacres). The winter of 1910–11 was very severe and des-
troyed 80 per cent. of the sheep in some districts. 1911–12
was the time of the Italian war, and 1912–13 that of the
Balkan wars. In 1912 there was cholera in the province.
The opening of the railway line to Rayāk (1906) did not
much affect the trade of Alexandretta for a few years, but
ultimately both it and the Homs-Tripoli line (opened 1911)
diverted a large amount of trade to the ports of Beirut and
Tripoli. The building of the Bagdad railway (commenced
TRADE OF ALEXANDRETTA
301
April 1911) and of the branch line between Alexandretta
and Toprakale (opened November 1913) had only a partial
effect in favour of Alexandretta during 1913. The construc-
tion of a direct railway line between Aleppo and Alexandretta
is urgently necessary in the interests of the port and of north
Syrian trade. Transport between Aleppo and Alexandretta
by means of camels takes six or seven days.
exportot. In 1909-11 lbeginning 1909)
Exports
The average annual value of the exports of 1906–8 was
£1,460,100 and did not vary much from that figure. A
heavy fall in the export of wool commenced in 1907 and
another in textiles in 1908. In 1909–11 heavy decreases
took place in the export of cereals and seeds (beginning 1909),
butter (1910 and 1911), leather and skins (1911). The general
result is shown in the table on p. 315. In contrast it may be
noted that the average annual value of the wool exported in
1904-6 was £138,300, of textiles in 1904–7 £262,800, and of
cereals in the good years 1905 and 1906 £77,500.
The principal exports throughout the period 1908-13 have
been live-stock, textiles, and silk cocoons, in that order.
In 1912 they represented £424,500 out of a total of £1,020,400,
and in 1913 £504,200 out of £931,800. Both live-stock and
cocoons maintain the level they held in former years. The
value of the export of the former in the years 1904–7 was
£201,400 annually. In 1907 and 1908 the export of cocoons
was specially high. Cattle and sheep are exported principally
to Egypt and are reared beyond the boundaries of Syria
(see p. 273). Textiles are exported to other parts of the
Turkish Empire and cocoons to France.
The only exports that show a marked advance are pistachio
nuts (since 1908) and oranges and lemons (since 1909). In
1904–7 the average annual value of the former was only
£33,700 and of the latter £14,900. The export of liquorice
to America (see p. 272) maintains its level. The copper
exported is mined at Argana, near Diarbekr. Of other articles
of export not given in the table, gall-nuts and yellow berries
302
INDUSTRY AND TRADE
had an average annual value of £28,100 in 1908-11 and of.
£17,300 in 1912–13.
More than half the exports from Alexandretta are shipped
to ports of the Turkish Empire and to Egypt. In 1911-13
the exports to Egypt maintained themselves proportionately
better than those to parts of Turkey. France and the United
States take the next biggest shares. In the five years 1903–7
the average value of the exports to the United Kingdom was
£113,470 annually. Regarding the fall since then, see p. 292.
The following are the values of the exports to Turkey, Egypt,
and France in 1908–13:
1908 1909 1910 1911. 1912. 1913.
Turkey
Egypt
France
.
.
.
. 461,200 506,700 525,200 397,200 308,200 235,000
. 394,000 272,400 322,700 209,000 258,700 323,700
. 220,900 194,800 189,000 178,400 133,400 140,800
Imports
The value of the annual imports into Alexandretta in the
years 1904–7 did not vary much from the annual average of
£2,334,200. The Aleppo-Rayāk railway began to show its
influence on the imports in 1908, and this and other causes
(see above) finally reduced the imports of 1913 (£930,470) to
half the value of those of 1908. The temporary rise in 1909
was in part due to the charitable importation of clothing and
food for the Armenians (Consular Report).
The chief articles of import are cotton stuffs and yarns.
Next to these come silk goods. There is also a considerable
import of woollen goods, for which there is most demand in
the north of Syria, owing to the climate. Raw silk, indigo,
and other dyes, copper, caustic soda, and buffalo hides, as
well as cotton and woollen yarns, are imported for use in
native industries. The buffalo hides from India and China are
used for making the soles of native shoes. Provisions, especially
flour and sugar, are also imported to a considerable amount.
The chief importing countries, in order, are the United
Kingdom, the Turkish Empire, Austria, and France (see
TRADE OF ALEXANDRETTA
303
table, p. 315). Previous to 1910 Italy came next and then
Germany. Of the first four Turkey was least affected by the
decline of the years 1908–13. Germany maintained its
position owing to her importation of material for the Bagdad
railway. The United Kingdom sends chiefly cotton and
woollen stuffs and yarns. Cotton yarn is also imported from
India and from Italy (along with cotton stuffs). The importa-
tion of these articles into the vilayet of Aleppo has not de-
creased to the extent apparently shown by the returns for
the port of Alexandretta. A large part of the imports for
Aleppo now pass through Beirut and Tripoli. The coal
landed in Alexandretta comes from Belgium and the Black
Sea, and is mostly used by the liquorice factories in the
town. The average import for the years 1911–13 was
750 tons annually.
Shipping
During the years 1908–13 the tonnage of the steamers
visiting the port of Alexandretta remained fairly constant
in spite of the disturbed conditions (annual average 612,000
tons). In 1912 and 1913, however, a large proportion of the
ships entered or cleared without cargo. The average number
of visiting steamers in 1908–13 was 454. The sailing ships
in the same years averaged 550 (5,771 tons). The average
number of British steamers visiting the port annually was
146 (with a capacity of 171,000 tons). Next came the Russian
ships, fewer in number but larger. Italy would probably have
stood third, or even second, but for the war. See further the
table on p. 316 f.
TRADE OF TRIPOLI
The opening of the Homs–Tripoli railway, in June 1911,
gave a great impetus to the trade of this port. At first the
new line carried chiefly material for the building of the Bagdad
railway. By the end of 1912 most of the imports into Aleppo
passed through Tripoli. The principal exports are oranges,
silk, and soap, from the town and its neighbourhood, and
cereals from the plains of Homs and Hama. The following
304
INDUSTRY AND TRADE
(maximum) figures from the British Consular Reports show
the trade of the years 1911-13:
1911.
1912.
1913.
£
Exports. , . 450,000 400,000
800,000
Imports . . . 420,000 1,000,000 1,250,000
In 1913 the exports of wool, hides, oranges, cocoons, and olive
oil were more than double those of the previous year, and the
export trade was rapidly approaching the totals of the principal
Syrian ports (p. 291).1 In 1901 the imports were estimated at
about £300,000. In 1912 and 1913 their amount was similar to
the totals of Jaffa and Alexandretta. 84,000 tons of rails for the
Bagdad line and 9,000 tons of coal were transported by rail to
Aleppo in 1912. In 1913 the value of the Bagdad railway mate-
rial sent through Tripoli was estimated at £110,000.
The shipping of Tripoli in the period 1908–13, measured by
tonnage, stood consistently next to Jaffa and not far behind
it (see table, p. 316 f.).
TRADE OF HAIFA
The growth of Haifa as a port dates from the opening of the
railway line in 1906. It has diverted from Beirut some of the
export of the grain of the Haurān and some of the import trade
with Damascus and Arabia. The following imperfect table gives
an indication of the progress of the years 1907–13. The figures
have been taken from several sources and those in brackets are
little more than guesses. It is important to note that railway
material seems not to be included in the estimates of imports.
1907. 1908. 1909. 1910. 1911. 1912. 1913.
. 272,700 371,700
70,500 90,000 346,700
Imports :
Foreign : 199,000 284,500 271,400 289,100 295,100,
From Turk-
\[400,400] [480,000]
ish ports 41,000 71,000
[70,000] [50,000]
Coal . -
[40,000] [30,000] [60,000] [50,000]
Total Imports 240,000 355,500
399,100 375,100 460,400 530,000
i The exports from Beirut are underestimated in the British Consular
Reports and so were still above £800,000 in 1913 (see p. 299).
TRADE OF HAIFA
305
Including coal and railway material the imports probably
exceeded £500,000 and even £600,000 some years before 1913
The following are the totals of the D.H.A. (November 1912)
for the years 1909–11:
1909.
1910.
1911.
Imports 574,000
616,000
575,000
The same report gives £160,000 and £175,000 as the value
of the exports in the years 1910 and 1911 respectively. The
exports for 1910 and 1911 were low because of a bad harvest
(1910) and war conditions. Previous to the opening of the
railway there was an import trade of less than £200,000
annually and an export trade of considerably more (British
annuulat Reports i Haifa is pr 1908-13 it
The shipping of Haifa is proportionately much in excess
of its trade. In the period 1908–13 it exceeded that of
Alexandretta and stood next to that of Tripoli (see table,
p. 316).
For further details of the trade. of Haifa, see Chap. xv,
p. 493 f.
TRADE OF GAZA
Ships call here only occasionally, especially for the purpose
of loading the barley exported to England. The annual
value of the exports varies very much, according to the
harvest. 1908 and 1913 were specially good years. Wool
and butter are also exported to some extent.
1908. 1909. 1910, 1911. 1912 1913.
Total exports . 206,240 49,760 8,550 77,150 67,000 161,120
Barley .
. 196,840 4,620
48,000 47,600 143,800
Wheat
. 8,400 12,500 - 12,000 730 -
Imports reach Gaza through Jaffa. Their average annual
amount in the years 1906-11 was valued at £72,000, in 1912
at £96,400, and in 1913 at £108,200.
For further details of the trade of Gaza, see Chap. xiv,
p. 456 f.
U
SYRIA
306
INDUSTRY AND TRADE
TRADE OF DAMASCUS
Separate consular reports on the trade of Damascus are
published annually. There is a large demand for imports in
the town and its neighbourhood. The district is, also, an
important centre of supply of exports (grain, fruit, articles
of native dress, &c.). The external trade of Damascus has
long passed through Beirut. An increasing part of it is now
being diverted to Haifa.
The exports, as reported by the British consuls, have greatly
increased in recent years. In 1903–5 their average annual
value was £392,600, in 1906–8 the average was £646,400,
and in 1909–11 it was £993,200. The increase since 1909 has
been due to a series of good harvests. Wheat and barley
were exported in the years 1909–11 to an average annual
value of £410,000. In the same years the annual export of
cotton fabrics and of mixed silk and cotton fabrics was valued
at £243,000. Other exports largely represented were wool,
chickpeas, and a pricots (dried, paste, and kernels). On a lower
level of importance were carpets, skins, brass and copper
goods, mother-of-pearl, liquorice, and walnuts.
Imports show little variation in the years 1906–11 (average
annual value £924,000). Three-quarters of this amount are
taken by places external to the town of Damascus. The
leading articles of import are cotton goods and yarns (nearly
one-third of the whole), woollen goods, raw silk, and silk goods.
Tobacco is largely and increasingly imported (to the value of
£86,000 annually in 1909–11). Several food-stuffs (sugar,
coffee, rice) stand high on the list. Hardware and metals,
especially brass and copper, stand for about £47,000 annually
(1909–11). Charcoal is expensive and this favours the use
of petroleum for cooking-stoves (£26,000 annually). Leather
and dyes amount to about £20,000 annually. Austria supplies
the market with fezzes (£17,000 worth per annum). In 1912
sewing-machines were imported to the value of £23,000, and
in 1913 to the value of £25,000.
JAFFA-EXPORTS
307
JAFFA-EXPORTS
1908.
1909.
1910,
1911,
1912.
1913.
£
f
£
556,370
14,400
14,500
168,900
·
d Raisins.
Total value
Dhura.
Lupines
;. · ·
Oranges and lemons
Almonds .
Water melons and other fruits
Sesame
Oil (olive and sesame) : :
Soap .
Wines and spirits
560,930
20,400
26,500
185,800
3,470
365
31,500
50,400
7,950
145,400
33,500
1,070
9,500
8,600
636,140
11,400
13,400
235,600
7,500
810
137,260
37,230
6,680
157,900
60,900
5,430
16,500
12,200
22,100
54,700
275
141,300
42,300
710,660
11,900
13,100
217,500
8,670
1,370
42,000
98,000
14,980
144,300
77,600
5,100
17,100
19,100
774,160
20.200
10.600
283,600
11,000
5,700
25,000
30,100
4,000
254,000
60,400
4,500
7,400
22,000
745,410
9.500
12,500
297,700
10 400
9,000
34,000
31,300
6,270
200,000
60,500
5,200
10,500
20,800
:
Cattle .
.
Hides
Souvenirs
10,300
26,700
.
.
.
.
308
INDUSTRY AND TRADE
JAFFA-IMPORTS
1908.
1909.
1910
1911.
1912.
1913.
£
£
803,400
231,700
13,690
26,300
33,900
38,600
55,200
58,500
15,400
973,100
261,700
15,590
24,500
38,100
61,300
70,600
54,400
9,300
21,800
1,002,400
244,500
12,680
21,600
91,100
67,500
52,500
67,000
24,100
19,200
.
.
Total value
Cotton goods
Cloth , :
Coffee . .
Flour . .
Sugar . . . .
Rice .
Tobacco
Olive oil .
Provisions (e.g. tinned).
Fish (salted).
Iron (bars, girders, plates)
Hardware
Copper and other metals
Machinery.
Motors .
Petroleum .
Coal . .
Timber
Chemicals and manure .
Caustic soda.
Cattle.
Hides . . . .
34,900
41,100
4,990
11,900
1,169,900
262,300
14,200
22,000
122,700
64,800
60,800
72,200
31,700
21,600
6,120
23,200
25,200
28,400
14,600
7,380
42,700
11,700
80,400
9,000
13,900
40,600
19,700
16,500
29,900
5,300
19,200
7,270
45,480
11,500
42,300
8,280
7,310
27,300
18,100
1,090,000
243,000
14,870
30,000
42,700
41,600
46,400
50,000
30,000
30,000
9,600
20,000
36,500
15,000
20,000
14,000
30,500
24,700
100,000
14,600
12,000
36,000
14,700
17,000
21,900
23,700
17,900
7,085
44,380
5,015
46,000
8,870
10,520
22,300
16,500
1,312,600
240,800
15,000
51,900
150,600
53,600
63,400
67,300
48,800
33,200
9,800
24,200
32,200
19,000
15,300
12,750
81,000
20,300
107,000
10,500
12,700
28,000
15,800
45,488
14,900
47,200
.
.
8,540
JAFFA-IMPORTS (BY COUNTRIES)
309
JAFFA-IMPORTS (BY COUNTRIES)
1909.
1910.
1911.
1912,
1908.
. £
80,000
321,3481
Turkey
.
260,000
107,0421
United Kingdom .
United Kingdom, corrected estimate i
Turkey, corrected estimate 1
Austria
Russia.
France.
Germany
Egypt .
Belgium
128,700
298,700
328,900
158,900
83,800
97,000
103,000
68,600
58,000
49,100
85,000
69,000
54,000
56,000
49,000
42,000
1913.
£
170,000
340,000
325,000
155,000
143,000
120,000
115,000
102,000
72,000
72,000
£
146,000
326,000
340,000
160,000
114,000
108,000
112,000
74,000
70,000
60,000
93,200.
96,000
64,700
87,300
69,400
39,600
155,000
325,000
305,000
135,000
126,000
110,000
84,000
80,000
61,000
54,000
1 See page 296.
310
INDUSTRY AND TRADE
1911.
1910–11.
tons
1908.
tons
12,652
18,773
33
.
BEIRUT1_EXPORTS
1909. 1910.
tons
tons
3,757 1,213
13,066 3,794
970 1,218
2,665 1,675
442
152
171
414
312
644
447
2,017
141
578 1,047
tons
187
1,670
1,121
1,255
..
.
.
1,674
621
1,500
83
310
182
1912.
tons
1,998
3,445
1,300
1,777
693
370
440
447
2,832
227
1,009
500
11,200
9,800
11,200
850
8,000
8,500
.
522
..
.
469
681
1,068
3,401
286
889
..
3,686
24
32,000
500
.
..
808
333
123
21,500
3,000
14,000
.
204
Wheat .
Barley
Burghul
Peas and beans
Lemons
Raisins .
Apricots (dried)
Apricot kernels
Apricot paste
Dates, .
Other fruits.
Nuts.
Liquorice .
Tobacco
Olives.
Olive kernels
Olive oil
Soap.
Spirits.
Wine .
Skins .
Leather
Wool.
Butter
Intestines .
Raw cotton .
Cocoons, &c..
Raw silk .
***!!
. 903
210
172
210
161
.
733
231
297
756
238
..
173
.
8,500
1,500
63
1,079
214
247
395
223
148
63
146
548
223
3,276
418
39
..
1,119
199
145
63
180
314
301
3,116
1,249
155
.
67
168
365)
260
1,011
460
665
.
..
1,700
2,952
553
2,134
543
.
70
37,300
138,500
52,000
20,300
1,200
82,500
357,500
.
33
..
290
108
73
235
350
305 264 267
| For total values of exports and imports see p. 299.
271
253
136
278
342
.
BEIRUT-IMPORTS
311
BEIRUT-IMPORTS
1910–11.
1909.
1908.
tons
10,023
1,456
174
218
..
1909.
tons
10,553
1,630
262
126
87
504
82
1910.
tons
10,474
1,858
157
172
102
609
1912.
tons
9,178
1,426
91
Cotton fabrics.
Cotton yarn .
Raw cotton
Raw silk
Silk fabrics
Cloth .
Woollen article :
Woollen yarn .
Wool
Coffee . ..
1911.
tons
10,565
1,794
112
129
152
583
107
1910–11.
tons
9,544
2,029
219
153
122
252
174
84
1,202,000
166,000
4,000
105,000
85,000
130,000
63,000
5,300
1,270,000
120,000
7,500
125,000
100,000
100,000
30,000
15,000
69
469
103
502
106
...........
60
38
32
32
89
124
80
25
1,479
1,208
8,908
6,450 .
129
1,579
1,267
10,676
7,883
60,000
36,000
170,000
95,000
73,000
8,000
180,000
82,500
Flour :
Sugar ..
1,148
3,607
10,843
9,030
156
1,139
9,376
9,451
10,121
1,716
6,456
1,037
2,244
607
72
1,018
7,029
10,176
6,300
1,307
6,285
1,284
2,374
399
880
1,442
4,813
4,251
1,204
6,569
· 442
1,942
5,996
1,751
1,863
590
45,000
38,000
60,000
42,000
29,000
10.500
50,000
26,000
240
Rice .
Tobacco.
Iron and steel
Iron pipes, safes, &c.
Hardware .
Copper and brass .
Other metals .
Machines and instruments
Petroleum
Coal .
Briquettes
Timber.
Chemicals, dyes, and caustic soda
Soap : :
Paper
ather . . . . .
Hides . .
1,859
338
205
3,603
7,978
14,095
26,557
14,936
677
4,541
1,348
1,863
367
204
1,621
11,129
19,996
34,485
19,071
973
1,366
13,826
20,736
30,369
16,772
1,237
795
1,038
865
905
953
10,212
17,773
21,109
17,582
985
505
1,065
838
705
599
5,024
12,466
19,699
12,421
714
558
1,194
902
398
1,710
13,982
42,776
17,554
1,054
189
1,544
591
40,000
80,500
48,000
48,000
22,500
6,000
30,000
72,000)
55,000 S
50,600
82,500
52,000
70,000
33,600
1,055
380
1 953
911
20,700
160,000
913
312
INDUSTRY AND TRADE
BEIRUT-IMPORTS (BY COUNTRIES)
1908.
1909.
1910.
1911.
1912.
1913.
£
.
.
.
.
.
United Kingdom
Italy .
Austria
Germany
France
·
Belgium
Turkey
Egypt . .
......
710,000
160,000
165,000
170,000
145,000
90,000
31,000
13,500
665,000
168,000
185,000
162,000
130,000
93,000
27,000
12,500
933,000
257,000
165,000
178,000
150,000
67,500
110,000
27,000
902,000
190,000
172,500
145,000
130,000
55,000
78,000
23,000
748,500
47,500
134,500
129,000
121,000
71,000
47,000
62,000
·
·
·
·
1,014,500
185,000
210,000
160,000
175,000
90,000
38,000
102,000
·
.
ALEXANDRETTA-EXPORTS
313
ALEXANDRETTA-EXPORTS
1908.
1909.
1910.
1911.
1912.
1913.
£
Total value
Cereals
.
.
Burghul, &c..
Oranges and lemons
Raisins and figs .
Almonds and apricot kernels.
Pistachio nuts
Liquorice :
Olive oil
Sesame and other seeds .
Soap .
Cattle, sheep, &c.
Leather and skins .
Wool.
Butter . . . . .
Cotton . . . . .
Textiles
Cocoons
Copper ore, &c. .
Specie.
1,466,900
29,300
26,100
13,800
2,838
8.354
53.100
158.500
8,350
16,000
33,200
253,100
61,200
56,500
92,300
28,600
147,000
188,200
50,800
119,200
1,308,600
4,468
14,400
24,200
760
9,554
55,500
58,000
3,260
7,630
22,800
161,100
100,500
82,000
137,100
10,800
177,000
157,300
65,800
125,800
1,301,000
4,465
18,600
25,000
3,869
4.862
66.600
85,500
3,430
5,050
46,600
239,000
89,700
55,100
61,600
50,700
193,100
163,100
6,500
95,000
1,044,300
7,360
14,500
32,200
10,900
7.978
52,100
28,900
6,280
3,080
46,100
146,500
56,100
37,400
22,600
28,600
162,800
158,300
72,200
75,500
1,020,400
9,165
14,000
35,400
5,332
4,634
66,300
138,000
1,420
2,280
32,100
192,100
52,100
17,600
24,500
33,800
129,400
103,000
50,200
52,500
931,800
4,660
11,100
31,800
2,720
9,720
93,800
53,300
990
2,880
24,400
261,000
56,500
4,440
16,200
26,800
104,000
139,200
15,500
23,800
.
.
.
314
INDUSTRY AND TRADE
ALEXANDRETTA-IMPORTS
1908.
1909.
1910.
1911.
1912.
1913.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
1,890,600
832,200
177,600
24,600
91,800
9,360
23,000
30,400
3,400
17,900
. 30.000
22,700
37,000
28,600
912
34,600
11,400
32,800
11,200
104,700
132,800
Total value.
Cotton goods and yarn. .
Silk goods .
Raw silk
Woollen goods and yarn .
Coffee.
Flour, &c.
Sugar .
Rice
Tobacco .
Iron and ironwa
Copper.
Other metals.
Petroleum
Coal
Indigo .
Other dyes.
Drugs and chemicals
Caustic soda . . .
Hides and leather.
Specie, bullion, &c.
Railway and building material
2,226,300
1,015,800
213,300
43,300
108,000
15,100
80,600
35,300
6,400
27,800
27,700
22,700
37,600
44,200
1,744
51,100
15,600
30,800
12,700
95,800
126,200
1,398,800
524,500
134,000
60,800
67,200
4,270
84,100
20,500
8,240
25,400
23,100
22,200
24,600
20,800
500
21,400
14,600
19,800
12,300
58,200
91,900
1,145,100
401,700
77,200
36,600
52,500
5,780
77,700
25,400
4,910
30,200
25,700
18,400
21,600
27,100
575
12,500
10,800
18,600
9,600
51,100
86,400
.
1,209,600
501,000
68,400
36,000
43,700
8,500
55,200
34,400
5,700
31,200
21,700
17,100
19,600
21,800
1,200
15,000
8,000
17,600
7,700
38,100
54,100
41,030
930,470
349,200
58,600
22,800
39,300
5,260
60,100
36,800
6,060
28,000
26,400
7,790
18,500
44,400
1,400
7,010
6,500
13,300
-7,200
27,400
29,700
57,610
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
ALEXANDRETTA-IMPORTS
315
ALEXANDRETTA --IMPORTS (BY COUNTRIES)
1908 1909 1910 1911.
1912
1913.
.
.
.
..
.
.
..
....
.
United Kingdom
Turkey
Austria .
France
Italy .
Germany
Belgium .
Egypt .
.
.
906,500
310,600
186,200
190,900
95,900
70,000
45,700
41,300
1,063,100
359,500
216,800
214,700
131,100
80,400
58,300
41,900
- 547,800
284,500
159,500
170,500
75,400
48,900
46,000
33,000
......
445,400
286,300
100,400
120,600
37,600
38,500
41,400
29,900
572,700
266,000
86,700
87,600
440
71,000
33,600
50,900
364,400
198,900
90,400
61,600
26,400
76,600
38,900
18,700
.
.
.
.
..
....
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
316
INDUSTRY AND TRADE
British
Jaffa
Beirut
Alexandretta
Tripoli
Haifa
SYRIAN SHIPPING ANNUAL TONNAGE
1908.
1909.
1910.
213,600 275,000 250,900
288,300 302,400 317,600
183,800 172,300 156,300
178,000 177,200 183,400
. 181,100 183,300 167,700
1,044,800 1,110,200 1,075,900
1921.
292,700
359,600
165,600
209,300
233,300
1,260,500
1912.
315,800
323,600
175,700
204,500
201,100
1,220,700
1913.
270,300
305,800
172,200
213,400
189,900
1,151,600
.
.
.
.
Austrian
Jaffa
Beirut
:.
Alexandretta
Tripoli
Haifa
.
.
.
.
......
189,300
190,100
93,100
175,000
169,600
815,100
183,000
190,500
86,500
181,400
175,100
816,500
178,600
219,500
113,400
206,100
98,200
815,800
211,700
214,300
106,300
198,100
209,100
939,500
213,600
180,100
· 103,800
216,800
207,100
921,400
228,400
273,800
120,100
229,000
236,500
1,087,800
Russian
Jaffa
Beirut
Alexandretta
Tripoli
Haifa
.
.
.
146,600
148,900
96,300
140,400
132,100
664,300
184,100
197,600
167,300
169,100
159,600
877,700
184,700
235,600
160,200
179,400
278,200
1,038,100
156,600
198,600
138,000
139,600
144,400
777,200
174,500
188,000
158,000
168,300
166,400
855,700
212,400
245,400
201,000
167,000
193,500
1,049,300
SYRIAN SHIPPING
317
SYRIAN SHIPPING—ANNUAL TONNAGE (continued)
1908. 1909. 1910. 1911.
1912.
1913.
French
Jaffa
Beirut
Alexandretta
Tripoli .
Haifa
..
.
.....
.
.
189,200
347,900
59,700
104,100
63,000
763,900
172,900
388,000
53,000
151,600
65,600
831,100
191,800
394,600
55,000
143,500
69,000
853,900
192,500
399,500
62,300
124,900
76,000
855,200
161,500
354,000
41,400
133,700
43,700
734,300
213,200
476,500
54,600
191,800
49,300
985,400
Italian
Jaffe.
Beirut
Alexandretta
Tripo!
Haifa
.
6,960
36,100
180,300
292,600
105,900
111,600
114,800
805,200
205,000
349,000
122,500
128,300
130,000
934,800
140,600
287,100
78,700
105,400
82,600
694,400
56,100
161,000
29,500
68,300
33,100
348,000
104,200
250,100
41,800
158,600
65,400
620,100
.
.
.
.
17,500
12,000
72,560
.
.
.
German
Jaffa
Beiru,
Alexandretta
Tripoli
Haifa
...
.
40,100
54,300
14,500
13,800
30,400
153,100
62,900
57,500
18,400
6,100
13,500
158,400
84,100
66,500
14,100
12,100
17,800
194,600
60,100
61,600
24,400
37,400
21,300
204,800
.
85,600
67,900
39,800
70,600
29,800
293,700
..
78,600
93,900
51,800
88,000
49,400
361,700
CHAPTER IX
CURRENCY, WEIGHTS AND MEASURES
=2079
CURRENCY
Table of Money
1 piastre (silver or nickel) =4 metallik =40 paras
(unit of reckoning only) =0.2273 franc
1 beshlik (copper or silver) =21 piastres
1 mejīdi (silver)
1 £T. (Turkish gold lírah) =100 »
The present currency of Syria dates from 1884, when the
gold lõrah was made the unit of the currency of the Ottoman
Empire. It was declared equivalent to 100 piastres (qirsh
sāgh, or 'gold' piastre), and a silver piastre coin of this value
was put in circulation. Another piastre, having no coin as
its equivalent, and without legal sanction, is the ordinary
unit of market prices in Syria (qirsh shuruq, .or 'market
piastre '). Its value in terms of the līrah varies from town to
town, and the following table, given by Ruppin,1 shows the
extent of these local variations :
1 lirah =123 piastres in Tripoli
1 līrah =125 p. in Saida
=124 p. in Homs and Jeru-
=127 p. in Aleppo
salem
=130.3 p. in Damascus
=124.25 p. in Beirut and
=141 p. in Jaffa
Lādiqiyeh
=255 p. in Gaza
The principal silver coin in circulation is the mejīdi, nomin-
ally one-fifth of the gold līrah. Owing to the fall in the value
of silver after 1844, the Turkish mint ceased to coin silver
freely, and by 1880 the value of the mejīdi had fallen by
8 per cent. The līrah was thus equivalent to 108 silver
piastres. To check this depreciation the Government began
Syrien als Wirtschaftsgebiet, von Dr. A. Ruppin. Berlin, 1917.
CURRENCY
319
to receive the mejīdi as legal tender, and its value was fixed
at 19 silver piastres and that of the līrah at 102.6 piastres.
This measure created a new Government piastre. Still the
mejādi circulated below its new nominal value-at about
187 piastres.
A further peculiarity of the currency under the Ottoman
régime was that money-changers would only change gold
coins at a discount of from 1 to 2 per cent. This exaction was
possible owing to the scarcity of small coins.
The only Turkish paper money previous to the war, the
notes of the Ottoman Bank, did not circulate generally in
Syria.
The coins in circulation were the following:
Silver.
Copper.
Nickel.
1 mejīdi i beshlik
1 metallik
لم منهمطر
ܝ ܝܛܬ ܛ
1 piastre
tro
2
99
A last attempt to deal with the currency was made by the
Ottoman Government in April 1916. The mejīdi again
became equivalent to one-fifth of a līrah, or 20 piastres,
and silver coins became legal tender up to the amount of
300 piastres.
French gold 20-franc pieces (official rate, 877 'gold'
piastres) were, before the war, the most universally current
form of foreign money in circulation, but the £ sterling (official
rate, 110 ‘gold' piastres) and Russian gold (imperials, 15
roubles, and also 10 and 5-rouble pieces) passed practically
everywhere. Foreign silver is prohibited all over the Turkish
Empire, but French and Swiss francs and English shillings
were taken at the sea-ports and in Jerusalem and Damascus ;
German, Italian, Greek, and other silver coins were generally
refused. Egyptian money was refused everywhere.
For trading purposes, however, different valuations of
foreign gold coins were in vogue in the large towns of Syria,
and prices of commodities and produce were expressed in
these local valuations. According to Weakley, 1911, the
320
CURRENCY, WEIGHTS AND MEASURES
following variations in the local value of the 20-franc piece
and the £ sterling were shown :
20-franc piece, £ sterling.
in piastres. in piastres.
Beirut
108.3
135.3
Damascus.
114
143.5
Aleppo
110.3
138.3
Tripoli
. . . 107.15
135
Homs
108
136
Lādiqiyeh.
108.3
136.3
Jaffa .
124:15
156.1
Saida .
137.2
The current local rates had come into such general use that
all banking establishments in the country found it necessary
to keep their accounts in local piastres.
Jalta.
.
109
WEIGHTS AND MEASURES
The only system legally recognized is the decimal system,
based on the gramme, litre, and metre, which was adopted
throughout the Turkish Empire in the year 1869. But though
the use of the decimalsystem is gradually becoming moregeneral,
the old weights and measures are still used everywhere in Syria,
more particularly in the villages and rural parts. The units,
both of weights and measures, vary in almost every town and
district, thus rendering transactions extremely confusing and
difficult. Only very general indications of these variations
can here be given. The tendency in many parts before the
war was to use both the metric system and the weights and
measures of the locality, imported foreign goods being usually
sold by the former system and native produce by the latter.
Weights
The unit of weight is the dirhem or dram, equivalent to
3.21 grammes.
The multiples of this unit in most general use are :
1 oqiyeh =66} dirhems = 0.213 kilograms = 0.47 lb. avoir., approx.
1 oqqah (oke) =400 „ = 1·284
1 roti = 2 oqqahs = 2.568 g = 5.6 , ,
1 qantār = 44 , =56.496
= 124
=
28
,
2 oqqahs = 2.568
1 qantar
>
WEIGHTS AND MEASURES
321
29
But these more or less standard weights vary from place to
place. The following are some of the local variations which
appear to be in use :
=400
Beirut, Damascus, Lādicīyeh, and Haifa
1 oqiyeh
=662 dirhems = 0.213 kilograms
loqqah
= 1.284
· 1 roti, or batman
= 2 oqqahs
= 2.568 »
1 qantār
=100 rotis =256.8
Raw silk and cocoons are sold by the oqqah of 410 dirhems,
or 2.9 lb. avoir. (approx.).
Olive oil is sold by the oqqah of 450 dirhems=3.17 lb.
avoir., in certain localities around Beirut.
=400 dirhems
Homs
1 oqqah (official)
1 5 (local)
1 rotl, or batman
1 qantār
=460
,
=2 local oqqahs or 920 dirhems
=117 rotls
- 21
=255
2
Aleppo and District
1 oqīyeh
=100 dirhems
1 oqqah
=400 ,
1 rotl, or batman ‘atiq = 2 oqqahs
1 rotl jedīd
1 rotl en-nil
-780 dirhems
1 qantār 'atiq
=200 oqqahs
1 qantār jedīd, or azizi
The rotl en-nīl is used only in buying and selling indigo.
The qantār ‘atīq is used for calculating weights for animal
transport. The qantār jedīd is used in weighing provisions.
Firewood, charcoal, country produce, vegetables, &c., are
sold by the rotl or batman ‘atīq of 4 oqqahs, or approximately
=11.28 lb. avoir. (Weakley).
Jerusalem and Jaffa (according to Report of Weakley)
1 oqiyeh
. = 75 dirhems
1 oqqah
=400
I roti
. = 12 oqīyehs = 21oqqahs
1 qantār
=109 rotls
According to British Diplomatic and Consular Reports the
–225
SYRIA
Y
322 CURRENCY, WEIGHTS AND MEASURES
=
5.6
following are the weights and their approximate equivalents
in use in the districts of Jerusalem and Gaza :
l oqīyeh
= { lb. avoir. (approx.)
1 roti
1 qantār =100 rotls =560. - 25
In the Haurān wheat is sold by the qantār of 180 oqqahs,
or 231 kilograms=about 509 lb. In Damascus it is sold
by the qantār of 100 rotls or 200 oqqahs (Weakley).
Other weights sometimes used for grain in certain parts of
Palestine appear to be : the sāʻ =3,000–3,600 dirhems; the
masheh=4,500 dirhems; the sudsiyeh=4,500–6,000 dirhems ;
and the tabeh=6,300-7,500 dirhems.1
Throughout Syria, liquids (oil, wine and other) are sold by
weight. The qulleh is a measure used only for oil =26 oqqahs
(Tripoli) and 16 oqqahs (Jerusalem and Jaffa).
Measures of Capacity
The unit of capacity is the mudd.
1 mudd =4 rub‘iyehs
=18 litres =31.6 pints (approx.)
1 keileh (Turkish kele) = 2 mudds =36 litres =63.3 pints (approx.).
For ordinary purposes, a rub‘iyeh may be considered as
being approximately 1 gallon and a keileh as being a bushel
of English measure.
The keileh is used for grain ; but in common practice it is
no longer reckoned according to its volume but according to
the weight it contains. It varies greatly with the locality and
the kind of grain, thus :
,
pod
Beirut. i keileh (wheat)
(barley)
Tripoli. » (wheat)
(barley)
Aleppo.
Jerusalem. 1 „ (wheat)
(barley)
. (lupins)
=20–24 kilograms
=17-20
=22 oqqahs
=175 -
= 2 mashallehs =22} oqqahs
=16
=55 lb. (approx.)
=40
fond
P
+ Guide book to Central Palestine, H, Pirie Gordon, 1918,
WEIGHTS AND MEASURES
323
At Aleppo, the shumbul is in use for measuring grain and
seeds, as follows:
1 shumbul (wheat) = 70 oqqahs = 89.74 kilograms -178.5 lb. avoir.
„ (barley) =65 , = 169.2 lb. avoir.
, (lentils) =85 , =239.7
1 (oats) -50 „ =141
In certain parts the ardabb is used as a measure for grain =
95 oqqahs (barley), 100 oqqahs (maize), and 110 oqqahs
(wheat).
The following measures of cereals &c., with their English
equivalents, are given as obtaining at Gaza, by the British
Consular Report of the trade of the district of Jerusalem
(1913):
1 keileh
= 1 bushel
=10 sā's
= 57 ,
(barley)
=16 oqqahs
=441 lb. avoir.
(wheat)
=61
(beans, peas, lupins) = 20
=551
(barley)
= 1 quarter
(wheat, dhura, lentils, sesame)
(beans, peas, lupins)
= 1 ,
(barley)
(wheat, dhura, lentils, sesame)
= l,
40 (beans, peas, lupins)
52
=22
12
29
oder
pod
Measures of Length
The unit is the dhrā', pic, or ell, which is divided into
24 qūrāts.
There are at least two kinds of dhrā' in use: (1) the
dhrā mi māri, or mason's dhrā, used in building and for
measurements of land; (2) the dhrā', used for measuring
cloth, &c.
The length of both varies in different localities. Ruppin
gives the length of the dhrā' mi'māri as equivalent to 75.8
centimetres, or about 29.84 in., and this may be taken as
a fairly accurate standard. The length of the cloth dhrā
varies from 65-75 centimetres according to the locality.
The following local variations of length are taken from
Weakley's Report and from British Consular Reports :
X 2
324
CURRENCY, WEIGHTS AND MEASURES
=67
m
9
Beirut and Homs. Dhrā' mi'māri =75 centimetres =29.5 inches
» (cloth)
=68
=26.7
Damascus.
» miómári
=69.8
=27.5
Tripoli.
=75
=29.5
;; (cloth)
=26.3
Aleppo.
miómāri =75.7
=29.8
,, . (cloth) or arshin=70.9
Jerusalem and Jaffa. „ mi'māri =75
=29.8 ,
» (cloth)
=26.3 ,
At Aleppo, a linear measure called the aun=30.65 in
appears to be in use.
= 27.9
19
=67
Measures of Area
1 square dhrã' mi'māri =75.8 cm. x 75.8 cm. (Ruppin)
=5,745.64 square centimetres =0.574 square metres
1 dunam
=1,600 square dhrā'=919.3 square metres
The dunam is the official Turkish land measure and may
generally be reckoned as roundly equivalent to 919 square
metres, or roughly 1 hectare, or 0.227 acre. In measure-
ments of land in towns, the square dhrā' is reckoned to be
5,625 square centimetres and the dunam 900 square metres.
The term feddān, as far as its use in Syria is concerned, is
simply a current expression having no official definition as
a land measure. The term is used in Syria in two senses :
(a) it represents the amount of land that can be ploughed in
a day with two oxen (roughly an area slightly less than
a quarter of an acre), and must not be confounded with
(b) the term feddān, as used in certain parts, representing the
amount of land that can be cultivated with a pair of oxen in
the course of a year (an area varying from 5-12 hectares).
The Syrian feddān must not be confused with the Egyptian
feddān, which is a definite measure, approximately =5,024:1
square yards, or rather more than an acre (4,840 square yards
or 0.963 feddān).
CHAPTER X
JEBEL ANSARIYEH
THE territory coming under this section is marked on the
north and south by clearly defined natural boundaries separat-
ing it from the Amanus and Lebanon ranges. The western
boundary is the sea, and the eastern boundary is marked by the
central valley of the Orontes. The highlands of J. Ansarīyeh
are distinguished as being the almost exclusive reserve of the
Ansarīyeh and Ismāʻīlīyeh, two secret heretical sects of Islam
who, like the Druses, have maintained religious and, to some
degree, political independence. Although an agreeable and
fertile country, it is perhaps the least known and least
the exclusiveness of the inhabitants, and the constant pressure
of Ottoman administration, the ports have been allowed to
decay and the primitive highways afford only restricted
communication with the hinterland. The only towns of any
importance in this region are Antioch and Lādiqīyeh; the
former though steadily increasing, occupies only a part of its
ancient limits, the latter is the chief port and the centre of
tobacco culture for which its name is famous.
AREA
on the E. by the Orontes valley; and on the S. by the Nahr el-
Kebīr (Tripoli) eastward to El-Buqei'ah, thence by the Homs
chaussée. The northern limit has been given as the gorge
of the Orontes but Lyde 1 definitely marks the boundary
some 30 miles farther S. on the line of the road running NE.
from Lādiqiyeh over a pass near Bahlūlīyeh, and through
i The Asian Mystery.
326
JEBEL ANSARIYEH
a winding valley to Jisr esh-Shughr. The mountains S. of
this line are so much the special abode of the Ansarīyeh as
to be called by their name, while those N. of it, although
largely occupied by that people, are outside the limits of
J. Ansarīyeh proper. There is besides, an essential difference
in the structure of the two mountain tracts. In the following
description however, the whole range is included under this
title. The length N. to S. is about 105 miles; the width
W. to E. varies from about 23 miles to a maximum of
about 57 miles between Homs and Hama. The total area is
about 3,500 sq. miles, chiefly mountainous country with a
comparatively small proportion of coastal plain running
southwards from Lādiqīyeh.
The greatest and most important part of this territory
includes the whole sanjaq of Lādiqīyeh, in the vilayet of Beirut,
containing the kazas of Lādiqīyeh, Jebeleh, Marqab, and
Sahyūn. The most northern part comes under the vilayet
of Aleppo, and includes parts of the kazas of Antioch and
Jisr esh-Shughr; while the most southern districts are in
the kazas of Sāfīta and Husn el-Akrād, sanjaq of Tripoli.
The great bend of the mountains which projects eastwards
in the neighbourhood of Homs and Hama, forms parts of
these two kazas, as well as part of the kaza of Hamidīyeh
which latter also includes a narrow strip of the eastern slopes
as far north as a point about 10 miles NW. of Qalʼat el-Mudhīq.
These three kazas are in the sanjaq of Hama, vilayet of
Damascus.
PHYSICAL SURVEY
Coast and Coastal Plain
From the northern boundary at the Orontes which falls
into the sea in the middle of a long line of beach, the shore
merges into a small plain. This coastal strip is gradually
narrowed down by the penetration of low spurs from the Anti-
Cassius ridge, until it is completely interrupted by J. el-Aqra“
and the spurs skirting the shore to S. of it. Lying at the
south-western base of the mountain is the small bay Mīnet
PHYSICAL SURVEY
327
Fasori is hn Hāni Comiles from
el-Qasab. Beyond here, the coast opens out into a narrow
cultivated tract which becomes more narrow as it swings
westward to Ras el-Baseit. This is a low promontory
projected by a ridge coming from SE. close to and parallel
with the coast, and forming the small bay of Baseit
which faces north. From Ras el-Baseit to Ras Fasõri, the
coast generally is bold cliffs with a few sandy beaches, and
about 3 miles from the former there is the open roadstead of
'Isa Begli where steamers call to load chromate of iron. North-
eastward of Ras Fasõri, the great valley, W. Qandīl, breaks
through. Ras Fasõri is a conspicuous promontory and,
from it, the coast to Ras Ibn Hāni continues in bold cliffs
and some sandy beaches. About 3 miles from the former
is a small bay, a mile beyond which is a rocky point with
a monastery between two sandy bays. This is Minet el-
Kaban, a sheltered spot which can be utilized when com-
munication by sea with Lādiqīyeh is impracticable. Ras Ibn
Hāni is a narrow peninsula projecting li mile westward
the shores of which have been extensively quarried. On its
summit are some ancient remains and on the point is a light-
house. On its southern side is a bay l mile broad with
a rocky reef almost across the entrance. Ras Ziyāreh is the
promontory on which lies the town of Lādiqīyeh with an
ancient port now fast filling up and affording little shelter.
From Ras Ziyāreh the coast consists of rocky cliffs with
a sandy beach for about a mile when the plain commences,
and the sandy beach continues for nearly 81 miles; then
follows a line of low cliffs, for 9 miles to Ras Beledeh. Thence
there is a long straight beach to Bāniyās (Bulunyās), at the
northern base of a volcanic hill 930 ft. high on which stands
Qalʼat el-Marqab. From here to Tartūs the coast is mostly
shingly beach with outlying rocks. Ras Husein, 10 miles
from Marqab, is a rocky point. Tartūs is a walled coast
town and about a mile N. of it is El-Mīneh, a shallow basin
probably an ancient port where small boats and spongers
shelter ; on the E. side of the basin is a large building used as
a pottery. Ruwad or Arwad island lies 2 miles SSW. of Tartūs.
hommit are of which peninsu
328
JEBEL ANSARĪYEH
From Tartūs to N. el-Kebīr (Tripoli) the shingly beach
continues to be bordered by shoal waters with off-lying rocky
patches.
The coastal plain runs in varying width south-eastwards
from near Lādiqīyeh immediately beyond which it is well
watered by the N. el-Kebir, N. Snaubar, N. el-Mudhīą, and
other smaller streams. This fertile but somewhat desolate
tract extends for 16 miles and ceases at Qalʼat el-Marqab,
being there interrupted by inountain spurs. It opens out
again at Dhahr Safra, spreading to a great width behind
Tartūs, and continues southwards in varying width to the
base of the Lebanon range, towards which it is well
watered by the N. el-Abrash, N. el-Kebīr (Tripoli), and N. el-
Bārid. The whole of the plain is rich fertile land and
cultivated to a considerable extent. The soil consists mostly
of argillaceous and cretaceous marls. During the rainy
season the surface in parts is so waterlogged as to be almost
impassable.
Relief
The part of the range north of Lādiqīyeh differs structurally
from that south of it, inasmuch as in the former the water-
shed lies on the west, parallel with the coast and the Orontes
gorge, while in the case of the latter, it lies uniformly east
of the range, overlooking the central Orontes.
The most prominent northern peak is J. el-Aqra', 'bald
mountain ', alt. 5,800 ft., the ancient Mount Cassius which
latter name is sometimes given to the whole range between
the Orontes gorge and J. Ansarīyeh proper. It is a limestone
mass rising abruptly from the sea; the lower slopes are
wooded and the upper parts are naked rock. Near its middle
facing the sea, it is divided by a huge cleft which falls down to
the shore terminating in the small cove Mīnet el-Qasab. On the
southern and eastern sides J. el-Aqraʻis bounded by deep and
fertile valleys and, from it, a bold limestone ridge, sometimes
called Anti-Cassius, takes a north-easterly direction, running
parallel with the .coast and the Orontes gorge to the neigh-
PHYSICAL SURVEY
329
bourhood of Antioch. A prominent peak on this ridge,
rises to an alt. of 3,560 ft., and the craggy height of Mount
1,550 ft., or 1,200 ft. above the town.
Extending southwards from the north-eastern limit of the
ridge and bounded E. by the Orontes valley, is J. Quseir.
The name Quseir is applied locally to the whole mountain
tract as far S. as Esh-Shughr and as far W. as a line running
approximately from Antioch to Esh-Shughr. It is a tame,
rounded and almost treeless tableland falling eastward and is,
in general, fertile and fairly well cultivated. In the part
immediately S. of Antioch, it is well watered by numerous
streams in green valleys bordered with oleanders and
other trees.
ridges and deep valleys running southwards to Wādi el-Kebīr,
and forming a succession of transverse ridges, deep valleys,
and rocky crags in a wild and almost uninhabited country.
The southward trend of the valleys draining to N. el-Kebīr
is a distinct structural feature of this part of the range, which is
geographically detached from the mountains to the south by
the great valley of the N. el-Kebir.
The southward continuation of the range is the part more
particularly known as J. Ansarīyeh. It is more uniform,
and presents a rounded outline with a gradual rise from the sea
and is diversified by scrub-covered lower hills and intersected
by deep valleys falling westward. The main ridge runs N. and
S., has an average elevation of about 3,000 ft. and overlooks the
Orontes valley towards which the eastern slopes, intersected
by deep gorges, fall almost precipitously. On the W. the
mountains fall more in terraceformation, steep slopes and rocky
ridges alternating with small plateaux and cultivated areas.
They sweep in circles round the large plain of Lādiqiyeh and
Tartūs throwing out spurs which at Qalʼat el-Marqab,
reach the sea. From here southward for some distance, the
plain is interrupted and, at Dhahr Safra, the mountains com-
mence their second great inland sweep leaving a wide plain
330
JEBEL ANSARIYEH
seaward for the whole distance to the Lebanon range. The
mountains and hills are composed generally of trap, or marl
and limestone, dislocated and tossed about by the obtrusion
of trap dikes.
On the lower slopes E. of Lādiqīyeh there is a very con-
spicuous hill, carrying a double-domed ziyāreh, which rises
above the plain. This peak was chosen by Lt. Brooke of
H.M.S. Tartarus as an observation post in the Admiralty
Coast Survey of 1858. From it extends a lofty ridge separating
the district of Mahālibeh from that of Kelbīyeh.
On the main ridge are three prominent conical peaks,
Nebi Yūnis (alt. 4,940 ft.) E. by N. of Lādiqīyeh ; Nebi
Matta, a volcanic peak, alt. 3,585 ft., W. of Qalʼat el-Mudhīq;
and Ja'far Teyyār 1 E. of Jebeleh; each of these is sur-
mounted by a ziyāreh. Lyde considers the last-mentioned
to be the highest peak of the range. It is only slightly higher
than the other two peaks, and is easily distinguishable by its
bald summit, standing at the inmost part of the curve of the
mountains which sweep round Lādiqīyeh. Running west-
wards from it is the deep W. en-Nāsir, a region of lonely
gorges sheltering a wild and lawless people. N. of this
wādi, in the neighbourhood of Qardāhah the chief village
of the Kelbīyeh tribe, the country is diversified by hills and
rich valleys, among which W. Beit Ahmed is well planted.
The southern extremity of the range falls, in gradual
slopes broken by minor ridges shooting out in a general
1 The position of Ja'far Teyyar as described by Lyde (The Asian
Mystery, pp. 7–9) corresponds to that marked · Nebi Mitta' on the W.O.
Map 1915. Nebi Mitta, according to Lyde, is S. of and near Nebi
Yūnus, and this identification corresponds more closely to that of Burckhardt,
who describes it as 'the highest point' opposite Qalʼat el-Mudhiq, and who
on his map places it W. by N. of that place. Both authorities therefore
agree to a position much farther N. than is shown on the W.0. map. The
difference of opinion as to which of the two is the higher is not difficult to
account for as their heights appear to be very much the same. The identi-
fication of Nebi Matta by Post (Q.S. 1893), who places it about 5 miles to
W. of Qal'at Masyād, S. of the latitude of Hama, apparently corresponds
to another Nebi 'Mitta' on the W.O. map which is placed lower down the
western slopes to N, of the latitude of Tartūs.
PHYSICAL SURVEY
331
south-westerly direction, to the great divide which separates it
from the Lebanon range. The main ridge sinks southwards
into the comparatively low country lying W. of Homs;
at its south-eastern end it is called Merj ed-Dilb or Dhahret
Hadhūr, alt. 3,800 ft., on the top of which there is fine
spring pasturage and several fountains. E. of Hadhūr is a
height called Dhahret Quseir with a ruined castle, which
appears to be the highest point in this southern part. Its
summit is a rounded barren knoll and on its western declivity is
a copious fountain. In the vicinity of Sāfīta, the hills are
rounded and well wooded. The rock is mainly limestone
with occasional patches of pudding-stone and argillaceous
schist. In the valley of Nahr Ghamkeh to the NW. there is an
immense quantity of chert, quartz, chalcedony, and jasper.
Standing out from near the middle of the southern slopes
is the height upon which is built the crusading castle Qal'at
el-Husn, or Husn el-Akrād. Like an outpost guarding the
entrance to the eastern plain, the hill is nearly isolated
from the main chain being connected only on its western
side ; a deep valley or notch towards the N. lies obliquely
E. and W. cleaving the ridge almost to its base. From
this valley there ascends northwards to Dhahret Hadhūr
another which is well cultivated and planted with mulberry
and fruit trees. Strategically this hill has been one of the
most important points in Syrian history: it is the most southern
elevated point of the range and the strong and extensive
fort on its summit commanded the lines of communication
from the coast to Homs and Hama. The fort now encloses
an important village and still commands the modern chaussée
and railway from Tripoli to Homs on the S. as well as the
road to Hama through the pass and valley immediately
N. of it.
The country falling westward to the sea is in certain parts
covered with dwarf oaks and heaps of basalt boulders are
frequent. Great trap chasms traverse the region from east to
west through which streams find their way to the plain. To
the south-west of the heights of El-Husn a high alluvial plain
332
JEBEL ANSARIYEH
falls to Nahr el-Kebir, and towards the sea there are low
hills and swells descending to the rich, well-watered and
abundantly cropped maritime plain. On the E. the hill of
El-Husn is bounded by W. en-Nāsir, a deep valley with a
large stream, swampy and difficult in spring but dry in
summer, falling into the marshy El-Buqei'ah through which
flows the N. el-Kebīr.
El-Buqei'ah is a fertile shrub-covered plain situated between
the two mountain ranges; it is oval in form, and about 10-12
miles E. to W. and about 6 miles N. to S. On the SE. it is
bounded by the last spurs of the Lebanon to the east of which
Wādi Khālid enters, carrying the upper waters of Nahr el-Kebīr.
Towards the N. are the ridges of J. Ansarīyeh from which the
Husn ridge extends south-westwards, gradually diminishing
along the whole western side of the basin. This ridge sinks
very steeply on its east side but falls much more gradually
towards the west running out in low ridges and waving hills
to the western plain. The N. el-Kebir passes down its south-
western extremity and breaks through the western ridge by
a gorge. In El-Buqei'ah itself there are several springs, but
the Kebir is the only permanent stream entering or leaving
the exceedingly fertile and well cultivated plain.
To the E. overlooking the plain, are the heights of Hadīdeh
stretching to a length of 61 miles, the flanks resting on the
steep spurs to the N., and on the deep valley of Nahr el-Kebīr
with the steeper spurs of the Lebanon on the S. The Homs
chaussée passes across the level plain towards the southern
end of these heights and winds gradually up to the centre
of the ridge at Hadīdeh. The crest-line between Hadīdeh and
the first steep spurs of J. Ansarīyeh is open and of fairly easy
contour sloping gradually towards the plain, but the whole
ground is thickly strewn with basaltic boulders. S. of
Hadīdeh the slopes are covered with low scrub.
Eastwards towards Homs the country is comparatively
easy and open. The low watershed lies much nearer to
El-Buqei'ah than to the Orontes: the wādis falling westward
1 See W.O. Report on Syria 1911. Pt. I, p. 110.
of th of these hei cross the levbebanon
PHYSICAL SURVEY
333
into the former being short and sharp, whereas towards the
Orontes the fall is gradual. Robinson and other travellers are
of opinion that the waters of the Orontes, if carried off from
above Ribleh along the western side of the plain, might
all be turned across the watershed into El-Buqei'ah; the
course would be through comparatively level country. .
A great trap belt lies across the southern part of the range
and abuts against the northern slopes of the Lebanon. From
W. to E. the belt, in some places 1,500 ft. thick, extends from
about 4 miles from the coast to the Orontes valley, but not beyond
it. From a point just S. of Nahr ‘Akkār, its southern limit runs
E. by N. to the main ridge, then eastward to near the shore
of Homs lake. Its northern limit starts from about half way
between N. el-Kebīr and Tartūs, and swings north-east, then
northward to include Nebi Matta. The latter part of this
stretch runs along the western side of the main ridge only ;
on the eastern side of the main ridge the trap boundary extends
from a point 12 to 14 miles S. of Nebi Matta, to a point
about 5 miles N. of Homs.
Just S. of Shemsīyeh the main chain bends toward the SW.
This bend leaves a bay between the mountain mass at that
place and a similar one a few miles S. which is the northern
end of a trap ridge trending S. by E. to El-Buqei'ah. This ridge
bounds the upper valley of Nahr el-Kebir to the E. Between
the main ridge and this valley is a series of ridges radiating
in fan shape, all capped at their northern end by trap. The
ridge, opposite the southern end of the chain on which Qal'at
el-Husn stands, is composed of trap on its eastern, and
limestone on its western ends. At the bottom of the valleys,
especially that between the Husn range and the main chain,
the limestone underlies the trap, but there are occasional out-
crops. The trap crosses El-Buqei'ah and abuts against the
northern spurs of the Lebanon.
For description of the wādis and streams of J. Ansarīyeh,
see Chap. XIII, pp. 421 ff.
1 The identification of Nebi Matta is that made by Post, who puts it
about 5 miles to W. of Qal'at Masyād.
334
JEBEL ANSARIYEH
CASTLES AND ZIYĀREH'S
Castles
The whole of the range is studded with mediaeval castles
often covering earlier foundations ; they are conspicuous
landmarks and, like the ziyārehs, give their names to the
peaks and spurs on which they stand. By reason of their
functions as defences against invasion from the sea or the
eastern plain, as protectors of the highways, and as local
strongholds, they occupy important strategic positions. They
are often within signalling reach of each other. A few of the
remains cover very considerable areas, and within some of
them important villages and centres of local administration
now find protection. The wild and lawless life of the rebellious
Ansarīyeh and Ismāʻīlīyeh approximate to conditions of life
associated with such strongholds. The following are the
principal :
Qalʼat ez-Zau, also named El-Quseir, alt. 1,240 ft., is one
of the most northern castles and lies about 8 miles S. of
Antioch. It stands on a wooded limestone peak isolated on
all sides save the SW. where it is attached to and commanded
by a higher mountain on which stands the cupola of Weli
Sheikh ‘Ali. The cliffs surrounding it fall precipitously to the
bed of N. el-Bawardeh and its affluent. In shape it is an
irregular polygon, and only the eastern part of the fortifications
remains. A track follows along the banks of the river N. and
E. from which latter side a branch track leads up to the castle.
Qalat esh-Shughr, dominating the Orontes valley N. of Jisr
esh-Shughr, stands on the crest of a spur with precipitous
flanks on all sides save the S. where it is isolated from the
mountain by a wide and deep fosse. It lies in the bend of
N. el-Abyadh, which doubles round its northern end and
flows southwards along its eastern flank. A track from
Shughr el-Qadīm on the SW. follows the valleys and crosses
the stream by a bridge on the NW., doubling round the N.
end of the spur and following the l. bank of the stream.
CASTLES AND ZIYĀREH’S
335
Qalʼat Sahyūn, alt. 1,440 ft., lies E. by N. of Lādiqīyeh on
a tongue of rock forming an acute triangle jutting W. from
and attached to the base of a hill by which it is dominated.
It is a natural defence, being surrounded on all sides except
the E. by deep ravines carrying torrents which meet at the
western point of the triangle. On the E. it is isolated from
the hill by a deep and wide fosse. A road coming from NW.
leads into the northern valley and mounts to the fosse on the
E., then doubles round the SE. angle of the castle and enters
it at about the middle of the southern side. The Castle
commands a wide view of the surrounding country.
Qalat el-Mahālibeh, alt. 2,575 ft., lies E. by S. of Lādiqīyeh
crowning the summit of a mountain and dominating the
large village of Dibbāsh to NW. It is oval in shape measuring
about 220 yds. on its long E. to W. axis. It stands near the
pass over which runs the road to Qardāhah, and commands
a view to Lādiqīyeh.
Qalat Beni Isrā’īl lies S.1 of Matwar in a deep gorge
extending westward to the plain, which it defends.
Qalʼat es-Seijar, alt. 700 ft., is the most eastern fortress in
the mountain. It lies to the NW. of Hama and crowns the
crest of a narrow, rocky spur projecting northward and
bounded on the E. by the deep and precipitous gorge of the
Orontes, and on the N. and W. by rock precipices; on the S.
the spur is isolated by a deep and wide fosse. In shape it is
a narrow parallelogram measuring about 550 yds. by 50 yds.
dominating the river and the plain. The remains have very
nearly disappeared except on the north and south, where
considerable portions still exist. The site is now occupied by
a modern village.
Qalʼat el-Marqab, alt. 1,150 ft., is a coast fortress south of
Bāniyās, and stands on the summit of a volcanic rock close to
the sea. The site commands a very extensive view, and during
the time of the Crusades was an important signal station.
Now there is within its walls an Ansarīyeh village, pop. 1,500,
which up to 1885 was the capital of the kaza.
i On G.S.G.S. map 1915 Qal'at Beni Isrā’il is shown N. of Matwar.
336
JEBEL ANSARĪYEH
Qalʼat Qadmūs, alt. 2,785 ft., lies SE. of Bāniyās on a steep
crag dominating the large village of Qadmūs which is itself
surrounded by walls with two gates. It is the residence
of the chief of the Ismāʻīlīyeh who form the majority of the
inhabitants of this district.
Qalʼat el-Qāf lies SW. of Qadmūs and is a large fortress,
part of which is the residence of the mudir of the nahiyeh
of Qadmūs.
Qalʼat Masyād or Masyāf, alt. 1,675 ft., lies to the E. of
Qadmūs on a high and almost perpendicular rock at the foot
of the highest point of J. Masyād which rises precipitously
on the north. It commands the wild moor in every direction
and may be approached on two sides.
Qalʼat Sāfāta or Burj Sāfāta, alt. 1,510 ft., lies on the first
spurs of the mountain E. by S. of Tartūs. It occupies the
top of a conical trap hill which has been extended into a
terrace by heavy masonry walls about 40 ft. high. The hill
rises about 1,000 ft. above the valleys which isolate it N. and
S., while narrow and lower ridges connect with the nearest
hills on the E. and W. In shape it is an elongated octagon
172 paces E. to W. and 140 paces N. to S. Under the terrace
there are vast vaults and on it, near the east end, stands
a large and lofty tower. The position affords a wide view
in all directions and commands the pass and road from
Arwad and Tartūs over the mountain to Hama. The castle
was formerly a signal station in communication with Qal'at
el-Husn, Qalʼat el-'Oreimeh and El-Mineh (Tripoli).
Qalʼat el-Husn or Husn el-Akrād, see p. 331.
Ziyārehs
These places of pilgrimage are found in great numbers and,
on account of their prominent positions and whiteness, are
conspicuous landmarks. They give their names to the peaks
and spurs on which they stand. Going from N. to S.1 the
chief are :
1. The positions given in the G.S.G.S. map 1915 do not correspond with
the description here given, which is taken from Lyde, p. 170.
CASTLES AND ZIYĀREH'S
337
Nebi Yunis, alt. 4,940 ft., one of the highest peaks in the
north-eastern part of the mountains E. by N. of Lādiqīyeh.
Nebi Matta, alt. 3,585 ft., a very high peak S. of the abore.
The peak is volcanic and is on a branch ridge some distance
W. of the main ridge. The top is covered with bracken and
there are springs almost at its summit. Nearly the whole of
the northern part of the range can be seen from here.
Nebi Rubīl farther S., a conspicuous cone near the village
of Et-Tīneh.
El-Arba'in still farther S., another conspicuous hill.
Ja'far Teyyār, also called El-Malik, is said to be the
highest peak in the range and lies E: of Jebeleh on or near
the main ridge.
Ahmed Kirfās a spur N. of that on which Qalʼat el-Marqab
stands ; the ziyāreh resembles a small Cairo mosque, being
banded in red.
Shcikh Mahmūd el-'Ulleideh east of Bāniyās on Jurd el-
“Ulleigeh.
Nebi Shāt, alt. 3,500 ft., S. of Qadmūs; the upper slopes
are covered with thick ferns. The ascent can be made from
Qadmūs.
In the neighbourhood of Sāfīta nearly every conspicuous
peak is crowned by a ziyāreh.
TY
CLIMATE
The climate of the mountains and plains is especially.
agreeable. On the lower mountains the temperature in the
shade does not rise above 95° Fahr. though the east wind is
sometimes oppressive in summer; winter is short and snow
rarely falls in the plain. Ague and ophthalmia are not
uncommon during summer, arising from exposure to heat and
neglect of cleanliness.
East of the mountains the climate is far more unhealthy,
the marshes of the Orontes giying a pallid hue to all who live
near them. This locality is subject to fever and is infested
by mosquitoes of large size from which, during the heat of
summer, the natives seek refuge in the mountains.
SYRIA
338
JEBEL ANSARIYEH
NATURAL PRODUCTS
Minerals.-Asphalt and bitumen are among the unde-
veloped resources of the country. Prospecting licences were
granted as far back as 1850 for coal and asphalt mines at
Antioch and J. el-Aqra', but nothing has resulted. In the
Lādiqīyeh district an extensive concession for three mines
of bitumen and asphalt was granted to a British subject in
1904. These mines are too far from the coast to be profitably
worked without a light railway. Three chrome mines also in
the Lādiqīyeh district, all near the coast, are worked under
a protecting licence. The quantities extracted were as follows:
in 1904, 182 tons; 1905, 822 tons ; 1906, 21 tons; 1907, 64
tons.
Woods.—The steady destruction which has gone on for ages
has denuded the mountains of the greater part of their fine
forests yet, compared with southern Syria, there are still
considerable tracts of woodlands. The mountains above
Antioch are suited to trees of every kind but the whole
of J. Quseir has been almost entirely denuded. The northern
part of the range near the coast, with the exception of the
upper slopes and of J. el-Aqra', is clothed with fine pines and
oaks with occasional walnuts. East of Lādiqīyeh there are
woods of evergreen and other oaks, including the uzr which
is used for making fires to smoke the abu rīhah tobacco-leaf
(see p. 267). The N. ez-Zerqa and the upper reaches of N. el-
Kebīr flow through wooded country, and the surrounding hills
are covered with oaks and pines. On the eastern slopes of
J. Ansarīyeh there are forests of gall-bearing species of oak,
In the neighbourhood of Ja'far Teyyār there are woods of
å small kind of beech and oak, and in the districts of Sāfīta
and Husn el-Akrād there are wooded hills. The oleander
borders the streams and the myrtle abounds in the mountains
and plains throughout the whole region. The wild olive is
very common in the hills E. of Lādiqīyeh. The woods of
Sahyūn district are exploited by charcoal burners,
339
AGRICULTURE AND INDUSTRIES
Agriculture
J. Ansarīyeh has been described as a barren region but it is, in
fact, an extremely agreeable and fertile tract. Being lower and
less rocky, it is naturally much more fertile than the Lebanon.
The whole of the coastal plain is exceedingly fertile and is
well watered at its northern and southern extremities. In
the lower mountains and also in the higher altitudes, there
are fertile areas; one of the most fertile plains in the whole
mountains is El-Buqei'ah watered by the N. el-Kebīr. Except
in the case of olives, cocoons, tobacco, and liquorice root,
products are limited to local needs, the natives prefering
this to the burden of taxation which follows upon surplus
production. A great proportion of the ground is therefore
uncultivated and the primitive farming methods produce
only a necessary minimum from the areas under cultivation.
Grain and Bean Crops, &c.—Wheat, barley, dhura, sesame,
lentils, chickpeas, beans, vegetables and fruit of all kinds
are raised in small quantities chiefly on the coastal plain.
The wheat of Lādiqīyeh does not keep well, being liable to
attack by weevil. The land is prepared for wheat and barley
in October and November and harvest is about the end of
May. The ground then lies fallow till the next winter, when
it is ploughed and prepared for summer crops which are sown
in spring and reaped in autumn; these consist of dhura,
cotton, sesame, lentils, chickpeas, and castor oil. Tracts
of moist ground are chosen for melons, cucumbers, tomatoes,
egg-plant, &c.
Sericulture.-Mulberry trees are extensively cultivated in
the Antioch valley. The silk industry of the Antioch district
increased by about 50 per cent. between 1900 and 1910. The
eggs are chiefly imported from France and 377,000 kg. were
bought for Antioch in 1908–9, to which must be added 306,000
kg. locally produced (Weakley). The greater part of these is
used for the extensive areas outside the Ansarīyeh region,
in the neighbourhood of Suweidīyeh and elsewhere in the
Y 2
340
JEBEL ANSARĪYEH
Antioch kaza. The weight of green cocoons produced in the
Antioch kaza in 1908–9, was 1,427,208 lb., and of this
amount 1,343,290 lb. were dried and exported via Alexan-
dretta. Only defective cocoons remain in the country, and
silk from these is spun and woven at Antioch. The Lādiqīyeh
district produces large quantities of cocoons which are dried
and exported, no local weaving being carried on. The produce
of the southern and south-eastern areas finds nearer markets
in Tripoli and Homs where silk is extensively manufactured.
Olives.-Olive trees are found everywhere throughout the
mountains, particularly in J. Quseir, and a certain increase
in the Antioch and Lādiqīyeh districts is noticeable ; excessive
taxation has, however, seriously burdened an otherwise profit-.
able industry. Wild olive trees grow in abundance on the
slopes near Lādiqīyeh; young trees are uprooted to stock new
groves, the transplanted tree becoming fruit-bearing 5 years
after grafting.
Tobacco.-The region is noted for tobacco which is grown
throughout the mountains. The hill country behind Lādiqīyeh
is, however, the chief area where it is extensively cultivated.
The best-known brand is abu rīhah, a black leaf grown
especially in the Sahyūn and Jebeleh districts. This leaf
is almost entirely exported to the United Kingdom, the
average yearly production during. 1905-9 being nearly 900
tons. Another quality which is sold to the Ottoman Régie
is the brand shalcic el-bent, the average yearly yield of which
was 250 tons for the years 1905–9. In both kinds, there
was a very large increase during the years 1908–9. (See also
p. 266 f.)
Liquorice root.—The plant is found near marshes and on
river banks : it abounds in the valley and plain of Antioch and,
in the Ansarīyeh region, it has been found in J. Quseir. It
grows wild and the roots are dug up during winter. The
plant in its natural state is said to be much depleted and
cultivation will be required in order to meet the needs of the
industry.
· Fruit trees of every description flourish throughout, but
U
AGRICULTURE AND INDUSTRIES
341
especially around Lādiqīyeh ; oranges and lemons though
not extensively cultivated, are found on the plains. The
vines in the neighbourhood of Lādiqīyeh produce excellent
wine.
Live-stock. In those parts of the mountains within the
kazas of Antioch and Jisr esh-Shughr, the sanjaq of
Lādiqīyeh, and the kazas of Sāfīta, and Husn el-Akrād, the live-
stock appears to be fairly evenly distributed. The following
figures are roughly computed from Cuinet's estimates (1896):
Cattle 9,000, horses 4,000, asses and mules 5,000, sheep 55,000,
goats 300,000, camels 500. The small number of pack
animals is an indication of the extreme industrial stagnation
throughout these regions. In addition to the above there is also
the area on the north-eastern slopes of the mountains in the
kaza of Hamidīyeh where the natives graze their flocks and
herds in the great valley of the Orontes. There is; besides,
the extensive mountain tract enclosed within the great eastern
bend of the Orontes near Qalʼat es-Seijar, southwards to
El-Buqei'ah, which belongs to the kazas of Hamidīyeh, Hama,
and Homs. No reliable statistics are obtainable upon which
an estimate of the stock in these latter regions can be based,
although it is certain that, at least in the vicinity of the
Orontes valley, the numbers are very considerable.
Excellent pasturage is found in various areas, particularly
in the districts of Sahyūn and Sāfīta, Husn el-Akrād, and
in the Orontes valley. During spring the mountains are
richly covered with verdure.
Poultry raising appears to be extensive. There is a very
large export trade in eggs which are mostly packed whole, only
the yolks and albumen of very stale and broken eggs being
separately packed. The number annually exported from
Lādiqīyeh amounts to 12,000,000 out of a total for all the
Syrian ports of 22,500,000.
Industries
Olive Oil.—The berries are gathered about the end of
October and are crushed in the primitive presses common
342
JEBEL ANSARIYEH
to the country. There is much waste in the process and
it is estimated that only about 50 per cent. of the average
crop can be dealt with on account of the lack of sufficient
presses. Processes of refining are unknown and fermentation
sets in if the oil is kept too long. Edible oil is not largely
produced in this region, the yield being almost entirely used
for soap making.
Taking the average of two years' production (Weakley) the
quantities are as under :
Tripoli sanjaq, part of which is in J. Ansarīyeh . . 2,000,000 oqqahs
Antioch and ſisr esh-Shughr,
2,000,000 ,
Lādiqiyeh, Bāniyās, and district
. . 700,000 »
Total . . 4,700,000
Soap manufacture. There are 14 factories in Antioch and
4 in Lādiqīyeh for the manufacture of soap from olive oil ;
most of them are small native factories producing as follows:
Antioch . . . 1,220,000 oqqahs
Lādiqiyeh . .
300,000 »
The soap is hard and lathers badly but is considered to be
more economical on that account, and is much in demand.
The industry has recently much increased owing to the
greater demand in Asia Minor (Weakley).
ABITANTS
The population of J. Ansarīyeh is very mixed. Turko-
mans, Arabs, Kurds, Ismāʻīlīyeh and Christians intermingling
with the Ansarīyeh, who are much the most numerous and
important. No definite statistics are available ; the numbers
given below are the estimates in round numbers of Cuinet,
1896–1901 :
Ansarīyeh . .
110,000
Moslems .
90,000
Christians .
45,000
Ismāʻīlīyeh .
9,000
Druses . . . . . . 3,000
Jews . .
1,000
Total . .
. . 258,000
INHABITANTS
343
The Ansarīyeh inhabit chiefly the sanjaq of Lādiqīyeh and
the kazas of Sāfīta, Husn el-Akrād, Antioch, and Jisr esh-
Shughr; very few are found east of Masyād and Qal'at el-Husn.
Moslems and Christians are most numerous along the
coast and at Antioch, and are scattered throughout the
mountains.
The Ismāʻīlīyeh are found chiefly in the vicinity of Masyād
and Qadmūs. Druses are found in the south-eastern part of
the mountain in the vicinity of Hamidīyeh and Hama.
Previous to 1914 emmigration to N. and S. America had
considerably lowered the population of the mountain.
See also Chap. V, pp. 215 ff.
CHAPTER XI
COUNTRY EAST OF JEBEL ANSARIYEH
This territory includes the Orontes valley and a parallel
belt of broken mountains and plains bordering the great
Syrian desert. On the west, east, and south, it is contained
within definite natural boundaries, but on the north the limit
is arbitrarily drawn to conform to the southern limit of the
section under 'North Syria' (see Handbook of Asia Minor,
Vol. IV, part 2).
The eastern plateau is easily traversed, and its geographical
importance is indicated in the great trunk routes by which
it is intersected, linking up the rich inland cities of Aleppo,
Hama, Homs, and Damascus. These cities, especially Aleppo,
are the chief trade centres between the Mediterranean and
Mesopotamia, along a line of about 190 miles. At the
same time they lie in the direct line of communication
with the great Islamic centre at Mecca. Roads and
railways now link them up, affording access to the ports of
Alexandretta, Tripoli, Beirut, Haifa and Jaffa ; future develop-
ments might with advantage add communications with other
ports, notably those of Lādiqīyeh, Sidon, and Tyre. .
The region generally is poorly developed, sparsely populated,
and, except in the central depression, suffers from lack of
water. Its wealth lies almost entirely in and around the
cities which are centres of flourishing industries where most of
the surplus produce of the eastern nomads is bartered.
AREA
The region is bounded on the north by a line Jisr el-Hadīd-
Hārim-Aleppo-Meskeneh ; on the south by the northern bases
of the Anti-Lebanon system shooting north-eastward into the
AREA
345
desert; on the west by J. Ansarīyeh ; and on the east by the
desert. It measures approximately 120 miles from N. to S.,
and the total area is about 4,000 square miles.
The administrative areas taken from north to south include
parts of the kazas of Hārim, Aleppo, Bāb-Jebbül (El-Bāb), and
Jisr esh-Shughr, and the whole of the kazas of Idlib and
Ma'aret en-Nu'mān, all of which are in the sanjaq and
vilayet of Aleppo. To south of these the territory includes
the greater part of the kazas of Hamidīyeh, Hama, Homs,
and Selemīyeh in the sanjaq of Hama, vilayet of Damascus.
PHYSICAL SURVEY
Relief
The plateau is in general bare, treeless, and waterless,
becoming more and more arid as it approaches the desert.
Except in the districts of Aleppo, Hama, and Homs, where the
population and cultivation are fairly large, it is sparsely
inhabited and only partially cultivated.
Lying over against the Orontes valley and rising from the
plateau are several detached mountain groups of irregular
structure having no uniform watershed. They form a continua-
tion of the broken highlands which run south from the Kurd
Dagh plateau in North Syria, lining the eastern verge of the
great central depression. The most northern of these are the
twin ridges J. el-'Ala and J. Bārīsheh, merging eastwards into
J. Halaqah. Standing out from the southern base of the
former is the small isolated J. Wustāni surrounded by
plains and marshes. Farther south is J. Rīha and still
farther south is the elevated plateau, ‘Alāla, lying to east,
of Hama. Towards Homs, only low hills and undulations
mark the border of the plateau which continues southwards
until it is interrupted by the Anti-Lebanon chains and their
eastern spurs.
Rolling country accentuated by occasional low hills
marking the beginnings of the higher northern plateau
of Kurd Dagh, stretches eastward from J. Halaqah to
346
COUNTRY EAST OF JEBEL ANSARIYEH
the Kuwaik Su just south of Aleppo, beyond which the low
ridge of J. el-Hāss runs south-eastward into the desert.
Standing out south-east of this ridge, is J. Shebīt, a small
isolated hill rising from the desert plain. Enclosed within
these mountain groups is the great cultivable plain, its
fertility diminishing as it merges into the desert which spreads
eastward in arid expanses of plains and mountains to the
Euphrates valley. Throughout the whole region the only
wooded areas consist of unimportant groups of trees. In the
district of Hama there are poplar plantations along the
banks of the Orontes.
The parallel ridges of J. el-^Ala, and J. Bārīsheh, (E.), run
north and south and are partly separated by Wādi Hattān.
The rocky and bare formation is limestone with steep
and rugged sides, from which the soil has been washed
by winter rains and torrents through deep chasms to the
valleys and marshes below; only small pockets of arable
land here and there remain. The whole group covering an
area of about 12 by 10 miles, rises from the plain on all sides
except the NE. where the foothills merge into J. Halaqah.
Taken as a whole, these mountains are higher and far more
rugged than J. Riha, there are fewer villages, and the cultivated
areas are more scanty ; being almost waterless and barren,
the population is small and poor. Numerous ruins of exten-
sive ancient cities and settlements with many cisterns and
innumerable oil and wine presses testify to a prosperity and
productiveness which has long since disappeared.
The elongated ridge of J. el-'Ala extends due N. and S. for
a distance of 10 miles, rising to an alt. of 1,885 ft. at Ben Abil
on the northern verge, and having its highest peak, alt.
2,385 ft., towards the S. Unlike the other approaches
which are steep and difficult, that from El-Amq (Antioch
plain) is fairly easy, being difficult only because of the rifts
and chasms. The dividing valley, W. Hattān, falls towards
the N., and at its head is closed by highlands which unite the
twin ridges. Its rich red soil washed from the surrounding
slopes is extremely fertile and produces the greater part
PHYSICAL SURVEY
347
of the crops in the locality. During the rainy season the
whole valley becomes a shallow lake.
The main ridge of J. Bārīsheh terminates on the N. in the
high peak of Qubbet Bābūteh, and on the S. by a steep rock
wall falling to lower heights which continue southwards until
they drop to the level plain. This southern part is less rugged
and has more soil than the other parts. There are large olive
groves on the northern slopes which fall steeply to a deep
valley running to the Antioch plain; this valley separates
the mountain from the low hills to the N. The peak Qubbet
Bābūteh commands a view over a great part of Syria in every
direction. Its north-eastern side falling to the low foothills
which touch the Sermada plain, are steep, rugged, and in
places, almost impassable. In the immediate vicinity of the
plain the watershed inclines towards the plain, and much soil
is carried from the slopes into that fertile basin. From the
north-eastern foothills, a low ridge, J. Halaqah, sweeps east-
wards and, describing a circle, completely surrounds the plain.
The great cone of J. Sheikh Barakāt, alt. 2,970 ft., rises at
the north-eastern point of the circle and is structurally a part
of this ridge which, with the surrounding country, it com-
pletely dominates.
The Sermada plain is an irregular oval in shape about
10 miles long on its NE.-SW. axis, and 3-4 miles on its
minor axis. It is an extremely fertile tract of rich red soil
sheltered in the heart of the mountains, containing several
villages and yielding supplies for a considerable population.
Jebel Rīha.--This group is also called J. ez-Zāwiyeh, or
J. el-Arba'in, 'mount of the forty' (martyrs). It rises from the
plain to the S. of J. Bārīsheh having the small isolated ridge
J. Wustāni,' middle mountain', between, from which it is
separated by the marshy plain of Er-Rūj, a fertile tract about
3 miles wide and many miles long. The area of the massif is
about 14-16 sqr. miles; from it, low spurs shoot out southward
towards Qal'at el-Mudhiq overlooking the Orontes valley.
Although some of the peaks are higher, the general elevation is
lower than that of the Bārīsheh group, and the isolated position
348 COUNTRY EAST OF JEBEL ANSARĪYEH
makes it appear to be higher than it is. The most prominent
peak is Tell Nebi Ayyūb, alt. 2,955 ft., standing on the western
side of the mountain ; Tell Sheikh Tūmān, alt. 2,790 ft.,
stands farther S.; and Khirbet Hāss, alt. 2,104 ft., is some
distance to SE.
The formation of J. Rīha is limestone with a rocky semi-
desert surface not so rugged or precipitous and less barren
than the northern group of 'Ala and Bārīsheh. There are
several broad and level arable tracts in the hills where olive
trees, vines, and sparse crops of grain are raised, and there
are olive plantations wherever the soil will bear. The district
on the NW. between Tell Nebi Ayyüb and the village of Rība,
is more fertile than the other parts.
Numerous ruins of ancient cities with oil and wine presses,
now entirely unoccupied, are scattered about. The only
important villages in the locality occupy prominent heights :
these are Rīha, alt, 1,971 ft., on the northern verge; El-Bāra,
alt. 2,138 ft., in the centre ; and Hāss, alt. 1,995 ft., on the S.
‘Alūla.-The name given to this mountain distinguishes it
from J. el-'Ala of the northern group. It lies immediately
E. of Hama on a NW. and SE. axis, and is bounded by
well defined limits. From Selemīyeh at its SE. angle, it
runs W. then NW., overlooking the Orontes. Its eastern
slopes rise from the marshy plain ; on the N. it rises very
gradually; on all the other sides it is precipitous. The
top is a rolling plateau which maintains similar physical
characteristics throughout, and varies in altitude from 1,300 ft.
on the N. and E., to 1,600 ft. on the SW. In this latter part
the wādis are more deep and precipitous than on the N., where
they become broad and shallow. The plateau is of basalt
overlying a stratum of crumbly calcareous limestone. Where
the basalt soil is deep the surface is loose and treacherous,
difficult to traverse in summer and impassable in winter ;
where the limestone is closer to the surface, as happens some-
times on the crests, the ground is firm but of little value for
cultivation. The surface generally is very fertile and is
dotted with small villages which occupy ancient sites and,
PHYSICAL SURVEY
349
like the other hills in this region, it is strewn with extensive
remains of numerous ancient cities. Vegetation is scanty
consisting chiefly of scattered patches of grass and low scrub.
Water is scarce, the supply being mostly from cisterns.
‘Alāla marks the southern limit of a great basalt region which
extends northward for 45 miles to J. el-Hāss, the Aleppo-
Hama chaussée marking quite accurately the division between
this basaltic country and the limestone country which lies
west of it.
Jebel el-Hāss is a long and low basaltic ridge lying NW, and
SE., the rocky and well-watered slopes and valleys on its
northern side being cultivated. At the foot of the range lies
the salt lake Es-Sabkheh.
vu.
The Plateau.
This elevated tract lies at a mean alt. of about 1,000 ft.
with a gradual slope eastward. The surface is undulating
and intersected by shallow wādis with occasional high swells
and hillocks; it is practically treeless and waterless. West
of the Damascus-Aleppo chaussée, the formation is limestone;
east of it, the basalt belt commences and extends approxi-
mately to a line from Aleppo to Selemīyeh where it gives
way again to limestone. The arable belt from the eastern
verge of the central depression stretches between and around
the isolated mountain groups finally merging into the desert.
The southern part of the plateau extends from Ribleh, where
the Orontes commences a western bend, and includes the
wide and level plain of Homs, north of which it narrows
down and then extends eastwards to Selemīyeh. North of
Selemīyeh it, follows the eastern verge of the basaltic belt
for some distance and then begins to widen eastward striking
through the neighbourhood of Anderīn to the Euphrates
valley near Raqqah, and so forming the northern borders
of the desert. Conflicting reports as to the eastern and
northern limits of the cultivable part of the plateau suggest
that large tongues of desert or semi-desert country penetrate
within the limits given above, for long stretches of the railway
350
COUNTRY EAST OF JEBEL ANSARIYEH
line between Aleppo and Hama are said to lie in desert
country.
Large areas of the plateau are exceedingly fertile and well
cultivated, chiefly in the Homs and Hama districts, and also
near Ma'aret en-Nu'mān, Idlib, and Selemīyeh. Tracts of great
fertility are also found around the many marshes which lie at
the mountain bases and in the open plain towards the desert.
Studded all over the plateau, are artificial mounds, often of
great size, on some of which there are modern villages ; the
villages are grouped around the bases of other mounds.
A considerable number of the mounds show no signs of occu-
pation either ancient or modern.
The Orontes Valley.
For the description of the R. Orontes, see Chap. XIII,
pp. 397 ff.
CLIMATE AND HYGIENE
The temperature of the plain is subject to extremes of heat
and to bitter cold winds. During summer it is not uncommon
to have a temperature of 95° to 100° Fahr., and in winter
occasional blizzards sweep over the whole plain. As a rule
however, the summer heat is not excessive, spring and
autumn are mild, and winter is not cold except at high alti-
tudes. The average rainfall at Damascus is said not to exceed
12 in., but the localities of Homs and Hama enjoy a heavier
rainfall on account of their being more open to the heavily
charged clouds crossing from the west. The dew-fall is heavy
in some parts ; in the plain of Idlib it provides sufficient
moisture for raising a considerable cotton crop. The rainy
winds come from SW. Siroccos prevail mostly in early spring
and are often followed by refreshing rains ; they are most
intolerable when they occur in midsummer.
The marshy valley of the Orontes is very hot and unhealthy,
particularly the section El-Ghāb where a pallid hue is given
to all who live near. Fever is here prevalent, and this part
is infested by mosquitoes of unusual size and flies which
CLIMATE AND HYGIENE
351
viciously attack man and beast; in summer they force the
inhabitants to the higher slopes. The country along the
heights to the east of El-Ghāb is very salubrious. In the plain
fever is prevalent wherever marshes occur, but the sea and
mountains on the west and the desert on the east contribute
to the maintenance of a purity of air which makes the region
healthy in general.
AGRICULTURE AND INDUSTRIES
Agriculture
Farming is conducted entirely in primitive fashion, modern
implements and methods being unknown. The indolence of
the natives, the lack of security and transport and of initiative
on the part of the Government and large land-owners are
reflected in the vast areas of uncultivated arable land to be
seen everywhere. The irrigation possibilities of the Orontes
and Homs lake are untapped and crops depend entirely upon
rainfall. Droughts sometimes have disastrous effect and
much destruction is frequently caused by locusts from the
desert. The greater part of the population of Homs and
Hama are engaged in agriculture, and the latter town is
surrounded by a wide circle of prosperous villages.
The best-cropped lands are those in the Hama sanjaq
and the two adjoining kazas of Ma'aret en-Nuómān and Idlib;
the first-mentioned is the most productive of the whole region.1
It is not possible to coordinate the following estimates
as the areas to which they refer are not clearly defined.
Grain and bean crops.—The average annual produce of the
sanjaq of Hama is roughly valued as follows (Cuinet 1896):
Cereals
. £800,000
Beans and peas. .
. 400,000
Aniseed . . . . . . .
· 103,000
. . 350,000
Total . . . . . . £1,653,000
In 1909 the districts of Homs and Hama were reckoned
to give an annual yield of £300,000 worth of barley, £100,000
The kaza of Aleppo is not included in this section.
Sesamo
352 COUNTRY EAST OF JEBEL ANSARĪYEH
of wheat, £140,000 of wool, and £50,000 of butter (German
consular report).
The production of all cereals from the districts of Homs
and Hama does not fall short of 2,500,000 bushels in a normal
year, although only a small part of the arable land is cultivated.
These districts have water near at hand in the Orontes and
Homs lake (see p. 398), and with a proper irrigation system,
great tracts now lying fallow could be cultivated (Weakley).
· Except in the neighbourhood of Maʻaret en-Nu'mān and
Idlib which are thickly studded with villages, and in the plain of
Sermada, the country in the north is poorly cultivated. South
of a line Aleppo-Meskeneh, where the arable land stretches
towards the desert, the country supports poor crops of grain
and good spring grazing. Between Raqqah and Serīyeh,
the saltness of the soil prevents cultivation. The country
between Serīyeh and Anderīn, which formerly supported
a fairly dense population, has been out of cultivation for
centuries. In the neighbourhood of Selemīyeh, the country
along the stream which flows from Barreh to the Orontes is
fertile and partially cultivated.
Cotton is extensively grown in the district of Idlib and
Dāna. The former ranks next to Adana (Cilicia) in impor-
tance as a cotton-growing centre. The land is not irrigated,
the necessary moisture being mainly supplied by heavy dews
(see p. 350). The country about Homs and Hama is admirably
suited to cotton cultivation. - Where experiments have been
made, no doubt remains as to its suitability and there are
many thousands of acres available within easy reach of the
Orontes and Homs lake which could easily be adapted to
irrigation.
Tobacco. Throughout the whole region tobacco is generally
grown, but only in small quantities.
Olives. The chief olive-growing districts are those of
Idlib and Hārim; elsewhere this industry is not extensive.
In these districts the total annual production amounts to
nearly 3,200 tons.
Live-stock.–Stock-raising here as elsewhere in Syria is an
AGRICULTURE AND INDUSTRIES
353
important industry. Large numbers are raised on the fine
pasturage of the Orontes valley of El-Ghāb, and there the
marshy land is peculiarly suitable for rearing large herds of
buffaloes. The Bedouin in the eastern desert and Euphrates
valley are extensive stock-raisers, and they penetrate the
adjoining regions during the time of spring pasture. Spring
S. of Aleppo and Meskeneh. The district of Raqqah is one
of the finest stock-raising districts. In the neighbourhood
of Selemīyeh there is fine pasturage, chiefly along the stream
raised. In the country between Serīyeh and Anderīn there is
good pasturage which is much frequented by the Bedouin.
The following round figures give Cuinet's estimates for
the sanjaq of Hama: cattle 12,000, buffaloes 8,000, horses
12,000, asses and mules 28,000, camels 2,700, sheep and goats
199,000. Poultry is raised universally and bee-keeping is
generally prevalent. There is no information upon which an
estimate can be based of the considerable amount of live-stock
raised in the northern districts under the sanjaq of Aleppo.
Wool. Aleppo, Homs, and Hama are the chief centres of
the wool trade and nearly all the produce from both sides of
the Euphrates is sold in these markets. With the approach
of spring, the nomads move to summer quarters in the N.,
and during that period do business in the towns, bringing
with them large quantities of wool. The amount of greasy
wool purchased annually at Homs and Hama is estimated at
1,797,700 lbs. and 2,538,000 lbs. respectively (Weakley).
Semen. This is a kind of native butter brought by
the nomads to Aleppo and Hama which are the recognized
centres of the trade. It is packed in skins and sold in these
towns during April, May, and June. The quality brought
during this season is known as semen hacīdi and the total
amount sold in normal years varies from 570 to 900 tons ;
after a season of good pasturage the yield is as much as
1,700 to 2,000 tons. About 40 to 45 per cent. of this amount
is disposed of in Hama, the value of which in a normal year
SYRIA
2
354 COUNTRY EAST OF JEBEL ANSARĪYEH
is about £40,000. About £10,000 worth is also brought to
Homs, most of which is sent to the district of Damascus.
Of the total amount brought to Aleppo and Hama, about
20 per cent. remains in the country, 50 per cent. goes to
Europe and 30 per cent. goes to Smyrna and Constantinople.
An inferior quality called semen gharīb is brought in petroleum
tins chiefly to Aleppo during October, November, and Decem-
ber. It is very much adulterated and the whole of it is sent
to Egypt (Weakley). Besides these, a small quantity of
buffalo butter is brought from the Raqqah district and sent
to Egypt. (See also p. 274.)
Industries
Weaving.–The textile products of the towns of Homs and
Hama are famed throughout Turkish territory. There has
been an appreciable lowering of production within recent years
caused by the introduction of cheap European imitations,
Homs ranks with Aleppo as the largest manufacturing centre.
The cloths of Homs are dearer and finer than those of Aleppo,
and are much sought after. Hama produces only a compara-
tively small amount of cotton goods. The looms, of primitive
make, are usually set up in private houses, but there are
also a great many in small khāns or kaiser-liks. In Homs
there are 10,000 looms for cotton, cotton and silk, and silk
stuffs ; in Hama there are only 1,000 looms used entirely
for cotton stuffs. These together form over one-third of the
total loom power of the whole of Syria (Weakley). It is
estimated that in Homs from £200,000 to £300,000 worth
of cloths are manufactured and sold every year, from 40 to 70
per cent. of the total being taken by Egypt. (See also pp. 284ff.)
Dyes and Dyeing. There are 22 dye-houses at Homs, 10 at
Hama, 3 at Idlib, and 2 at Hārim (1910). Dye-houses vary in
size from 5 to 70 troughs (Weakley). (See also p. 287.)
Olive Oil.—There are three factories for olive-oil soap in
Idlib and one in Rīha, and the soap produced from the
district of Idlib in a normal year amounts to about 450 tons
(Weakley).
AGRICULTURE AND INDUSTRIES
355
Alkali.-Along the shores of the salt lake of Es-Sabkheh
(Jebbūl) the qili plant is found from which the inhabitants
obtain alkali by burning, for use in the manufacture of soap.
This plant is also found at Tadmor (Palmyra).
Salt.—In the Sabkheh, the only one of the northern
group of lakes which is exploited (see p. 95), there is a vast
deposit of pure salt. Although only partially developed the
yield is sufficient for the demands of the greater part of Syria.
In spite of the military guard a large contraband trade is
carried on by the Bedouin. The chief salt stores are at Jebbūl
on the east side of the lake.
INHABITANTS
Reliable estimates of the sedentary population are not
available. The following approximate figures are those given
in Cuinet's estimates of 1892 and 1896. The numbers do not
include the population of that part which comes within the
kaza of Aleppo.
Moslems
350,000
Christians .
. . . 90,000
Druses
. .. 30,000
Total . . . . . . 470,000
In addition to the above there is a small number of Jews,
and in the western districts there are a few Ansarīyeh. The
number of Bedouin cannot be estimated as their occupation
of this region is mostly confined to the season of spring
pastures. Over two-thirds of the Moslems, nearly the whole
of the Christians, and the whole of the Druses, are found in
the region west of the line Aleppo-Selemīyeh. In the kazas of
Hama and Homs alone there are 145,000 Moslems and 60,000
Christians. The wide circle of prosperous villages surround-
ing these two cities are inhabited by Arabs, Turkomans,
and Circassians. Recent emigration to America has, however,
lowered the population in these districts. In the kaza of Sele-
mīyeh there are 17,000 Druses, and the remainder of the sect
in this region are found chiefly in the kazas of Hamidīyeh and
22
356
COUNTRY EAST OF JEBEL ANSARIYEH
Hama, a good many inhabiting Jebel Rīha and Jebel
Bārīsheh.
Many Turkomans with their stock periodically occupy
El-Ghāb. The fellahin who cultivate this valley plain usually
live on the heights, and when their villages are distant they
encamp during the seasons of cultivation and harvest. There
are some Druse villages on and south of J. Rīha and also
on J. el-'Ala. A considerable number of Circassian villages are
found between Jisr el-Hadīd and Aleppo. Between Ma'aret
en-Nu'mān and Aleppo there are a number of Ismāʻīlīyeh
villages.
CHAPTER XII
LEBANON, ANTI-LEBANON, AND DAMASCUS PLAIN
CE
ALTHOUGH geographically quite distinct, these regions are
interdependent. The separate ranges of Lebanon and Anti-
Lebanon have common ground in the great central depression
which divides them and drains their flanks. To them this
fertile plain is of vital necessity, providing as it does tracts
of arable and pasture land the scarcity of which is a serious
want in the adjoining mountains. Again, the Damascus plain
is linked to Anti-Lebanon by the Barada, without whose waters
the city and its gardens could not exist.
The Lebanon range, Jebel Libnān or Jebel el-Gharbi, western
mountain', is clearly defined by natural boundaries on all
sides. Essentially a mountain tract having only detached
strips of maritime plain, it is the highest, most rugged and
picturesque, best watered and best developed region in the
whole of Syria.
Its fertility is assured by the innumerable springs which
burst from the western face of the mountain, and its wealth
lies chiefly in mulberry groves and vineyards. In Beirut, it
possesses the first port of Syria and one of the first in the
Mediterranean, while the port of Tripoli is steadily gaining
in importance with the increased facilities of inland com-
munication. In the future development of these two ports
there seems little doubt that the great mountain barrier
must eventually become a serious menace to the present
supremacy of Beirut. There are also several small harbours,
now silted up and little used, awaiting a revival of their
ancient service, notably the ports of Saida (Sidon) and Sūr
(Tyre), which form natural stations for traffic between Baghdad
and the Mediterranean via Damascus. The nature of the country
358 LEBANON, ANTI-LEBANON, DAMASCUS PLAIN
has made railway communication a problem of too many
difficulties for quick solution, and in this respect the moun:
tain is almost entirely undeveloped. There is no province
in Syria, however, where systematic road communication
has been so fully provided.
The Lebanese have long been considered superior among
the peoples of Syria, and a constant process of emigration
and subsequent return to the industries of their native mountain
have established a condition of comparative affluence and en-
lightenment here which is at once an asset to the province and
a menace to Ottoman rule. By reason of its fertility, its
unrivalled scenery and salubrious climate, Lebanon is one
of the most agreeable regions in the world and has become
the most popular health resort of Egypt and the Levant.
Anti-Lebanon in its southern half, although less abundantly
watered, presents physical characteristics in many ways
similar to Lebanon. It is, however, thinly populated and its
present comparatively unfavourable condition bears striking
testimony to the advantages of the measure of independence
which Lebanon enjoys. In the north it is waterless and
barren.
The Damascus plain has always been the garden of Syria.
It is in fact the only spot in the country where the productive-
ness of the past has been in any way maintained, a condition
made possible by the easily adaptable irrigation system of the
Barada. Damascus, lying on the NW. verge of the plain, is,
next to Aleppo, the greatest city between Mesopotamia and
the sea and, being a centre of communication, is the chief place
of assembly for the pilgrimage to Mecca.
LEBANON
Area
The Lebanon range is separated from J. Ansarīyeh on the
N.. by the Nahr el-Kebir; it is bounded on the S. by the
Nahr Qāsimīyeh (Lītāni) ; on the W. by the sea ; and on
the E. by the great central depression in which are the Lītāni
LEBANON
359
and the Orontes rivers. The length from N. to S. is about
105 miles ; the width varies from about 16 miles on the
southern extremity, to about 35 miles opposite Tripoli. The
total area is about 3,000 sq. miles.
The province of Lebanon is a mutesarrifliq, with a Christian
governor holding the title of mushīr and having the powers
of a vali. It covers only part of the Lebanon range, other
parts, on the north and the south, being included in the
vilayet of Beirut. On the N., the kazas of Akkar and Tripoli
and, on the S., the kaza. of Saida, are within the geographical
limits of the range. The eastern boundary of the province
runs roughly along the main ridge as far as Zahleh where it
dips down to include that town; farther north it dips again
to include the village of Shemustar. Thence it again follows
the main ridge, and, after dropping to the lower plateau at
‘Ain Ata, breaks north-westward over the ridge towards
Tripoli. On the northern side, the boundary projects to the
NE. so as to include J. Tara bul as far as the N. el-Bārid, but
excluding the town of Tripoli and a strip of the coastal plain
adjoining. The eastern slopes of the Lebanon range come
almost entirely under the adjoining vilayet of Damascus ; in
the N. a large part of the western slopes come under the
vilayet of Beirut. Included in the province, also, is the
nahiyeh of Hermil, an isolated strip of territory extending E.
to the Orontes, from J. ‘Akkār.1 Enclaved by the western
border of the province is the isolated kaza of Beirut comprising
the city and its environs. The town of Beirut is the admini-
strative centre of the vilayet of that name.
The mutesarrifliq is divided into the seven kazas of Shūf,
Meten, Kesrawān, Batrūn, Jezzīn, Zahleh and Kūrah ; and one
mudiriyeh, Deir el-Qamr. There are about 930 towns, villages,
and hamlets within the administrative area.
1 The W.0. Map 1916 and Opponheim's map show this district as if
extending eastward from Merj Ahin at the upper basc of the main ridge
and the Orontes; but in the map 'Province du Liban' by Huber, the district
of Hermil includes only a small strip of the plain and foot-hills to W, of the
Orontes.
360 LEBANON, ANTI-LEBANON, DAMASCUS PLAIN
Physical Features
Coast and coastal plain. From the Nahr el-Kebir south-
wards the coast is shingly beach merging into the wide,
fertile, well-watered and cultivated plain which spreads from
behind Tartūs as far as Qal'at Hakmūn where the foot-hills
approach nearer to the sea, and the plain becomes narrower.
Ras el-Lados is a rocky bluff 130 ft. high, the termination of
a spur from J. Tarabul. The narrow and richly cultivated
plain continues towards Tripoli, terminating at the low
point of El-Mīneh and intersected by N. Qadīsha. Between
the river and the ras is a line of square towers prominent
among which is Burj es-Seba'. From El-Mineh, the coast
for 24 miles is mostly sandy beach partly bordered by rocks ;
for 12 miles farther it becomes rocky and rises to alt. 750 ft. at
Mār Ya'qub. The plain is very fertile and bears, besides.cereals,
large groves of olive, orange and lemon-trees, as far south as
Qalamūn. It is interrupted by Ras Shaq‘ah, alt. 620 ft., a moun-
tain spur which projects far into the sea and, like Carmel,
terminates in a lofty abrupt head. The spur is chalky marl,
very white and easily washed away, and the road across it
winds over a treacherous surface amidst curiously-shaped cones
and high precipices. On the promontory there is a castle,
on a perpendicular rock, reached by rock-cut steps.
The plain is intersected by several small streams in deep
channels, so narrow that in places it is possible to step from
bank to bank. In winter these streams are troublesome and
even dangerous to cross. The soft and easily worn rock pro-
trudes through the scanty soil, and little of the plain is under
cultivation. Between Ras en-Natūr and Ras Shaq'ah there is
the semicircular bay of El-Heri, the northern part of which, near
the village of Anfeh, is rocky; opposite here there is a copious
submarine spring. The coast, as it approaches Ras Selata, is
bounded by rocky ledges ; as far as Maʻāmeltein the aspect is
barren, there being rocky capes and small sandy bays formed
by rugged spurs projecting from the mountains. Within this
stretch are the small ancient ports of Batrūn and Jubeil.
LEBANON
361
Between Jubeil and Ras Maʻāmeltein flows N. Ibrāhīm, north
of which the shore and adjacent fields are covered with black
volcanic gravel, probably from a submarine trap-dyke as
there is no trap in the neighbouring hills.
Between Ras Ma'āmeltein and Ras et-Teir lies the bay of
Jūneh, including a town of the same name which is the
port of northern Lebanon; the shore is low and shingly.
On the hills above the town there are large mulberry planta-
tions, and luxuriant vegetation covers the rich soil down to
the sea. The cape, at the base of which Maʻāmeltein lies, pro-
jects N. of Jūneh Bay, and is of highly stratified argillaceous
marl rising abruptly from the sea. A mountain spur reaches
nearly to the north-western shore of the bay ; its sides are
clothed with dark groves and studded with hanging villages,
and the summits are crowned by white convents.
Along the coast there is great scarcity of fresh water,
accounted for by the fact that the strata dip sharply
and carry the water below sea-level. These 'uptilted 'strata
are a striking feature of the lower Lebanon geology; they are
frequently 1,000 ft. high and double that in thickness, and are
always accompanied by a scarcity of springs.
South of the Nahr el-Kelb is Ras el-Kelb, and beyond is Jūn
el-Khudhr, or St. George's Bay with a sandy shore extending
to Nahr Beirut; this bay is the usual winter anchorage for
war vessels and several streams fall into it. Onward to
Ras Beirut, a low but abrupt point, there is a succession of
small bays separated by rocky points.
The low hills surrounding Beirut are mostly of reddish sand
interspersed with rock and covered with light soil; they are
offshoots from the mountain, which itself follows the coast in
a parallel line at a distance of three to four miles inland from
the town. The western extremity of the promontory is rocky,
as also the shore, for a considerable distance southward. The
rock in the neighbourhood of Beirut and Tripoli is of the same
porous sand conglomerate and on the shore at the former
place it is constantly wearing away. The sand is driven
inland by the prevailing SW. winds, but here the encroachment
line at a stern extremi.ble distance soli is of the
362 LEBANON, ANTI-LEBANON, DAMASCUS PLAIN
has been much faster than at Tripoli. Between Ras Beirut
and Ras ed-Damūr the shore is sandy and nearly straight, and
a rich well-cultivated plain with olive-trees spreads out to the
foot-hills which rise abruptly. Blown sand has encroached
very seriously on the southern side of the ras and, in the
seventeenth century, the famous pines of Beirut were planted
against this encroachment.
From Ras ed-Dāmūr to Ras Jedra the beach is sandy
and beyond it becomes rocky and barren to Ras Rumeileh;
thence it is again sandy for 7 miles S. of Saida. Ras
Sarafend is a double-headed bluff with a small islet; a narrow
plain skirts the coast on both sides of this headland, the hills
rising from 400 to 500 ft. high. Between Saida and the
Nahr Qāsimīyeh is the plain of Abu el-Aswad nowhere more
than 2 miles wide, except at Saida where the mountains
recede. The surface of this plain is undulating, and the
soil is black and fertile.
Relief.-Maintaining the characteristic formation of the
Syrian coastal range, the main Lebanon ridge lies close over
the eastern base. There the slopes in general are therefore
short, falling precipitously to the great central depression.
North of Zahleh, however, the base spreads eastward and the
slopes become longer and less steep, finally merging into
the low hill-country opposite Homs. The chief and, in fact,
the only important aspect is, accordingly, the salubrious and
well-watered maritime slopes and spurs which constitute the
bulk of the mountain area. In general the northern part of
the chain is less fertile than the southern part, a peculiarity
which occurs also in the central depression and in a much more
marked degree in the parallel system of Anti-Lebanon.
The main ridge is practically continuous. The most north-
ern section is named J. ‘Akkār, the highest peak of which
is 6,980 ft. ; its northern slopes fall to the great divide
between the Lebanon and Ansarīyeh ranges, see p. 331.
From the eastern flank of this ridge the great W. Khālid
bends northward, carrying the upper waters of N. el-Kebīr
over steep declivities to the basin of El-Buqei-ah, see
thanh ta depres of AT
LEBANON
363
p. 332. Southward, the range at first falls, then throws up
its highest peaks, disposed N. to S. in a double row of four
and three heads. The eastern four are named by Palmer
and Burton J. 'Ayūn Urqush, J. Makmal, alt. 9,998 ft.,
J., Musqīyeh, alt. 10,142 ft., and Dhahr el-Qadhīb, alt. 10,018
ft. ;1 on the western flank of the last mentioned are the famous
cedars, alt. 6,320 ft. The three western heads are J. Timarūn
or Qarn Sauda, alt. 10,533 ft., J. Fum el-Mīzāb, alt. 9,000 ft.,
and Dhahr el-Qandil. The names commonly given to the
two groups of peaks are J. el-Arz, cedar mountain,' or Arz
Libnān, and J. Fum el-Mīzāb respectively. The whole block
also goes by the name Dhahr el-Qadhib.
For about 10 miles S. of Besherreh the ridge reaches heights
of 7,500–8,000 ft., and for 20 miles it sinks to levels of
6,500–7,000 ft., then rises in the great truncated cone of
J. Sannin, alt. 8,650 ft. From this latter as far south as
J. Kenīseh the ridge drops to a plateau of 6,000 ft. J. Kenīseh,
rises to nearly 7,000 ft., from 1,500–2,000 ft. above the highest
point on the old Damascus chaussée at Khān Muzhir, alt.
5,020 ft., from which place the summit is easily accessible.
It is an oblong mass about 5 miles long, with a ruined church
on the summit which gives it its name.
The ridge continues southward, under the names of
J. el-Bārūk and J. Niha, for over 40 miles more, at a level
of about 6,500 ft., ending in the twin peaks of Tūmāt
Nīha. The declivities of these two sharp peaks sink on
the E. to the chasm of the Lītāni. W. of the Bārūk ridge
there is a depression several hundred feet deep, dividing
it from the parallel ridge of J. Ma'sir, alt. 6,590 ft. South
of Kefr Hūneh the mountain finally takes the name of J. Rīhān,
'myrtle mountain,' and ends in the slopes which fall S. and
E. to the Lītāni. The western ridge of Lebanon and indeed its
Later travellers have difficulty in identifying the names given by
Palmer and Burton, as natives sometimes give quite different names, and
besides causo confusion by interchanging the names hore given. Post,
P.E.F., Q.S., 1891 draws attention to this confusion and gives barometrical
determination of tho heights which shows considerable variation.
364 LEBANON, ANTI-LEBANON, DAMASCUS PLAIN
great western slope may be said to terminate at Nabr Awwali.
The high crest or backbone of the mountain lying E. of the
rivers of Bārūk and Jezzīn continues southward, though some-
times broken into lesser ridges.
The centre of the chain is marked by J. Sannin and J. Kenīseh,
which, on account of their isolation, are the most imposing
peaks. Between Dhahr el-Qadhīb and J. Kenīseh there are a
great number of funnel-like depressions or 'sinks' which retain
the snow, and from the bottom of which the water is con-
veyed to natural underground reservoirs, see p. 367 and p. 395.
For about two-thirds of the total length of the range, the ridge
rises to sub-alpine altitudes. On J. Bārūk some stretches are so
narrow that both mountain sides are visible at one time. In
altitudes above 4,000 ft. the heights often stand up in crags of
fantastic shape or in huge blocks with perpendicular flutings.
Roads cannot run along the cliff sides on account of their
sharp pitch, except where projecting ledges divide the heights
into gigantic steps. The rounded ridges are, however, almost
always rideable, and they are often the only natural highways
in the land. The crest and slopes of the main ridge are
usually covered with hard shingle, called by Burton a 'natural
macadam'. He further adds : "The yellow interstitial soil
which underlies this natural macadam is swollen and puffed
up, especially after rains and thaws, and finally the solar rays
loosen and crumble it, rendering the surface easy to man and
beast. When walking the mountaineers prefer it to the
stones.' "The round-topped hills of the limestone formation
are so easy and regular that one can ride without dismounting
to the very summits of the Lebanus, the Anti-Lebanus and
the Hermon, whilst everywhere goat-paths streak the high-
lands.' Those nature-metalled Fiumaras and mountain slopes
of the Anti-Lebanus are perhaps superior to all others; up
many of them a carriage-and-four might be driven. On
account of the impassable nature of the gorges the regular
chaussées zigzag along the flanks or traverse the ridges of
spurs; wide détours are necessary, hence communications
are prolonged to an incredible extent.
LEBANON
365
From December to early April these upper heights are
swept by furious winds and torrential rains, and are covered
with snow; avalanches are common. Much cultivation is
found in the gorges and sheltered plains, and it will extend to
an altitude of 6,000 ft. and even higher.
The spurs of the western slopes radiate from the four great
māna. A multitude of wild rocky gorges, many of which
are deep and impassable, intersect the mountain and spurs;
in them are numerous large springs near which prosperous
villages and richly cultivated terraces cling to the rugged
heights. Many villages also lie in irrigated valleys where
tically the whole of the inhabitants of the Lebanon are located.
Wherever soil is found the rocky slopes have been reclaimed.
Innumerable terraces scale almost inaccessible heights, trans-
forming the seemingly barren mountain sides into luxuriant
hanging gardens where mulberry and vine yield rich harvests.
The district of Dhanīyeh, lying on the N. between
J. Tarabul and the highest peaks of the range, consists of an
intricate series of most rugged gorges. It is one of the best
watered districts in the Lebanon : springs are numerous and
large, the surplus waters being carried in canals along the
sides of ravines and distributed to the terraces. Similar
characteristics, in a more or less degree, obtain throughout the
whole mountain. Dhanīyeh is in particular a region of
forests, the sides of its gorges being clothed to their rocky
tops with large trees, chiefly pines. Lying NW. of this
district, and separated from it by the broad valley of the
northern branch of N. Qadīsha, is J. Tarabul, alt. 2,250 ft.
It rises from the foot-hills near Tripoli, and because of its
isolation is a most prominent point; its limestone formation
shows singularly plaited and twisted stratifications. A similar
ridge, though much lower, runs south of Tripoli, and be-
tween it and J. Tarabul there is a long plain 5 to 6 miles
wide, stretching far to the south and cut through by N. Qadīsha,
near Zgharta.
366 LEBANON, ANTI-LEBANON, DAMASCUS PLAIN
North of a line ‘Arqa-Akkār numerous trap-dykes have
been driven up like great wedges through the marl and lime-
stone strata, taking every possible shape and direction. To-
ward the N. el-Kebīr precipitous trap chasms traverse the slopes
from E. to W. across which communication is impossible ;
roads consequently run generally parallel to these chasms.
This region is strewn with trap boulders everywhere piled up
in heaps, and among them grow thick gnarled oaks over an
area 20 to 30 miles from SW. to NE., forming a most striking
feature of the landscape.
In the region of ‘Aqūra, alt. 4,720 ft., at the base of J. Mu-
neiterah, the country is barren and wild. The stratification
is perfectly horizontal, and some of the layers are as much as
100 ft. thick while others are only a few feet. Southward of
Afqeh, alt. 3,615 ft., and high up on the flank of J. Sannin is
a plateau called Wata el-Burj, roughly 10 to 12 miles in length
and 6 miles wide. It affords excellent pasturage and many
spots are overgrown with oak and barberry trees. There are no
fountains, but in spring the melted snow from numerous 'sinks'
provide a sufficient supply of water. The pasturage is
frequented by nomads who bring large numbers of sheep into
the district.
The kaza of Meten behind Beirut, within which are the
- popular resorts of Brummāna and Beit Meri, is one of the richest
and most salubrious districts, and its gorges and spurs are
partially clothed with pines. In contrast to this, the country
between J. Rīhān and Saida is rolling and uneven, with
rounded hills and broad valleys. Deep valleys have their
beginnings in the flank of Rīhān and high ridges run out
between them, forming buttresses which gradually sink to
the open country.
The surface of the eastern slopes, for the most part, is barren
and unsuited to occupation, the few scattered villages lying
mostly close to the base. On the upper base of the main
ridge, in the latitude of 'Aqūra, is W. en-Nusūr, an elevated
valley containing the only lake of Lebanon, Bahret Yamūneh,
which resembles a mountain tarn and is said to become almost
LEBANON
367
dry in summer. NW. of the lake bed is the spring Neba' el-
Arbaʻin, one of a series of enormous ' sinks' which extend
as far northward as Merj Ahīn. The type is common through-
out Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon; they are called jūreh,
meaning a 'hollow' or sunken plain, and vary very much in
size, the smallest being only a few yards wide. Usually with-
out surface outlet, the water from melted snow or springs
filters through these beds into the heart of the mountain.
W. en-Nusūr runs parallel to the main ridge, separating it
from the eastern outlier. It falls southward toward Yamūneh,
and carries a small stream fed by the copious ‘Ain 'Ata, alt.
5,025 ft. ; the drift wood fringing the channel testifies to the
force of its winter volume. Along the partially fertile valley
there runs a much-frequented track to the Codars. North-
ward, amongst rugged limestone débris, is the watershed
between W. en-Nusūr and a continuation of the depression
falling northward, named W. ‘Ayūn Urqush, 1 a place of springs
bubbling out everywhere from the foot of hills and forming
a stream which soon filters through the ground. This is
a favourite watering-place for thousands of sheep and goats.
Still farther northward and maintaining the high altitude,
there lies, at the base of J. ‘Akkār, the fertile plain, Merj Ahin,
about 4 miles long by i to i mile wide, with a copious spring
at either end.
The slopes of the main ridge extend in an unbroken line,
steep, naked, and barren, and the whole surface is covered with
loose gravel overlying smooth and rounded summits. Here
and there a solitary oak clings to the mountain side, but other-
wise there is no verdure. The parallel outlier east of Wādi
en-Nusūr is named Esh-Shaʻreh and, opposite Ba'albek, it is
known as Shaʻret el-Baʻalbek. It is in some places almost
as broad as the main ridge; but its features are altogether
different. The outer slopes are easy and are furrowed by winding
1 The W.O. Map 1916 shows a ridge west of W. en-Nusūr, separating it
from W. ‘Ayūn Urqush and the continuation of the depression to Merj
Ahīn, whereas Burton, Unexplored Syria, 1872, shows a continuous depression
over the whole distance, the watershed of which is just SW. of 'Ayūn Urqush.
368 LEBANON, ANTI-LEBANON, DAMASCUS PLAIN
197 it dronathe face ichhe north ::
covered
ravines which descend obliquely toward the north ; immedi-
ately over the Orontes channel the face is abrupt and in the
vicinity of Neba' el-'Asi it drops to a deep chasm. The surface
is sparsely covered with oak, wild plum, hawthorn, and other
trees, to the effect of which the ridge owes its name shafra,
“hairy,' in contrast to the baldness of the main ridge. The
ridge runs from J. Sannin northward to the end of the chain,
and its lowest and narrowest part is a little S. of Yamūneh
opposite where the central depression attains its greatest
width. Northward it increases in height and width, encroach-
ing more and more upon the plain; the greatest height of the
ridge and the least width of the plain are found opposite
Fikeh, a village at the base of the Anti-Lebanon.
In the vicinity of Zahleh and Shtūra the mountain sides
are richly cultivated with vines, and closely resemble the
western slopes ; here a considerable stream, N. Bardāni (see
p.403), flows to the Lītāni. Southward the short and precipitous
slopes are scarred only by the beds of winter torrents. On
the southern part, along the base of J. Rīhān, there runs a
-line of low sharp ridges, which become higher toward
the S. Between them is a valley running NE. to the
Lītāni in which is the large village of Meshghareh. Just
opposite Jisr Burghüz the slopes are intersected by W. Sifsāf,
up which the road to Jezzīn leads ; immediately to the north
is a broad low swell about 1 mile wide, thrown eastward from
the base, through which breaks the deep chasm of the
river. Farther south another similar spur, a prolongation
of the southern foot of the Lebanon is thrown out. It passes
over and into the lower ridge east of the ruined Qal'at
esh-Sheqif perched on a cliff 1,500 ft. sheer above the Lītāni,
near the point at which this river bends west to the sea.
Geology
While the bulk of the mountain and all the higher ranges
are, without exception, limestone of the early Cretaceous
period, the valleys and gorges are filled with formations
of every possible variety, sedimentary, metamorphic, and
LEBANON
369
igneous. Down many of them are long streams of trap
and basalt, occasionally dykes of porphyry and greenstone,
and then patches of sandstone before the limestone and
flint recur. North of the line ‘Arqa-Akkār is the great
trap belt which lies across the southern part of J. Ansarīyeh
and the northern slopes of the Lebanon. The Lebanon has
thick deposits of lignite, of inferior quality owing to the
presence of iron pyrites. Iron is abundant but little worked.
A characteristic feature of the geology of the lower
Lebanon, north of Beirut, is the uptilted strata which
slope sharply seaward to submarine levels. Throughout the
western slopes of the mountain the strata of the flanks of the
gorges dip toward the sea. South of Beirut the lower hills
are formed of hard crystalline limestone much dislocated and
contorted. Surmounting all, in the hills behind, is a belt of
calcareous limestone, interspersed with flinty bands and
nodules, which may be traced as far as Judaea, and which,
here as elsewhere, is variegated with silicated calc. The
surface, being now much decomposed, the flint layers stand
out conspicuously. Throughout Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon
the soil formed by the disintegration of rich fossiliferous
cretaceous limestone strata, and the black soil formed by
the crumbling of the volcanic rocks, are constantly renewed
and need little fertilization.
For description of the river systems of this district, see
Chap. XIII.
ANTI-LEBANON
Area
The Anti-Lebanon mountain system is bounded N. by the
plain of Homs, S. by the highlands of Jaulān, E. by the culti-
vated plain fringing the desert, and W. by the great central
depression.
The central depression, from its northern limit near Quseir
southward to Hūleh marshes, is about 110 miles, having
à superficial area of something like 300 sq. miles. The
- Aa
SYRIA
370 LEBANON, ANTI-LEBANON, DAMASCUS PLAIN
mountain system runs for approximately 105 miles on a
NNE. and SSW. axis, with an average width of 25 miles and
covers an area of about 2,500 sq. miles. The whole territory
is under the vilayet of Damascus, with the exception of the
small strip at Hermil, which is in the province of Lebanon,
and of Merj 'Ayūn which is in the vilayet of Beirut.
The most northern part of the central depression is adminis-
tered by the kaza of Homs in the sanjaq of Hama. South-
ward it comes in succession under the kazas of Ba'albek,
Biqā', and Hāsbeya, all in the sanjaq of Damascus. Still
farther south the Merj Ayūn, under the kaza of the same
name, is in the sanjaq of Beirut. On the west side of the
Orontes, near where the kazas of Ba'albek and Biqā' meet,
the nahiyeh of Hermil is enclaved.
The mountain tract in its northern part comes under the
kaza of Homs. In succession southward it is under the kazas
of Nebk, W. el-Ajam, Dūma, and Damascus. The western
slopes of Hermon are under the kazas of Rāsheya and
Hāsbeya; the eastern extremity of Hermon, including
Bāniyās, is under the kaza of Quneiterah, in the sanjaq of
Damascus.
· Physical Features
The Central Depression. The great valley plain between
the Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon ranges, known in antiquity as
Colesyria, marks the northern extension of the Ghör or
Jordanic line of erosion. Lying at an average altitude of
2,500 ft., it stretches for about 100 miles on a NE.-SW.
axis. The middle section is spread out in a wide, fertile and
well cultivated plain. Northward it is gradually constricted
by the spreading base of the maritime range, and becomes
in a large measure infertile, but finally merges into the rich
Homs plateau near the latitude of Quseir. In conformity
with the distinctive character of the mountains, the southern
part retains its fertility but is also reduced in width by
the great base of Hermon. Besides, it is here divided by the
intermediary range of J. edh-Dhahr, a low limestone ridge
ANTI-LEBANON
371
forced up into the axis of the depression, and forming the
watershed between the parallel rivers Lītāni and Hāsbāni.
At the south-western base of this ridge, where the valleys
reunite, there commences a fertile tract, Merj 'Ayun, which
falls southward to the spreading marshes and fertile plain of
Hūleh at the head of the Ghör.
The depression contains the principal sources of the three
great rivers of Syria—the Orontes, the Lītāni, and the Jordan.
Most of the depression is therefore fairly well watered,
particularly in the southern part, although the Lītāni, for
of the deep chasm in which it lies. The valley bottom has
been raised by successive moraine strata ; the volcanic
formation is found southward of Rāsheya, and also in the
most northern part on the l. bank of the Orontes. The
narrowest part is opposite Fikeh, S. of Ras Ba'albek, where
it is only 2 miles wide; the widest part is about half-way
between J. Sannin and 'Ain ‘Ata, where it is about 8 miles
wide.
Terrific cold tempests occasionally sweep the plain during
winter, causing serious loss of life. Violent whirlwinds are
also common. Snow falls in winter, and in spite of the
high altitude fever is generally prevalent. At Meshghareh,
alt. 3,000 ft., in a small valley at the base of Tūmāt Nīha,
55 in. of rain fell in 60 days between October and April
1895–6; during the same months of 1898–9 the fall was
221 in. These two records probably represent the maximum
and minimum for the locality; in each period the greatest
fall of 28 in. and 101 in. respectively, was during the months
of January and February.
The name Sahelet Ba'albek, plain of Ba'albek,' is given
to that part of the depression lying north of the parallel
of Zahleh. It is a fertile but not too well watered tract as
far N. as Ba'albek where lies the plain Merjet el-Barada,
which is flooded in winter and in summer retains water
from the uplands at a level of 3-4 ft. below the surface. This
place is frequented by nomads and their flocks, and cavalry
A a 2
372 LEBANON, ANTI-LEBANON, DAMASCUS PLAIN
is a partially cheh a fine vale extends ... farther N. the
horses are sent here for spring grazing. The crest of the
watershed, alt. 3,600 ft., lies, at this point, between the
channels of the Lītāni and the Orontes; the upper springs of
both rivers lie westward of Baʻalbek, separated by a narrow
strip of rolling country. East of Ba'albek are the copious
springs of Ras el-Ain and, high up in a valley of the lower
Anti-Lebanon, is ‘Ain Lujuj. North of the watershed the
plain is a partially cultivated stretch of slightly undulating
land. Opposite Lebweh a fine vale extends diagonally across
the whole plain from mountain to mountain ; farther N. the
surface commences to break into hard, sterile, parallel ridges
and swells strewn with basalt blocks intermingled with
limestone and flint.
In the midst of this barren tract lies the well-watered oasis
of Hermil. In the neighbourhood of Ribleh, alt. 1,740 ft.,
there is a sudden change to a tract of fine deep soil, well
cultivated and abundantly watered, which continues for two
or three miles. Plains of great fertility and beauty stretch
on every side, affording plentiful pasture for large flocks
whose Bedouin owners encamp along the low river banks.
Here access is easy from every direction and this, together
with abundant water and salubrious air, make the locality
most suitable for military encampments. Indeed the ancient
city of Ribleh, now entirely destroyed, was, in antiquity,
used as the head-quarters of large armies. Beyond this fertile
tract the stony and barren plain again commences, finally
merging into the fertile Homs plateau.
Metāwileh villages are sparsely scattered about the plain
and western mountain slopes all the way between Ba'albek
and Ribleh and there are numerous mounds similar to those
found throughout the plateau as far N. as Aleppo. Wild
ducks, herons, and storks are seen everywhere.
El-Biqā', the name often given to the whole plain,
strictly applies only to that part extending southward from
Zahleh to the parallel of Rāsheya ; south of this the J. edh-
Dhahr ridge divides the depression into two parallel valleys.
In order to distinguish this plain from others so named, it is
ANTI-LEBANON
373
3
kilown as El-Biqā' el-'Azīz. It is divided by the Lītāni
into two parts-Esh-Sharqi, the eastern,' and El-Gharbi,
the western.' The former is by far the larger part, but
is less well watered than the latter, which is a narrow strip
lying hard against the base of Lebanon. El-Biqā' proper
resembles the low lands of southern England. Of rich red
soil and generally undulating, it is green with trees and
foliage even in summer, and presents a striking contrast
to the brown and yellow mountain masses on either hand.
On its surface are many settlements the largest of which are
found close to or on the mountain bases, while the smaller
villages and hamlets of mud hovels are scattered about.
A large part of the plain is covered with vineyards. Between
El-Biqā' and the Anti-Lebanon there is a line of low hills
which projects northward to Mejdel ‘Anjar, forming a narrow
valley in continuation of W. et-Teim.
Merj 'Ayūn, average alt. 1,820 ft., lies at the southern end of
the central depression, and is bounded on the W. by the Lītāni,
and on the E. by a great basalt dyke from 200 to 300 yds.
wide which lies N. and S. for several miles. It is an oval-
shaped plain about 8 by 3 miles, its northern extremity
being marked by Tell Dibbin at the south-western base
of the J. edh-Dhahr ridge ; its southern limit is at Ābil. The
soil is exceedingly fertile, producing fine grain crops and
luxuriant pasturage for immense flocks and herds ; among
the green fields are orchards of fig, mulberry, and olive-
trees. It is abundantly watered, the chief spring 'Ain Derdāra
sending a stream from the centre of the merj southward to
El-Hūleh. South of Kheim, the chief village of the district,
the plain extends in a tolerably even surface east and west
to the very bases of Lebanon and Hermon. It falls gently
southward, dropping in a series of stepped plateaux of volcanic
formation to the plain of Hūleh. These steps fall 50 ft.
or more, the upper series running in a NE-SW. direction,
and the lower series more E. and W. and through them the
Hās bāni cuts its way in a precipitous basaltic gorge.
The Mountains. The four chains of Anti-Lebanon have
374 LEBANON, ANTI-LEBANON, DAMASCUS PLAIN
been compared to the four fingers of a left hand pointing
northward, palm upward. In the system thus represented,
J. esh-Sheikh (Hermon) constitutes the palm ; the western-
most chain, J. Zebdāni, the fore finger ; the main chain,
J. esh-Sharqi, the second finger; J. Qalamūn the third
finger; and J. Khitmeh the fourth or little finger. The
second, third, and fourth chains are cut through close to
the palm' by the deep gorge of W. Barada, which here
breaks northward between the first and second chains.
Anti-Lebanon proper is said to exclude Hermon, although in
the following description that great massif is included, as it does
in fact form part of the same mountain system. In general,
the aspect of the mountains of Anti-Lebanon is more striking
than those of Lebanon : colouring is richer, and forms present
sharper contrasts, while there is a much more marked differ-
ence between the aridness of the northern part and the fertility
of the southern. The slopes are everywhere intersected by
ravines of singular wildness and grandeur, but there is a
scarcity of perennial streams, springs being found mostly on
the lower slopes.
Jebel esh-Sheikh (Mt. Hermon), although not the highest, is,
on account of its form and position, the most imposing moun-
tain in Syria, and is the most easily distinguishable
over a far spread region. In form it resembles a gigantic
fin-back whale; it lies in a general direction NE. and SW.,
with its higher end N. On the N. its limit is marked near
Qatana by a ravine between the most northern spur and the
low hills, Qalabāt el-Mezzeh, that bound the desert tract
known as Es-Sahra. The north-western continuation of this
boundary is indefinite but appears to be marked orographically
by W. el-Qarn and W. Barada. On the west the slopes fall
to El-Biqā' and W. et-Teim, on the east to the plain and,
on the south, to the basin of Hūleh and the highlands of
Jaulān plateau. The formation of the base and lower slopes
is basalt, above which the whole massif is of limestone fairly
uniformly super-imposed and similar to that along the Lebanon
ridge. The lower slopes of the mountain are well watered.
ANTI-LEBANON
375
Conflicting accounts are given of the ascent of Hermon,
some travellers declaring it to be easy and others to be
difficult and fatiguing. The most convenient starting-points
from the E. are Hāsbeya and Rāsheya, and from the W.
Qalʼat Jendel ; the climb is usually impossible before May,
after which the tracks are rideable. In winter the mountain
for the most part is covered with snow which remains on the
crests and in many of the shaded hollows through the
summer. By September there is very little snow left, but it
commences to fall again in November.
The summit has three peaks of which two lie approximately
N. and S., 200–300 yds. apart, and are of almost equal height
being joined by a flat plateau with a depression in the middle.
On the summit of the southern peak there are remains of
a temple. The third peak, El-Muhabkhīyeh, about 1 mile to
W. and separated by a valley, is somewhat lower. The
alt, of the most northern and highest peak has been variously
estimated; West gives it as 9,700 ft. On the NW. and SE.
the declivities of these peaks are steep, while on the NE. and
S. the slopes are more gentle for over 2,000 ft. down to
ridges which run out in these directions.
The surface of Hermon above. Rāsheya is covered with
loose sharp fragments of white limestone which can only be
traversed with great difficulty; when the shingle is disturbed,
wide surface scatters are set in motion down the steep slopes.
Along the mountain side, toward the S., the ravines run
westward and the spurs become naked calcareous rock with
intervening slopes of loose stones ; there is little or no vegetable
life except in spring and early summer when a rich flora is
found up to the summit in those areas where there is good soil.
The mountain top where rock does not crop out, or where
there is no soil, is covered with shingle. On the eastern side,
which is very steep, the rock is harder, and shingle is only
found in the narrow gulleys.
On the lower western and south-western slopes in the
vicinity of Kefr Qüq, Rāsheya, Hāsbeya, Rāsheyat el-Fukh-
khār, Shub'ah, Bāniyās, and Mejdel esh-Shems, the mountain
376 LEBANON, ANTI-LEBANON, DAMASCUS PLAIN
is characterized by fertile and picturesque ravines with luxuriant
vineyards and orchards. There are many copious springs and
considerable wooded areas chiefly of oaks, particularly in
the south-western part. In the vicinity of Hāsbeya the
rock is dark red sandstone and the ground and springs
are strongly impregnated with iron. Between Tell el-Qādhi
and Bāniyās is a park-like and well-watered expanse thickly
studded with small oak and other trees. The hill of Bāniyās
is cut off from the southern flank of Hermon by W. Khashābeh
and, at its foot, is the grotto of 'Pan', one of the chief sources
of the Jordan (see p. 648); the locality is densely wooded.
Below Mejdel esh-Shems, alt. 3,780 ft., is the remarkable
lake Birket er-Rām, alt. 3,590 ft., about 3 miles in circum-
ference, lying in a crater at a level of about 80 ft. below the
lip; the sides are steep and difficult of access, and are bare
except on the south, where there are large flowering shrubs
and small trees. The lake has neither outlet nor inlet and
its depth which is said never to vary, was found by Burton
(1872) to be 171 ft. The temperature of the water in May was
68° Fahr. ; it is unfit to drink and swarms with leeches, frogs,
and water snakes. The shore is fringed with papyrus and
other water plants. Running northward from the lake is
the picturesque valley Merj el-Yafūri, surrounded by wooded
heights, along the southern extremity of which lies the
Roman road from Baniyās to Damascus via Quneiterah.
The lofty ridge which extends from Hermon southward ter-
minates in an abrupt descent of about 4,000 ft. near Mejdel
esh-Shems, close to which is the geographical frontier between
Palestine and northern Syria. From this place to El-Fūleh a
deap valley sweeps round the southern base of the ridge cutting
it off from a lower and broader ridge to S. This latter ridge,
almost completely covered with oaks, slopes gently to the
eastern plain while taking a more rapid descent to the deep
basin of El-Hūleh. East of Bāniyās the formation is in
general basalt mingled with sandstone impregnated with iron;
the heights around Mejdel esh-Shems, toward the eastern
plain, are wholly basalt.
ANTI-LEBANON
377
Toward Beit Jenn on the southern slope of Hermon, alt.
3,490 ft., there is a rocky plateau covered with basalt boulders
and prickly shrubs, and through the village there flows a fine
stream in a wādi the sides of which are lofty and precipitous
and composed of naked white rock. The stream is fringed with
poplar, walnut and apricot-trees; lower down it is supple-
mented by another large spring, and together they form the
upper waters of the N. el-‘Awaj.
From the northern end of the main ridge of Hermon, a
lofty spur runs out eastward and on its southern side is Wādi
Barbar, a deep ravine with a small stream, opening out into
the plain near Qalʼat Jendel. South of this village is a lofty
peak, the termination of another spur, and south of this
again is a valley, wider, deeper, and longer than the former,
which seems to penetrate the mountain to its centre. From
the main ridge to the bed of this valley there is an unbroken
descent of fully 6,000 ft., and beneath the brow of the mountain
are the small springs which form the Nahr ‘Arni, the chief
branch of N. el-‘Awaj and the only important stream on the
eastern flank. The eastern plain here penetrates far into the
mountain. Just beyond Qatana, alt. 2,975 ft., is a ravine
marking the north-eastern limit of Hermon and separating
it from the ridge Qalabāt el-Mezzeh, which bounds the desert
tract Es-Sahra. This latter ridge is low with gentle slopes
of white naked limestone. The northern base of Hermon is
irregular and of great width, and extends westward to the
village of 'Aiha, alt. 4,860 ft. At Rakhleh, alt. 5,020 ft.,
a vast gorge runs SW. into the recesses of the mountain
and a fine spring gives fertility to the wild recess.
The Western Chain.-Of the four chains radiating north-
ward from Hermon, the western runs N. by E. from Rāsheya.
A little S. of Yũnta it throws off to l. a parallel subsidiary
ridge which forms the eastern boundary of El-Biqā'. The
chain then continues northward in a broken and irregular
form to J. Zebdāni from which it is separated by W. el-Qarn;
this wādi, along with W. el-Harīr of the branch ridge, forms
the pass through which the Damascus chaussée is carried.
378 LEBANON, ANTI-LEBANON, DAMASCUS PLAIN
The broken valley separating the commencement of the chain
from Hermon on the E. carries the road from Rāsheya to
Yūnta and, here, there is a circular plain between steep ridges,
on the eastern verge of which lies the large village of Kefr Qüq.
This plain is dry in summer and although not very fertile, is
cultivated : in winter it becomes a marshy lake fed by
subterranean sources which become active after heavy rains
quickly submerging the whole area ; the water subsides
through fissures on the north-west and south-east.
Beyond W. el-Qarn rises J. Zebdāni, reaching a general
elevation of almost 6,000 ft. and extending in an unbroken
stretch to W. Yafūfeh. Its eastern flank is rocky and very
rugged, and the top is broken and jagged. The northern
portion is not so lofty and the sides have a gradual slope
toward W. Yafūfeh. Besides the name Zebdāni, the
mountain bears that of 'Ain Hawar, or of Sarghāya, or of the
various villages on its flanks. It is separated from the parallel
chain on the east by a wādi bearing the names of various
villages, and by the plain of Zebdāni. This latter measures
8 miles by 3 miles, diminishing to a width of l} miles at-the
southern extremity where the Barada gorge enters and breaks
eastward through the great chain J. esh-Sharqi. At the
northern end of the plain is the large and flourishing village
of Zebdāni, alt. 3,950 ft., and near it is a small “sink ' with
a lake which is the principal source of the Barada. Water
is abundant and cultivation luxuriant; the fruit orchards,
particularly the apple, are famous throughout Syria. North-
ward of the plain the wādi opens out into the elevated plain
of Sarghāya, alt. 4,600 ft., measuring 3 miles by 1 mile ;
a village of the same name lies at its north-eastern end on
the watershed separating the waters which flow to the Lītāni
and the Barada. On the south-west the slopes fall to Sahel
Jedeideh, a plain about 2 miles wide, running about 6 miles
northward from the mouth of W. el-Qarn.
W. Yafūfeh is a narrow ravine with steep sides covered
in parts with oak and plane trees and carries the chief northern
affluent of the Lītāni. The western slope generally is bleak
ANTI-LEBANON
379
and desolate, its jagged crest being scantily clothed with
juniper ; the eastern slopes are partially cultivated but there
are no trees on the lower parts. Some of the wādis falling
to W. Yafūfeh bear oaks.
Jebel esh-Sharqi.—This is the main chain of the Anti-
Lebanon system. It trends NNE. from Hermon and is
intersected by the great Barada gorge, beyond which it
assumes more definite form. The loftiest and most imposing
of all the chains, its ravines are of singular wildness and
grandeur. The highest peaks rise in the narrow part of
the ridge north of Blūdān, and again on the north-eastern
flank, where the mountains widen out toward the desert.
In marked contrast with Lebanon, it is bare and desolate, the
slopes being only very sparsely dotted with juniper trees; the
northern part is almost entirely barren. Water is scarce
throughout, especially in the northern part. The valley beds
are overlaid by a kind of natural macadam, which frequently
affords easy travelling, but there is little communication
across the ridge between W. Barada and Hasya. The chain
throughout is composed of limestone, with foundations of
sandstone and igneous rocks appearing at only a few places.
The eastern slopes at first merge into the J. Qalamūn
chain, then disengage and fall to the wide spreading upland
where lies the village of 'Asal el-Ward, alt. 5,550 ft. Near this
place W. Sahrij marks the division between the parched and
barren country northward and the comparatively well watered
country southward. Beyond Nebk, the desert in places
comes close up to the base of the mountains and all is barren
except at Yabrūd, Nebk, and Hasya, where there are good
supplies of spring water.
The western slopes are separated from J. Zebdāni by the
plain of Zebdāni and W. Kharrād; a few miles N. of Yafūfeh
J. Zebdāni merges into J. esh-Sharqi. Still farther N. the
chain again becomes separated from the central depression
by a low parallel ridge which commences about a mile NE. of
Nahleh and forms the eastern boundary of the plain onward
to the Homs plateau.
380 LEBANON, ANTI-LEBANON, DAMASCUS PLAIN
Opposite Nahleh, where a ravine cuts deeply into the moun-
tain side, the range is composed of three distinct ridges,
which merge toward the N. That on the W. is the lowest.
The central ridge here appears rising over the former, gradually
increasing in altitude as it runs NE. until it overtops the
others. The eastern ridge is the loftiest of all toward the S.,
but it decreases from this point onward. Just above the
village of Qā' the western flank is intersected by a deep
ravine between which and another ravine above Jūsiyeh, there
is a recess; northward, spurs project again into the plain.
The northern end of J. Sharqi falls rapidly to the plain, but
about three miles from its termination it is intersected by
a singular pass which completely isolates the northern group
of hills. So straight is this pass that from Ribleh a sight
can be taken right through it to a point about two miles N.
of Hasya.
There is considerable fertility in the neighbourhood of
Blūdān. The lower part of the Blūdān valley is laid out
in vineyards and orchards ; higher up, the cornfields are
watered by numerous small streams issuing from the slopes.
About a mile N. of Blūdān there is a band of pure sandstone
and a fine spring ‘Ain ed-Danleh, one of several mineral
springs forming little streams. Near by is 'Ain es-Sareimeh,
one of the few places where igneous rock is found and, farther
N., at Merjet 'Ain en-Nusūr there are some 20 springs. The
upper section of the Blūdān valley is walled on the E. by
a continuous line of heights which here form the crest of the
chain. In succession northward the highest peaks are Tell
Tallājah Ibn Hallāwi, J. esh-Sheqīf, alt. 6,850 ft., and Tell
Ukhyar (?), alt. 7,795 ft. ; some distance farther on is J. Abu
el-Hīn, alt. 8,330 ft., and, still farther northward, Harf Rām
’l-Kabsh, alt. 7,810 ft. Beyond, there is very little vegetation,
but juniper trees are common. :
In the ridges beyond J. Abu 'l-Hīn there is sandstone
alternating with lime in detached blocks and wheat and
tobacco grow in sheltered places. Here, growth extends
to heights of 6,000 or 7,000 ft., but wheat is stunted. The
ANTI-LEBANON
381
district is the haunt of bears and wild swine. There are
several springs on the eastern slopes between J. Abu 'l-Hin
and Harf Rām el-Kabsh, notably 'Ain edh-Dhura, a fine spring
used for irrigating grass fields in a well sheltered wādi. On
the slopes from 'Asal el-Ward northward there is a series of
parallel detached ridges with trees and separated by
deep gorges running in a general direction S. of E. to the
plain, their drainage eventually feeding the waters of Yabrūd.
The wādis are Bir Sahrij, Bir el-Washl, Zuweyyid, Batrah,
Zaʻrūr, and Bir el-Khashābeh. The latter rounds the base of
the hog-backed Nebi Barūh, alt. 7,900 ft., rising on the eastern
flank of the range, and backed northward by a cone Talʻat Mūsa,
alt. 8,720 ft. On the slopes in the neighbourhood of W. Sahrij
and elsewhere, grow honeysuckle bushes of great size : an
average specimen will measure 6 ft. in circumference by
11 ft. in height. On the slopes and plain southward of 'Asal
el-Ward the vegetation is chiefly characterized by thistles and
thorns.
The peak Talʻat Mūsa is one of a mountain group named
J. Maʻaret el-Bāshkurdi from a large mountain village of
that name to the SE. The group is drained by the lesser W.
el-Awaj and is separated from the peaks further north by
a great gorge. On either side of the latter rises a regular
cone, the northern one being named Halīmet Subbeh. Here
the mountain spurs spread eastward and come down close to
the termination of the third chain near Yabrūd. The eastern
plain beyond this point is a rolling expanse disposed in
regular ridges separated by shallow wādis; in summer all is
barren except where a perennial spring produces a green
patch or supports a few poplars.
After a line of insignificant heights northward, the Qarnet
or Sadr el-Weiriq rises in a regular pyramid with sharply
defined angles. Still farther N. there is a series of peaks
named halīmeh or pap'. They are: Halīmet Zammārāni
a long saddlebacked ridge, H. Qurreis a table mountain,
H. Quraʻa a round bald eminence, and H. el-Qabu, alt. 8,260 ft.,
a saddlebacked peak, divided from its neighbours by deep
382 LEBANON, ANTI-LEBANON, DAMASCUS PLAIN
gorges, which has been erroneously termed the highest
point of Anti-Lebanon. At its NW. flank near the base
is a plentiful supply of cool sweet water from wells and
a spring, and near by is Qabu, now a dry cistern, which
gives its name to the mountain. The upper part of H. el-
Qabu is revetted with a hard yellow limestone usually banded
with pink. This stone is found all over the locality, and
being highly ornamental is used for building; the same class
of rock is also found in the parallel range of Mār Mūsa
el-Habashi. The wādis dividing these mountains naming
from S. to N. are W. el-Makhnaf, W. el-Maghāreh, W. el-Harīq,
W. el-Weiriq, W. Zammārāni, W. Khirbet el-Barūd, W. el-Māl,
W. Mār Tõbīya, and lastly W. el-Qārein.
Jebel Qalamūn. - This is the name 1 given to the third
chain which strikes in a north-easterly direction from
about Fījeh in W. Barada, to Maʻlūla and Yabrūd, finally
sinking into the plain between Deir ‘Atīyeh and Qaryatein.
On its western flank the chain falls to the wide upland in
which is the village of 'Asal el-Ward. On the eastern side
it falls to Es-Sahra and the more elevated plain of Saidnāya
which latter, toward the north-east, narrows down in parallel
1 The W.0. map 1916 gives the name “Jebel Kalamun’ to the most -
eastern or 'little finger' chain apparently following Kieperts map 'Carte
de la Syrie Meridionale' 1860. The Arabic map published by the Ottoman
Government, Beirut 1889, adopts the same name. Dr. Post, P.E.F., Q.S.
1891, however, gives this name to the third 'finger' chain running NE.
from Fījeh toward Maʻlūla where it presumably joins J. Maʻlūla' of
the W.O. map. In the latter map this chain is shown indefinitely and in
the Arabic and Kieperts maps not at all. Van de Velde, Karte von Palästina,
1866, shows only a line of broken hills named 'Jubbet Asal', whereas
Porter, Five Years in Damascus, 1855, and Burton, Unexplored Syria, 1872,
clearly show a continuous chain as far as Yabrūd to which no name is given. .
Various later travellers verify the existence of this chain, and the above
description is compiled from their evidence and Post's nomenclature is
adopted. Both Burton and Post draw attention to the inaccuracies in all
maps of this region and indeed of the Anti-Lebanon generally.
Kiepert and Porter show the village of Ma'areh, E. by N. of Menin,
whereas the W.O. and Burton's maps show it almost due N. of Menin;
the former position appears to be correct.
ANTI-LEBANON
383
ridges and swells to W. Musakhamīn separating the third and
fourth chains. The western slopes in general fall gradually,
but those on the eastern side are abrupt and in places
precipitous.
At the commencement of the chain the mountains merge
into J. esh-Sharqi and, at Halbūn, alt. 4,280 ft., are inter-
sected by the fertile gorge W. Halbūn in the upper stretches
of which rises a stream of the same name. This stream
continues across the almost entirely desert tract, Es-Sahra,
in a deep gorge filled with trees, and is later joined by W.
Menīn also a fertile gorge with a perennial stream. The
trunk stream then breaks through the easternmost chain to
the plain carrying the Nahr Maʻraba which, with the parallel
N. Barada, is the only important stream on the eastern slopes
of Anti-Lebanon. A lateral ridge separates the Sahra upland
from the higher Sahel Saidnāya, the slopes of which on the
Sahra side are steep and barren while, on the opposite side,
they are gentle and extensively cultivated. On the south-
eastern flank of J. Qalamūn stands the important village of
Saidnāya, alt. 4,500 ft., overlooking a wild and rugged valley ;
here the chain is crossed by a track to Jubb Sureir. Toward
‘Akőbar the chain decreases in height while the plain increases
in width and becomes unfertile. The water drainage of the
tableland from "Akūbar and Maʻlūla runs NE., while that
of Saidnāya and Ma'areh runs into Wādi Menin. Beyond
Akūbar the chain continues for 20 miles or so as a ridge with a
jagged crest. As it approaches Maʻlūla the ridge is twice
broken, once by a gorge leading to the village of Jubb
‘Adīn and again where the Yabrūd road passes through a
gorge to the higher hills. About 3 miles farther on, the
ridge curves sharply inward, but later resumes its NE.
direction. In the meantime it has formed an amphitheatre-
like basin, bounded by immense cliffs which are pierced at
the two extremities by rapidly ascending gorges. Great
rocks or boulders lie on the steep slopes, or are heaped at
the base of the cliff. The limestone soil is of dazzling white-
ness, especially just outside the amphitheatre, where there
384 LEBANON, ANTI-LEBANON, DAMASCUS PLAIN
are ledges of soft white rock. Clinging to the slopes, tier
upon tier, are the houses of Maʻlūla. On N. side of the
village many threshing floors have been cut out of the soft
rock and, beyond these, the hillside is dotted with sumach
trees. On the upper hills are vineyards, and, high up in
inaccessible slopes to N. and S., there are numerous caves.
A valley watered by streams opens out from the amphi-
theatre into the long upland; it is rich in walnut, plane,
pistachio, apricot, and other trees. Running SE. from Maʻlūla
is a valley, separating J. Maʻlūla from the south-western part
of the chain, through which is carried a wheel track to Khān
‘Arūs on the Damascus-Homs chaussée. In this valley is a
fine spring 'Ain et-Tīneh, where there are extensive pistachio
plantations and luxuriant gardens.
On the western side of the chain the slopes fall to the broad
upland separating the second and third chains. Beyond
Maʻlūla the chain is bare and gravelly with steep spurs on
either side. On the western flank it falls to a rolling table-
land, and a pass carrying a copious stream which flows
through Yabrūd separates this tableland from that of Nebk
and Deir ‘Atīyeh. Toward Deir “Atīyeh there is a rolling
plain but, farther on, the country gradually becomes barren,
descending gently to the last cultivated fields of Qaryatein,
a border town of the desert. The eastern slopes fall to
W. Musakhamīn, separating J. Maʻlūla from J. Suqfīyeh, the
name here given to the fourth chain of the Anti-Lebanon
system. Both these last-named mountains are barren, and
toward Nebk they drop gradually and merge into the plain,
About 5 or 6 miles from Khān 'Arūs, and at Qastal, there
are gaps in the Maʻlūla ridge through which roads are carried
to Yabrūd; about 2] miles southward of the latter place is
the highest point of the road, alt. 4,390 ft.
Jebel Khitmeh.—This is the fourth chain which takes an
easterly direction continuous with the ridge of J. Qasyūn.
This latter is bare and arid, partly of reddish rock, and is
completely separated from Es-Sahra on the south-west by
W. Barada and from the continuation of the chain on the
ANTI-LEBANON
385
:
north-east by the wild ravine of W. Maʻraba. At the mouth of
the ravine, is the well-watered village of Berzeh, surrounded
by fertile gardens. The ridge of the chain beyond this
point is jagged in the extreme and a steep talus of débris
prevents ascent along most of its eastern flank. Trending to
the north-east, the range, now named J. Thenyet Abu 'Ata,
sinks to a hilly plateau forming a wide break in the chain
and connecting the plain of Qateifeh with the upland of
The eastern flank of the Khitmeh chain at first falls to the
plain, but beyond Qubbet el-'Asāfīr there rises the first spur of
a-parallel ridge, J. el-Qarn, lying eastward and separated from
the chain by a ravine. This spur commands the Damascus-
Homs chaussée ascending the ravine bed which is wide and
shingly and flanked by bare and stony hills. The ravine rises
gradually to a col. alt. 3,195 ft., near which the chain sinks
sharply to the village of Qateifeh where there is a good spring
and a well cultivated plain of light but stony loam. Here the
road strikes N. across the plain, then winds westward up
a wide ravine with steep hills on either hand separating
the hilly plateau from J. es-Suqfīyeh which re-establishes the
line of the chain. J. es-Suqfīyeh is separated from the third
chain, here named J. Maʻlūla, by W. Musakhamīn and continues
the desert. J. Khitmeh is bare and barren throughout with
little or no water ; large springs, however, occur at 'Ain
Quseir in a wild pass NW. of Dūma, at Hafeyer on the NW.
flank, and also north of Qateifeh.
For description of the river systems of this district see
Chap. XIII.
DAMASCUS PLAIN
The Damascus Plain, or El-Ghūteh, lying at an altitude of
2,264 ft., is a vast garden covering an area of about 150 sq.
miles. From the base of the Anti-Lebanon it extends for over
ten miles eastward, the limit in that direction being at Nõleh,
въ
SYRIA
386 LEBANON, ANTI-LEBANON, DAMASCUS PLAIN
where barren patches of soil appear and gradually increase
in area towards the desert country by the shores of Bahret
el-Qiblīyeh, Bahret esh-Sharqīyeh, and Bahret Hijāneh. The
gardens extend northward as far as Dūma, and the northern
limit merges gradually into open country and desert. On the
south, the boundary is marked by Wadi el-Ajam which carries
the Zābirāni and the ‘Awaj and which divides the calcareous
formation of the Damascus plain from the basaltic region of
Haurān. Included within this boundary is J. el-Aswad, at the
southern extremity of the plain, a hill group composed of
conical tells rising not more than 500 ft. above the plain and
intersected diagonally by three distinct wādis.
The city of Damascus lies on the western verge of the plain
and, scattered throughout it, there are 106 other towns and
villages supporting a large population. Fertility is assured
by the plentiful waters of the Barada supplemented by the
Awaj, Maʻraba, and other minor streams and by a system
of canalization. The luxuriant gardens and green fields
produce every kind of fruit, vegetables and grain in great
abundance. Groups of silver poplars occur in large numbers
over the whole area. The plain is traversed by numerous
roads.
Because of the high altitude of the plain, the winter is cold;
spring begins about the end of March. The locality is healthy
except from the middle of July to the middle of September,
when the nights are warm and fever and ophthalmia are
prevalent.
For the Irrigation Systems of the Damascus Plain, see
pp. 417 ff.; The Desert Lakes, see p. 420 f.; N. el-Awaj, see
p. 414 f. ; N. Maʻraba, see p. 416 f.
AGRICULTURE
Little by little the rocky slopes of Lebanon have been
reclaimed by the laborious process of building terrace upon
terrace up the mountain sides. The aspeot is now that of
a vast system of mountain steps with fronts of dry stone
walling. The surfaces of accumulated soil are watered by
AGRICULTURE
387
1
canals from plentiful springs, and bear rich crops, the principal
products being mulberry trees, olives, vines, fruits, vege-
tables, cereals and beans. The valley beds whose soil has
been washed from the slopes before the terraces retarded the
process, are usually narrow but they are exceedingly fertile,
being sheltered and protected from the bitter winter cold of
the higher altitudes. In spite of the cold, wheat is said to
grow at altitudes up to 6,000 ft. and vines up to nearly
5,000 ft., while olives grow still higher. In the low country
toward the sea, the character of the cultivation changes and
wide expanses of arable land are cultivated on the ordinary
field system. Throughout the mountain generally, the area
under cultivation is comparatively small. This small pro-
portion can be accounted for by physical conditions which
entail the maximum amount of labour not only in the work
of reclaiming but also in the after work of husbandry. Irriga-
tion systems are, as yet, only partially developed but there is
water at hand which when properly utilized, will vastly
increase the productiveness of the country. Grain crops are.
insufficient and only in abnormally abundant years can they
be said to yield the amount necessary for the needs of the
people. The eastern slopes are generally waterless and un-
fruitful, but in the vicinity of Zahleh and Shtöra there are
extensive vineyards producing some of the finest crops in Syria.
Outside the mutesarrifliq, in the lowlands of the kazas of
Sidon, Beirut and Tripoli .there are large and well-cultivated
areas. Being a mountainous region the cultivation of
the kaza of 'Akkār is patchy and undeveloped.
The plains of the central depression, especially El-Biqā'
and Merj ‘Ayūn, are very fertile and extensively cultivated.
On the lower slopes of Hermon and also in the southern
part of the Anti-Lebanon chains, cultivation is patchy.
The northern parts of the chains are almost entirely barren.
Parts of the upland plains between the chains are fertile
but lack water, and are only partially cultivated ; the plain
of Zebdāni, however, is probably the richest, best watered
and best cultivated land in the whole region.
.
B b 2
388 LEBANON, ANTI-LEBANON, DAMASCUS PLAIN
The Damascus plain is the most extensively cultivated area
and produces by far the greatest crops of almost every
description, see also p. 386.
The figures given below show in a general way the average
annual yield in the various districts mentioned. They are
based on Cuinet's estimates, 1896–1901, for districts which
do not, however, exactly correspond to the regional divisions
of Lebanon, Anti-Lebanon and Damascus plain.
The grain crops of the Lebanon mountain are not of first
importance, the chief cultures being silk cocoons and olives.
Vines are also extensively grown, especially in the district of
Zahleh ; in 1901 the area covered by vineyards throughout
the mutesarrifliq was nearly 5,000 acres. The average
annual yield of raisins was estimated at about 3,600 tons,
and that of wine at 200 tons. Tobacco is cultivated through-
out the mountain, especially in the districts of Batrūn and
Jezzīn. The area under tobacco was estimated at 570 acres
and the annual yield about 160 tons.
The agricultural produce of the sanjaq of Beirut, which
is not included in the mutesarrifliq, and comprises the kazas
of Beirut, Saida, Sūr, and Merj 'Ayūn, reached an annual
value of about £960,000, of which about £400,000 represented
cereals. Of the remainder, the most important items were
cocoons, scammony, sesame, olives, fruits, wool, &c. There
are no available statistics for that part of the mountain
outside the mutesarrifliq which is in the sanjaq of Tripoli. .
The sanjaq of Damascus approximately covers the whole
cultivated area of the central depression (excluding Merj
‘Ayūn) of Anti-Lebanon and of the Damascus plain ; the total
annual yield was valued at about £3,690,000. Of this, wheat,
barley and other cereals were valued at £930,000, aniseed
£614,000, raw silk £560,000, sesame £124,000, olives £184,000,
vegetables £320,000, water melons £198,000, fruits and
various £480,000. The Damascus plain is by far the most
productive area included in above.
Live-stock.—The following figures give roughly Cuinet's
estimates of live-stock throughout the whole Lebanon range :
AGRICULTURE
389
Buffaloes .
400
Cattle .
45,600
Horses
8,000
Asses and mules
18,200
Sheep . . .
. 112,000
Goats . ..
316,000
Camels. . o
1.200
Pigs . . .
350
Total . .
501,750
Included in the above are the stock in the mutesarrifliq,
estimated approximately as follows :
Buffaloes
90
Cattle .
: 39,000
Horses
6,370
Asses and mules
9,200
Sheep . .
3,160
Goats.
· 97,400
Camels.
550
Pigs .
350
.. Total . .
· 156,120
Pasturage is good but not abundant in the mutesarrifliq ;
it is supplemented by the leaves of the mulberry trees on which
the sheep are fattened. The second of the above tables
shows the small amount of live-stock raised in the Lebanon
province. It emphasises the comparatively high proportion
of cattle and pack animals, and the low proportion of sheep.
Other products of the province are estimated to yield
annually as follows :
Wool
Goat hair . .
. 35,200 ,
Honey . . .
. . . . 21,000 ,,
Wax . . . .
. 1,900 ,
The estimates of live-stock for the sanjaq of Damascus were
approximately as follows :
17,300
Buffaloes
11,300
Horses.
11,700
Blood horses.
5,400
Donkeys
18,300
Mules .
11,200
Camels.
5,200
Sheep and goats.
348,700
Total . . . .
429,100
Poultry . . . . . . 232,000
.
.
.
7,880 lb.
Cattle
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
1
390 LEBANON, ANTI-LEBANON, DAMASCUS PLAIN
}
By virtue of privileges granted by the Government to the
stock owners of Mesopotamia, about 40,000 sheep are annually
brought to pasture on the plain of Ba'albek. Towards
winter the flocks which supply Lebanon are brought to
the plain. The sheep are of the fat tail species, common
to the country. When fat the tail weighs over 30 lb. and
is boiled down into semen and used for cooking purposes.
The Lebanon gets male camels from the Arabs of the desert;
asses, mules, and the common breed of horses from Cyprus.
The best cows come from the neighbourhood of Damascus ;
oxen and goats are indigenous.
Sericulture. ---Cultivation of the mulberry tree takes first
place among the products of the soil and absorbs the attention
of the greater part of the inhabitants of the Lebanon. The
species is the white mulberry of the country, originally
imported from China; it flourishes in the valleys and
mountain slopes and large plantations are to be found
everywhere.
Mulberry plantations, always very extensive, had greatly
increased previous to 1911, chiefly in the districts around
Tripoli and Saida as well as in Anti-Lebanon and Merj ‘Ayūn.
Since then a steady decrease has been noticeable, and in the
lowlands many mulberry trees have been uprooted to make
room for the more profitable cultivation of oranges.
Olives.-The principal olive cultivation within the whole
Lebanon range is found in the kazas of Tripoli, Kūrah, Shūf
and Saida. Elsewhere in the mountain and also in the central
depression and Anti-Lebanon chains, olives are not so exten-
sively cultivated. At Shuweifāt, in the Shūf district, there
are extensive olive plantations.
Tobacco.See p. 266 f.
INDUSTRIES
Olive Oil and Soap.—The amount of oil produced annually
in the districts of Lebanon, Beirut, and Tripoli, as calculated
by E. Weakley, is 3,700,000 oqqahs (4,658 tons). Oil is
exported from Beirut and Saida to Egypt and Marseilles.
INDUSTRIES
391
Since 1908 the quantity exported from Saida has very much
increased. The following are the figures of the British
Consular Reports.
O
1909.
From Beirut . 1,350
From Saida 1,500
1910.
1,200
1,700
1911.
1,560
2,800
1912.
1,160
1,000
1913.
1,100 barrels
4,000
At the date of Weakley's report there were 28 soap
factories throughout the Lebanon, 12 of which were in the
Tripoli district. The total soap production in an average
year amounted to 4,500,000 oqqahs (5,665 tons), of which
2,000,000 oqqahs were manufactured in Tripoli district.
Instead of caustic soda, which is generally used in soap
manufacture, the Tripoli makers prefer carbonate of soda
as also do the makers in other parts of Lebanon. The
native qili, found in large quantities at Tadmor, and to
some extent in the plains of Saidnāya and Jerūd, contains
a large percentage of carbonate of soda, and is very much
used. Ammoniated alkali is used only by the Tripoli makers.
The soap manufactured in this district is of superior quality
and is seasoned for over a year before being placed upon the
market and being then thoroughly dry it is more economical
and commands a higher price. Tripoli soap, especially that
scented with ghār oil, finds ready markets at Damascus, Homs,
Hama and all the coast towns ; a fair quantity is also ex-
ported to Cyprus. That from the other parts of the mountain
is sold chiefly at the coast places and Damascus. See
also Chap. VIII, pp. 278 ff.
Weaving.--This industry at one time flourished in Lebanon
chiefly at Bekfeya, Deir el-Qamar and Beit ed-Dīn. There
are in these places about 2,000 cotton-weaving looms and
the products are well known throughout Turkish territory.
The industry has, however, fallen into decay, chiefly on account
of the scarcity of hands caused by emigration, and also
because of the development of weaving in other localities.
In Beirut the industry is insignificant. A small amount
of dyeing is carried on in the 17 dye-houses of Beirut.
392 LEBANON, ANTI-LEBANON, DAMASCUS PLAIN
MINERALS
Good iron ore has been extracted from Wādi Sannin.
The bitumen pits at Hāsbeya, some 30 in number, which
are the most important in Syria, have been worked off
and on for many years. They were abandoned for several
years but were worked again in 1902 and 1903. Bitumen
of the consistency of coal tar is also found at Yahmūr at the
NW. base of J. edh-Dhahr. A concession was granted in
1877 to work an asphalte and lignite mine in the Jezzin
district, but the quality was so poor that the project was
abandoned. Coal is found in the Meten district; the deposits
were worked during the Egyptian occupation of Syria, but
have long been abandoned, although small quantities are
sometimes extracted to supply the silk factories in the locality.
A considerable revenue is derived from the working of
quarries.
INHABITANTS
*As elsewhere in the Ottoman Empire, reliable statistics of
the population of Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon are unobtain-
able, and estimates by different authorities vary widely.
From 1911 till the outbreak of war there was a very large
increase in the number of emigrants (chiefly to America),
caused by the recently imposed military service, and by the
steady decline in the silk industry. The numbers of emigrants
for 1911, 1912, and 1913 were estimated at 20,000, 25,000,
and 30,000 respectively.
Weakley gives the population of the Lebanon mutesarrifliq
as 450,000. A British Consular Report (1912) gives it as
200,000; another authority (1913) estimates the population
of the province as not greater than 300,000.
The figures, according to Cuinet's estimates, are approxi-
mately as follows :
Moslems (including 16,800 Metāwileh)
·
·
Christians (including 229,700 Maronites)
30,400
. . .319,300
Druses . .
. . . . . . . 49,800
Total . . . . . . . . 399,500
INHABITANTS
393
400
Of the above, over three-fourths occupy the kazas of Shūf,
Meten, Kesrawān, and Batrūn; the first two districts
include 40,000 and 9,600 Druses respectively, practically
the whole Druse population. Metāwileh are found chiefly
in the kazas of Shūf, Meten, Kesrawān, Batrūn, and Jezzīn.
In addition to the above, the numbers of the population
within the kazas of Beirut, Saida, Tripoli, and ‘Akkār are,
according to Cuinet's estimates, approximately as follows:
Moslems (including 8,800 Metāwileh).
. 116,600
Christians (including 44,000 Maronites)
. 132,800
Ansarīyeh in ‘Akkār.
1,700
Jows
4,000
Druses .
Total .
255,500
Included in this total is the population of the city of
Beirut, estimated at 120,000, including 76,700 Christians.
A later authority (1913) estimates the population of Beirut at
185,000, two-thirds of which were Christians.
In the central depression and Anti-Lebanon mountains the
numbers, according to Cuinet, are approximately as follows:
Moslems (including 8,500 Metāwileh).
40,400
Christians (including 11,000 Maronites)
65,000
Jews
6,300
Druses
3,500
Total :
. . 115,200
Jews are found chiefly in the kaza Rāsheya ; Druses
chiefly near Hāsbeya; Metāwileh chiefly round Ba'albek, their
villages being scattered along the eastern slopes of the
Lebanon and the plain north of Ba'albek.
For the city and plain of Damascus Cuinet's estimates are
as follows :
City of Damascus-
Moslems . .
.
.
. . . . . 99,000
Christians
. . . . 51,000
Jews . .
.
. 4,000
154,000
Population of the villages on the plain within the
kaza of Damascus . . . . .
10,000
Total . . . . . . . 164,000
.
.
.
.
394 LEBANON, ANTI-LEBANON, DAMASCUS PLAIN
Besides these there is the population of the larger number
of the villages on the plain within the kaza of Dūma for
which no statistics are available.
An estimate (1909) puts the population of Damascus city
at 250,000, about seven-eighths of whom are Moslems. The
Christians were then said to be decreasing, while the Jewish
population of 12,000 remained stationary.
CHAPTER XIII
RIVER SYSTEMS OF NORTHERN SYRIA
THE main watersheds of Syria run N. and S. on either side
of the great central depression which can be traced south-
wards from the Anti-Taurus range to the Gulf of Akaba.
The system is divided into three almost parallel belts : (1) the
central, valley, belt abundantly watered by the principal
rivers and their affluents, (2) the western, coastal, belt well
watered by short lateral streams, (3) the eastern belt between
the depression and the desert, where there are large unwatered
tracts, the Damascus plain being the only area where water
is plentiful.
The principal rivers of northern Syria flow either north or
south. They are the Orontes and the Lītāni, flowing north and
south respectively from the watershed of the central depression
(see p. 18 f.), and the Hāsbāni which forms the upper waters
of the Jordan. Their sources are in the mountain bases and
in the great depression which forms the only bed of great
length in the country.
I. THE LEBANON AND ANTI-LEBANON
The mountain slopes falling west to the sea are watered
by many streams, while those falling east to the desert are
scantily watered. The inner slopes falling to the depression,
while supplying the main sources of the three chief rivers,
afterwards contribute very little to their volume.
Numerous subterranean caverns in the limestone of the
Lebanon provide natural storage systems, to and from which
there are natural collecting and distributing channels. On the
summits of J. Sannin, J. Kenīseh, and part of the chain above
the Cedars, there are funnel-like depressions or 'sinks'
396
RIVER SYSTEMS OF NORTHERN SYRIA
peculiarly adapted to collect and retain vast snow-drifts.
These are common both to Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon, and
from them veins convey the melted snow to reservoirs in
the heart of the mountains. Thence the dipping strata
carry the waters to innumerable points on the slopes there
to burst forth in copious perennial springs. A peculiarity of
the lower Lebanon north of Beirut is the sharp seaward tilt
of the strata to submarine levels where the waters sometimes
gush up so copiously as to provide fresh-water supplies.
This geological peculiarity is always accompanied by a scarcity
of springs on the plain and lower hills. The rivers derive
their water either from the basalt, sandstone, or secondary
limestone ; in point of quality the first is the best and the
last the worst.
A characteristic of the rivers of the western slope is the
great abundance of their sources which almost invariably
gush at once from the mountain sides as considerable streams.
Their number and volume often make it difficult to identify
the real source of a river, and there are consequently dis-
crepancies in statements made by various writers. Bursting
usually into shallow basins, they flow rapidly with frequent
cataracts and falls, tumbling over rocky beds and through
deep chasms to the narrow maritime plain. The water-courses
are formidable obstacles to inland communication, the wādis
being invariably deep and the streams often impassable. Some
of the larger streams are fordable at comparatively few places
in summer, while practically all are impassable during the
rains. Further peculiarities of many of the streams, par-
ticularly on the western slopes, are the sudden changes in
direction and their occasional disappearance into subterranean
courses, to reappear farther down the mountain in positions
which make identification doubtful.
Sudden and extremely violent spates are frequent during
the rainy season from the end of October to the beginning
of April, the heaviest fall being usually in December and
January. Bridges are frequently carried away by the floods
or by masses of rock which tumble down the steep and
THE LEBANON AND ANTI-LEBANON
397
confined beds. In spate many of the streams take a reddish
colour from the ochreous soil along the mountain sides.
Spates, however, quickly subside as the rainfall drains off very
rapidly, but from January to May all the Lebanon streams
run deep. During these five months the streams are also very
considerably augmented by percolation from the slow melting
of the snows; during summer many of them are reduced to
a mere trickle. A common feature is the existence of sand-
banks across their mouths.
The Orontes, Nahr el-'Urunt, or El-Asi
The Orontes is the largest river in Syria and has its
most remote source at the base of Lebanon about 1 mile
N. of the watershed running westward from Baʻalbek
The upper sources of the Lītāni and the Orontes, flowing
southward and northward respectively, are about 1 mile
apart separated by a shallow wave of land. The Orontes
source, Neba' el-'Illa, issues from the foot of a tell a few
miles westward of Ba'albek, in a trickling course of excellent
water, soon augmented by other springs, the largest of which
is Nebar el-Quds. Thence the channel, carrying little or no
water in summer, traverses a partially cultivated undulating
plain to opposite Lebweh, where it is joined on the r. by
a stream of considerable volume from 'Ain Lebweh mile
WNW. of the village. This spring gushes out in four
separate channels on different levels; that to E. is said to
have supplied Palmyra and does in fact go as far as Qā' about
14 miles distant. The stream, here called N. Lebweh, flows
at first in a deep ravine clothed in luxuriant foliage, but soon
turns down the eastern side of the great depression in a deep
and narrow chasm through a desert tract. Near here another
copious spring, ‘Ain Zerqa, adds its waters from a valley filled
with plane trees festooned by wild vines. About 200 yds.
below 'Ain Zerqa is the fine spring Neba' el-'Asi, issuing from
the eastern side of a chasm, close under the Lebanon. The
trunk stream which, above 'Ain Zerqa, is only an insignificant
stream not a foot deep, now becomes a swollen and impetuous
398
RIVER SYSTEMS OF NORTHERN SYRIA
river 70 ft. or more wide and 3 to 6 ft. deep. Although the
channel is here thickly lined with trees, the depth of the river-
bed is so great that they are invisible from a short distance.
The river now winds in its deep chasmi and receives another
copious spring on the r. bank, Maghārec er-Rahīb, which pours
out at a height of 100 ft. from the face of a high cliff. Thence
it flows in a northerly direction, with many windings, through
a rocky sterile country to the bridge at Hermil where it takes
a more easterly course to Ribleh. The banks here become
low with a fertile plain on either side ; on the r. the stream
receives an affluent from Zerrā'. At Ribleh there is a much-
frequented ford with a hard bottom, the water being 3 ft.
deep in June. It has been suggested by Robinson and other
travellers that the nature of the country westward of the river
is such that the waters could be diverted from above Ribleh
to the Buqei'ah plain, (see p. 13), there to join the channel of
the Nahr el Kebīr. Up to this point the flow of water is con-
siderably augmented by numerous springs in the channel and
banks, and for this reason the large irrigation canals which take
off from its upper reaches do not appear seriously to reduce the
volume of water. For the most part vegetation is found only
on the verge of the stream in the bottom of the chasm.
From the northern termination of the Anti-Lebanon range
northwards for 20–25 miles where the hills begin to rise ·
again, the country east of the river is a limitless fertile plain;
to west are the north-eastern foothills of the Lebanon and
the low beginnings of the Ansarīyeh mountains. Beyond
Ribleh the channel takes a north-westerly course, and later
bears north, receiving an affluent on the l. near Tell Nebi
Mindau, where there is a spring and small lake. It then
bears north-east, spreading out to the lake of Homs, Bahret
Qattīneh, which covers an area of about 6 by 3 miles. The
lake is artificially formed, the stream being dammed by a leaky
embankment of ancient construction 500 ft. long with a maxi-
mum height of 20 ft. across which a path leads. In the
southern part of the lake there is a small island with a tell.
In 1888 a scheme for raising the level of the lake 25 ft. by
THE LEBANON AND ANTI-LEBANON
399
constructing a new dam below the present one, and so to
collect the flood waters which now run to waste was considered.
The volume of water in the river at this point is over 66,000,000
galls. per day. It was proposed to supply Homs by utilizing
the power at the mill below the Tripoli–Homs chaussée, to
pump 4,000 cub. m. a day on a 36-metre rise to a reservoir on
the top of the citadel hill. The water, where it issues from the
lake, is milky in appearance, but chemical analysis proved
it to be very good after the fine clay had been withdrawn :
the water, however, was not tested bacteriologically.
From the outlet of the lake the river flows north-east
through a broad, shallow, and marshy depression, and is crossed
by the railway bridge; farther upstream it is crossed by a
bridge and causeway 500 yds. long carrying the Homs—Tripoli
carriage-road. Between the lake and the bridges the river is
400 yds. wide and uncrossable. Opposite Homs the channel
is 1 mile west of the town. Pressed out by the eastern trend
of the mountain, its subsequent course lies in a deep chasm
which at Restān is crossed by a bridge of 14 arches carrying
the Aleppo chaussée. Taking a wide easterly bend from this
point, the river skirts the eastern base of J. Arbaʻīn, then,
bearing round to south-west in a gorge 200-300 ft. deep, it
issues between rugged mountains above Hama and flows
through the town under several bridges. Here numerous
nāūrahs (water wheels) are used for pumping the town supply
and for irrigation.
About 12 miles beyond Hama the river passes close north
of Qal'at es-Seijar, which stands on a plateau dominating the
valley. Here it breaks through a rocky barrier into the low
wide plain of Apamea, being crossed near the mouth of the
gorge by a bridge of 10 arches. The river, now flowing west-
wards, passes close l. of Bahret el-Tereimsi, a lake 5-6 miles
long, 2-3 miles wide, and never more than 6 ft. deep.
Although much reduced in area in summer, this lake is never
dry; it is surrounded on all sides by cane and willow brakes
and the centre is covered with reeds providing cover for great
numbers of wild fowl.
400 RIVER SYSTEMS OF NORTHERN SYRIA
Bending northwards past the ford of Hūrāt, the great
central depression is regained in the valley which, as far
north as Jisr esh-Shughr, bears the name El-Ghāb, the
channel lying close to the foot of the western range. This
extremely fertile valley is 6 miles wide at its southern end,
narrowing towards the north. In the rainy season it is
partially inundated, when communication between villages is
by boat and, after the inundation subsides, many small lakes
and marshes remain for a considerable part of the summer.
There are, besides, permanent lakes scattered about the
of 'black' fish 5-8 ft. long being taken by harpoon and
salted on the spot and sent all over Syria. The papyrus
reed grows in the marshes and along the river banks, and
provides cover for enormous numbers of water-fowl. On
account of the prevalence of stagnant water the valley is
unhealthy during certain seasons and, in the summer,
mosquitoes and flies make it almost uninhabitable. The
marshes and mud make El-Ghāb peculiarly favourable for
the rearing of large numbers of buffaloes.
Numerous small affluents, especially from the hills to the
east, feed the river which, keeping a northerly direction, now
falls slowly and diminishes in volume owing to the marshes
and irrigation canals. A little beyond Qal'at el-Mudhiq,
which stands on an almost isolated rock a few miles r., the
Bahret et-Tāqeh. This lake is formed by a large spring
'Ain et-Tāqeh; its width is never more than 3 miles, its
length 4-5 miles, and its depth about 10 ft. The temperature
of both spring and lake is warm, and this probably accounts
for the enormous quantities of 'black' fish and carp.
1 The W.O. map, 1915, shows the channel in the middle of the valley
plain with a group of lakes and marshes in the region of Huwāsh lying on
axes parallel with the river. Burckhardt (1910), however, both describes and
maps the channel as being close to the foot of the western range, and the
lakes, some distance to east, at right angles to the river. This is borne
out by the descriptions of other authorities and confirmed by Kiepert's map,
THE LEBANON AND ANTI-LEBANON
401
A short distance farther north, on the r., is a small lake
formed by 'Ain Huweith, and still farther north is a larger
lake fed by 'Ain el-Huwāsh, on the southern shore of which
stands Huwāsh, the chief village of El-Ghāb. At Jisr esh-
Shughr, an important road centre, the river is crossed by
a many-arched bridge. Here the valley is a fine broad
prairie extending on the west to the foot of the Ansarīyeh
mountains. Beyond the bridge the river cuts more deeply
into the marble formation of its bed and receives on the l. the
large tributary N. el-Abyadh (see p. 424); 2–3 miles farther on,
it enters a narrow and very deep ravine which terminates at
Darqūsh. In this section, before reaching Hammām Sheikh
'Isa, there is a ford and ferry. The hills on either side rise
in terraces : J. el-'Ala to r. with its summit resembling a flat
table and, on the l., the table-land of J. el-Quseir.
The middle course of the Orontes may be said to end at
Jisr el-Maqsūr, near which place it receives a tributary,
N. Bawardeh (see p. 424), on the l. The river then commences
its wide westerly bend round the base of J.el-Quseir and enters
the Antioch plain, El-Amq, where it is again crossed by
a bridge, Jisr el-Hadīd, over which the direct Antioch-Aleppo
road passes. The water is here of a muddy colour caused by
the erosion of the marly banks. About 5 miles below the
bridge it receives its great tributary, the Kara Su, a navigable
river flowing from the Lake of Antioch and bringing a greater
volume of water than the Orontes itself (see Handbook of
Asia Minor, vol. iv, pt. 2).
In its south-westerly course the river is obstructed by
numerous fish weirs, winds among picturesque myrtle-clad
hills and passes Antioch on the l. bank where it is crossed
by a masonry bridge of four arches. It then follows a
tortuous course over several cataracts, between steep wooded
hills; the bed falls considerably and is in places obstructed
by rocks. It receives on the r., first the Küchük Chai, and
then the Büyük Kara Chai, the latter a considerable mountain
stream whose banks are covered with oleanders, arbutus, and
other shrubs. The river now enters the plain of Suweidīyeh,
SYRIA
CC
volume of is from the La tributary, thout 5 mile
402 RIVER SYSTEMS OF NORTHERN SYRIA
winds through sandflats between low banks and finally
passes over a difficult bar into the Bay of Antioch where
it is about 200 yds. wide and 12 ft. deep. The current is
strong, and after floods the river mouth frequently changes
its position. Between Antioch and the sea the river falls
300 ft. in a course of 21 miles, or crowfly distance of only
131 miles. The total course of the river is about 170 miles.
It is navigable in winter for 3 miles from the sea for
vessels of 100 tons and, if the fish weirs and rocks were
removed from its bed, it could be made navigable for track-
boats as far as Antioch. There is a cable-ferry at the mouth
and others at points 1], 5, 83, and 124 miles upstream.
Floods depend almost entirely upon the rains which com-
mence towards the beginning of November, after which
there is a gradual and tolerably regular increase until the
snow falls early in January. The water afterwards diminishes
until the melting of the snow in April ; in May the water is
at its highest, and the subsequent fall continues till November.
At times the spates are sudden and considerable, but in general,
owing to the inundations over the lake basins and marshes
of El-Ghāb, the changes of level are gradual and regular
throughout the year. The water of the river is utilized for
irrigation only to a limited extent.
Nahr Lītāni (N. el-Qāsimīyeh).
This is the third largest river in Syria. The true source is
on the low watershed running westward from Ba'albek near
the mound Tell Barada, in a muddy oval pool from which in
summer there is only an almost imperceptible trickle. One
of the most remote affluents has its source in a large spring
at the base of the tell on which stands the village of Maʻra-
būn; this stream flows southwards through a single-arched
bridge, Jisr er-Rummāneh, beyond which it turns westwards
into W. Yafūfeh, receiving an affluent from a large spring
in W. Sarghāya. In this latter wādi, about 1 mile S. of
the village of Sarghāya and lying across a plain 1 mile in
width, is the watershed separating the waters of Yafüfeh
THE LEBANON AND ANTI-LEBANON
403
from the Barada. Nahr Yafūfeh breaks north-westward in
a wild and precipitous ravine covered with oaks, planes, and
wild rose bushes, entering the plain a short distance west of
the village of Ma‘sa. After traversing the plain it joins the
natural channel of the Lītāni which comes down from the
north. In its course south-westward, the trunk receives its
chief right-bank affluent, the Nahr el-Bardāni, a perennial
stream taking its rise in J. Sannīn and flowing through Zahleh.
Other important sources of the Lītāni are the large springs
of ‘Anjar and Shemsīn in the lower slopes of Anti-Lebanon
south-east of Bar Elyās. These waters join the parent stream
some 5 miles below the junction of the Bardāni.
The main stream now flows through the plain, and beyond
Jubb Jenīn follows a constantly narrowing valley to Jisr Qar'ün;
soon afterwards it is considerably augmented on the r. by an
affluent from the springs of Meshghareh. From here the stream
commences its struggle to find a channel through the encroaching
base of the Lebanon on the one hand and the limestone range
of J. edh-Dhahr on the other. In its course it flows through
a precipitous gorge or chasm varying in depth to a maximum
of 1,500 ft. It falls rapidly with many windings over a rocky
and confined bed, forming many rapids and becoming at its
most constricted points a deep and whirling torrent. Between
Yahmūr and Jisr Burghūz its banks are precipitous, varying
from 100 to 1,000 ft. high ; for a short distance below Burghūz
they become lower and the valley widens; thence to Belāt the
chasm, varying in depth from 800 to 1,200 ft., takes a toler-
ably straight course south-west by south, its steep sides being
covered with shrubs. At a spot below Belāt the stream runs
for 80 yds. through a strait generally 6–12 ft. wide but, at one
point, not more than 3 ft. wide. Opposite Jedeideh it flows
in an open valley and is fordable in summer. A little south
of Jisr Khardeli there is also a summer ford.
Beyond Qal'at esh-Sheqif the river turns abruptly west, and
follows the southern base of the Lebanon foothills to the sea.
This western section falls over a rocky bed with many rapids,
between steep banks covered with shrubs. At Jisr Qa‘qa'īyeh
002
404
RIVER SYSTEMS OF NORTHERN SYRIA
the current is very rapid and the river, here about 5 ft. deep
(September), flows. over a smooth limestone bed with low
muddy banks. About 13 miles from the coast it widens out
into a small valley basin, across the lower part of which is
a ford which is dangerous except during the dry season ;
below this the only crossing is by the bridge 1 mile from the
sea. The lower and middle reaches and sometimes the whole
of this western stretch are named Nahr Qāsimīyeh. .
Passage through the gorge is for the most part impracticable,
the river often filling up the entire bed; paths down to the water
are steep and difficult. Except at a few places, the Lītāni
can only be crossed at the bridges : Jisr el-Qaróūn, El-Kuweh
(natural bridge near Yahmūr), Jisr Burghūz, Jisr Khardeli, Jisr
Qa“qa'īyeh, and the narrow bridge near its mouth. The chasm
in which the river flows often becomes invisible at a short
distance from its brink, particularly in parts between Belāt and
Burghūz where, on account of the corresponding lateral undu-
lation on either side, the country appears to be unbroken.
The river enters the sea 51 miles north of Tyre after a total
course of about 100 miles. The minimum volume of water
at its mouth is 50,000,000 galls. per 24 hrs. During summer
there is a bank of sand across its mouth.
All the waters at the mouth were the property of the State,
and in 1891 a concession was granted to a native syndicate
to dam the stream about 8 miles from the sea to irrigate
the coastal plain from Tyre to Sidon. Plans and estimates
were made but, although the scheme was practicable and
promised to be remunerative, it fell through and the water-
power of the river remains practically unutilized.
Streams of the Western Slopes of Lebanon
Nahr ez-Zaharāni.--Its most remote sources are around
Kefr Hūneh, a village on the southern road from Jezzīn to
Hāsbeya. Neba' et-Tāsi is said to be the chief source, and
from it the ancient water-supply to Sidon was taken by an
aqueduct, considerable remains of which still exist. Thence
the bed breaks down through the north-western base of
THE LEBANON AND ANTI-LEBANON
405
J. Rīhān, cleaving the mountain to its base in one of the
deepest and wildest gorges of the Lebanon; the mountains on
either side rise 2,000–3,000 ft. above the stream, those on the
northern side being considerably the higher. The chasm
descends SW. to a point where the stream turns round the
precipitous bastion of southern Rīhān into a straight valley,
W. Jermaq, running due S. along the western face of the
mountain. After flowing down this valley for a short distance,
the stream turns suddenly west, breaking through the low
ridge by a narrow ravine. The watershed of W. Jermaq is
quite close to the bend of the stream, and on its southern
side there are springs and a stream flowing southward to the
Lītāni. According to Dr. de Forest, by the removal of about
30 ft. of earth from the low swell which forms this watershed,
the Zähirāni could be conducted into the Lītāni near Jisr
Khardeli. In its subsequent course the volume of water is
not increased and the stream enters the sea about 6 miles
S. of Saida.
Nahr Awwali.—The sources are the springs of 'Ain Bārūq,
a short distance above the town of Bārūq. The stream, here
bearing the name N. Bārūq, follows a general course south
by west, and is fed by other springs during its descent in
a fertile valley W. of the important village of Mukhtāra
near where it receives an affluent from Khureibeh on 1.
Continuing northward for a time, then turning westward,
it receives the N. Jezzīn coming from south. This affluent
falls about 250 ft. over a precipice near Jezzīn and
descends by numerous cascades through a gorge. The hills
west of this gorge are thickly wooded and less steep than
those on the east which are terraced on the lower slopes but
culminate in rocky headlands. On one of these rocks are the
ruins of the castle of Fakhr ed-Dīn. The ridge, J. Rīhān,
terminates towards the north in a lofty bluff which occupies
the angle between the streams below their junction. The
trunk, now named N. Awwali, flows through a fine alluvial
tract to Jūn and, at various points in this part of its course,
the water is used for purposes of irrigation and mill power.
406
RIVER SYSTEMS OF NORTHERN SYRIA
Finally, having changed direction more to west, it passes
through a rocky gorge about 4 miles from the sea. Here
a brushwood weir raises the water to the canal which supplies
Sidon and irrigates its gardens. Below the canal head there
are four water-mills which claim the right to all water
remaining after filling the canal. In its course through the
Sidon plain, the stream is broad and rapid and runs in
a deep channel through a district full of mulberry and fruit
trees. The coast road crosses the stream by a fine single-
arched bridge, about i mile from the sea, and there is a
dangerous ford on the bar at the mouth 2 miles N. of Sidon.
Nahr ed-Dāmūr.--This stream is called N. es-Sāfa in its
upper reaches, and is fed by two springs running from the
foot of J. Bārūq: one a little above, where the carriage-road
crosses, and the other some distance up the mountain side
under 'Ain Zahalteh. The greater part of the water of the
upper spring irrigates the Beit ed-Dīn valley. The Dāmūr
irrigates the narrow fringe of land on either bank and then
finds its way to the sea through the usual rocky gorge. Before
reaching the sea the waters are diverted to irrigate the coastal
plain under the village of Dāmūr, famous for its mulberry
plantation and silk culture. Below Dāmūr the stream has
a broad bed, but in summer there is little water on account
of irrigation. Close to its mouth the river is crossed by what
was originally a suspension bridge for pack animals, but was
afterwards converted into a suspended girder bridge for light
wheeled traffic. In 1910 the bridge, just wide enough for one
carriage, was partially wrecked by the great floods of that
winter, but in 1913 was again passable. The stream reaches
the sea a few miles north of Ras Dāmūr, and there is a ford
at its mouth which is dangerous even in summer.
Nahr Beirut is formed by the union of two, wādis : one
draining the south-western slopes of J. Sannīn and the other
draining the Hammāna valley on the western slopes of
J. Kenīseh; these two wādis unite below the hog's back of
Ras el-Meten. There are no springs of any importance in
the northern wādi, the bed of which is dry all the summer
THE LEBANON AND ANTI-LEBANON
407
and autumn after the melting of the snows; but the torrent
is subject to very heavy spates as the slopes are barren and
rocky. The Hammāna basin is well watered by several large
springs, but the bed, for three or four miles below Hammāna,
is quite dry during the irrigation season. Two miles farther
down, below the village of Deir el-Harf, a large spring issues
from the l. bank a few yards above the valley bed; it is
utilized for mills and to irrigate a small area. The water
found in the lower reaches is from a large spring near
the bottom of the valley under Deir el-Qal'ah, and is all
utilized for irrigating the plain between the foothills and the
town of Beirut. Below this the stream is practically dry
during the summer and autumn months. In the plain there
are two bridges across the stream. Rustem Pasha bridge,
the upper one, of one high semicircular span and two
culverts, is a handsome masonry work but difficult for
heavy traffic owing to the steep approach from the left bank
which is about 30 ft. lower than the right. It connects the
Damascus chaussée with the road system of the Meten-
Lebanon. The lower bridge, about 500 yds. from the sea,
carries the Beirut-Tripoli road; it is a long and irregular
masonry structure of five spans and just wide enough for two
lines of traffic. Except during spates, the bed is fordable both
below and above this bridge. A sandbank lies off the mouth
of the river which reaches the sea lmile north of Beirut.
Nahr el-Möt. -The Nahr el-Möt, river of death', so-called
because of the stagnant and unhealthy tract near its mouth,
is a torrent draining the slope below Beit Meri and is subject
to heavy spates during rainstorms, but is dry at other times.
It is crossed by three bridges. The upper, l] mile from the
sea, carrying the Rūmi road, is of the ordinary masonry type.
About 400 yds. from the sea is a 3-arch stone bridge carrying
the Beirut-Tripoli road and, close to the sea, is the lattice
girder bridge carrying the Tramways Libanais. The mouth of
the stream is 3 miles north of Beirut.
Nahr Antelyās. —This stream drains the slopes below
Behannis and Brummāna. The upper valley contains no
408 RIVER SYSTEMS OF NORTHERN SYRIA
perennial springs, but about a mile from the sea, a large spring
issues from the bed of the valley and is utilized for irrigating
the plain as far as the N. el-Möt. The stream is crossed by a
high arched bridge, with bad approaches, carrying the Beirut-
Tripoli road and, at the village of Antelyās, close to the sea,
is the two-span lattice girder bridge of the Tramways Libanais.
Below the bridge the stream is generally fordable; it falls
into St. George's Bay 5 miles north of Beirut.
Nahr el-Kelb.--The Nahr el-Kelb, or Dog river, is one of the
largest streams on this coast. The basin is formed by the union
of four wādis descending from the slopes of J. Sannīn. That
to north is W. es-Salīb, followed by W. el-Leben, then two
others which bear torrents only and are practically dry after
the melting of the snows. At the head of W. el-Leben is
the source, Neba' el-Leben, which issues in considerable
volume from the foot of a ridge and is almost entirely utilized
for irrigation About a mile below this source, the rapidly
descending chasm is spanned by a natural bridge of 125 ft.
span and about 100 ft. wide at the narrowest point. The
source, Neba' el-Asal, issues high up on the mountain spur
connecting J. Sannīn with J. Muneiterah, and is about 3 miles
north-east of Neba' el-Leben. Another large spring, Neba'
Maghāreh, issues from below the village of Herajīl. The stream
joins that from W. el-Leben at W. Shebrūh and thus forms
the N. es-Salīb which is the northern branch of the Kelb,
W. es-Salīb has a narrow rocky bed with steep sides rising
in places as high as 1,500 ft. and clothed with stunted oaks.
For the most part there is room only for the stream but,
where the bottom widens a little, there are patches of culti-
vation and houses here and there. In the neighbourhood
of the village of Meirūba there are water-mills and irrigation,
but, before reaching the village of Feitrūn, the whole of the
waters have soaked away in the bed and, from this point
to the Grottoes of Je'īta, about 51 miles from the sea, the
river bed is dry from July to November. From the Grottoes
of Joʻīta, issue the true sources of the N. el-Kelb, the
average autumn minimum flow at the point of issue being
THE LEBANON AND ANTI-LEBANON
409
34,000,000 gallons per 24 hrs. At 31 miles from the sea
is the intake of the Watta Canal which runs along the
r. bank of the river towards the mouth, when it turns
north and irrigates all the low lands lying between the
river and the town of Jūneh; it has a capacity of about
9,000,000 gallons per 24 hrs. At 31 miles from the sea is
the intake of the Beirut Waterworks Canal with a capacity
of 25,000,000 gallons per 24 hrs. ; below this point any
water found in the bed after the end of July is waste from
the Watta Canal. The waterworks canal runs along the
r. bank for 300 yds. at a lower level than the Watta Canal,
and then crosses to the l. bank by a ferro-concrete cantilever
aqueduct of 100-ft. span. It follows the l. bank for 2,000 yds.
and then the water enters a tunnel 1,100 yds. long, finally
reaching the pumping station. Between Jefīta and the sea
there are seven mills, the lowest of which takes its power from
the Watta Canal and the remainder from the river.
The N. el-Kelb is crossed by seven bridges in all. At the
mouth is the lattice girder bridge of the Tramways Libanais
of three spans of about 60 ft. each. About 100 yds. upstream
is the masonry bridge of three arches carrying the Beirut-
Tripoli road. About 1 mile higher up is the old bridge of
Amīr Bāshir for pack traffic. The foundations of this latter
are good, for it has resisted spates which have washed away
every other bridge from time to time. At 31 miles from the
mouth are the two bridges of the waterworks: a suspension
foot-bridge, part iron and part timber, capable of carrying
40 tons of distributed load over its whole length and, a few
yards above the intake of the Watta Canal a bridge of three
spans constructed by Rustem Pasha to connect the mule
tracks on both sides of the valley, and to give access to two
mills. About 1 mile higher up is the Mār Elyās bridge, of one
large high span with a steep approach on the l. bank, which
also serves to connect mule tracks and mills. The river falls
into the sea 8 miles north of Beirut.
The following facts are of interest. The manager, of the
Beirut Waterworks is of opinion that Jeśīta is not a spring
410 RIVER SYSTEMS OF NORTHERN SYRIA
1
but rather a discharge of all the underground water collected
from the N. es-Salīb and the other valleys of the catchment
area, through a large geological fault in the vicinity. In 1911
a concession was obtained to irrigate certain villages of the
Kesrawān kaza by trapping all the water of the N. es-Salīb
below the tail race of the mills mentioned above. The Beirut
Waterworks opposed the scheme on the ground they would
be deprived thereby of a considerable portion of their
water-power and, by order of the Porte, a commission was
appointed to make experiments to test this contention. In
November 1913, therefore, the water of the N. es-Salīb was
coloured by a green dye, with the result that the waters
issuing from Jeʻīta were similarly coloured. The experiment
was remarkable for the fact that, although the valley of the
N. es-Salīb is 3,000 ft. higher than Je'īta and the distance
above ground between the two places less than 10 miles, the
dyed water took six days to make its appearance. As a large
quantity of dye was used, the green colour was visible in the
laboratory of the American College of Beirut for three days
after its first appearance there, a fact which seems to indicate
the existence of immense underground reservoirs.
Nahr Ibrāhīm. This stream rises on the west flank of
J. Muneiterah near Afqeh and 'Āqūra. The upper part of the
wādi is fertile, but the chief part of the course of the stream is
through a precipitous gorge which, about 4 miles from the sea,
opens out into an irrigated valley where there are mills. The
total fall of the stream is about 3,000 ft. and the minimum
flow not less than 40,000,000 gallons per 24 hrs., but nearly
all this water with its power goes to waste. There have
been many projects for utilizing this water, but none had
materialized up to 1914. The mouth of the river is peculiar
in having generally a shingle bar across it, the water forming
a lagoon and escaping into the sea at a rocky promontory
500 yds. to the south. The carriage-road crosses the river near
the mouth by a modern lattice girder bridge of one span and,
a few hundred yards above this, is the old and picturesque mule
bridge that was the principal crossing before the carriage-
THE LEBANON AND ANTI-LEBANON
411
road was made. The stream reaches the sea 52 miles south
of Jubeil.
Nahr Qadīsha, or Nahr Abu `Ali.—The streams from 'Ain
en-Neba', 'Ain el-Baqarah, and Neba' Mār Serkis, all in the
basin containing the Cedars, tumble in cascades to the great
chasm of Qadīsha. There are, besides, several large springs
in Besherreh itself and also above Hasrūn. Above the large
village of Besherreh is a waterfall calculated to furnish
900 horse-power even in the dry season. The Qadīsha gorge is
formed by the junction of three branches which, about 2 miles
east of Besherreh, unite in a broad basin with steep sides about
1,000 ft. high, the bottom and southern end of which are
cultivated, but the eastern end, where the three arms enter, is
rugged and barren. At Hasrūn the gorge is so narrow that
the inhabitants can converse with the people of Hadshīt on
the opposite side, although it is a two hours' journey by road
between the two places. It is perhaps the wildest and
grandest of all the gorges of Lebanon; its sides are precipitous
and lofty and there is rich cultivation and luxuriant growth
on every spot where soil can lie. Villages are perched
picturesquely among the rocks, and convents are found in
remote nooks or in the bed of the valley. The chasm, which
in its upper reaches follows a generally westerly direction,
gradually trends north as it approaches the plain. Five or
six miles from the sea, the river, now called N. Abu 'Ali, is
joined on the r., near Zgharta, by N. Rashein, which has its
source in a very large spring. This latter stream supplies
the town of Tripoli with water by gravitation; the lower
part of the canal conveying the water is ancient, probably
Roman, and its capacity is 4,000,000 galls. per 24 hrs. The
supply is much contaminated by drainage from fields and
cattle and, during autumn, by thc waste from olive presses.
Besides these defects, the water during heavy freshets is also
heavily charged with red mud so that cisterns often become
filled with silt.
Below Zgharta the main stream traverses fertile country
celebrated for its oranges and olives. After passing through
412
RIVER SYSTEMS OF NORTHERN SYRIA
the town of Tripoli, at the north end of which it is crossed by
a bridge carrying the Homs carriage-road, it takes a north-
westerly direction to the sea 21 miles distant.
Nahr el-Bārid.-The sources of this river are in the northern
slopes of Lebanon at the base of J. ‘Akkār. Above the village
of Sīr there is a spring, Neba“el-Mas-hūr, which is very copious
in spring and early summer from the percolation of melted
snow. The main channel runs north-west through a gorge
forming the southern boundary of the district of 'Akkār and,
a few miles from the coast, the stream in July is deep and rapid
with a stony bottom, and is fordable with difficulty. Before
falling into the sea 9 miles north of Tripoli, it passes under a
3-arched masonry bridge which carries the Tripoli-Homs road;
here it is about 50 yds. wide and 2 ft. deep and has a rapid
current.
Nahr 'Alckār.-This stream takes its name from the district
of Jurd 'Akkat where it rises and its sources consist of numerous
rivulets which tumble down from the rugged mountains and
unite below the castle of 'Akkār. The stream issues from the
hills into the plain 2] miles east of the bridge of three arches
carrying the Homs road. A large canal is here carried off to
irrigate the plain and, from this point, the stream is also
known as N. Khureibeh. It empties into the bay of ‘Akkār.
About 6 miles from the sea it is crossed by a bridge bearing
the Tripoli-Homs railway, and here the stream is 50 ft.
wide and very deep, with a gravelly bed and clay banks.
Near its mouth it is spanned by an old bridge carrying the
coast road.
Nahr el-Kebir.—This is the largest of the streams which
intersect the coastal plain of ‘Akkār. Its most remote source
is in W. Khālid, which runs irregularly northwards along the
high northern slopes of the Lebanon range and then trends
westward in its descent to the Buqei'ah plain, between the
Lebanon and Ansarīyeh mountains. The other main feeder
of the river, W. Nāsir, runs down from the trap mountains
of the Ansarīyeh north-east of Qalʼat el-Husn, but contains
no permanent stream. From the junction to the sea, the
THE LEBANON AND ANTI-LEBANON
413
channel may be taken as marking the boundary between
the Lebanon and Ansarīyeh regions. W. Khālid for the
most part has steep sides with occasional tracts of broad
fertile land, and even in June there is a fair amount of water
in its bed. Near its mouth, W. Khālid is crossed by the
bridge carrying the Tripoli–Homs railway and, farther down,
by Jisr el-Ahmar, a good masonry structure of four arches
carrying the carriage-road. The stream here, in April, is
about 40 ft. wide and 2 ft. deep, and has a rapid current over
a shingly bed; the banks, 15–20 ft. deep, are of gravel and
clay. El-Buqei'ah, which is watered by the Khālid, is a
fine fertile plain, oval in shape, 10–12 miles in length and
about 6 miles broad. In it there are several springs and
marshes, and large herds of cattle and buffaloes are reared.
At the western end of the plain, where the river is about
70 yds. broad and 2 ft. deep (in April), it is spanned by the
Jisr el-Aswad, of 4 arches, carrying the Homs road. It is
also fordable above the bridge. About 11 miles lower down
the river is spanned by the Jisr el-Abyadh, also known as Jisr
el-Jedīd, of one arch, carrying the Homs road. The channel
here is broad and deep, with no great quantity of water in
June ; the banks are of clay, and there is a ford ] mile up-
stream. Below this bridge the banks become still deeper and
the river now enters a fertile plain receiving the affluents
N. Tell el-Khalīfeh and N. ‘Arūs. Lastly it receives a stream
from Neba' el-Fawwār, an intermittent spring which gushes
up copiously at very irregular intervals. Winding through
the rich plain, the N. el-Kebīr enters the sea 20 miles north of
Tripoli, being crossed a mile from its mouth by a five-arch
bridge carrying the coast road.
Streams of the Eastern Slopes of Anti-Lebanon
With the probable exception of the Nahr Maʻraba, there
are only two important streams in this region, the Barada
and the ‘Awaj, both of which flow eastward through the plain
to the desert lakes. The N. el-Awaj irrigates some 60 sq. miles
of land and supports a population of about 10,000. Much of
414 RIVER SYSTEMS OF NORTHERN SYRIA
its upper supply runs to waste, but with a more complete
system of irrigation the area of its usefulness could be greatly
extended. The Barada, besides being of much greater volume
and more adaptable to irrigation, is furnished with an
elaborate system of canals which assure à generous supply
of water to some 130 sq. miles of the most productive land
in Syria. It is besides utilized for electric power and water
supply to the city of Damascus. Of all the rivers of Syria, the
Barada perhaps lends itself most effectively to irrigation.
Nahr el-Awaj is formed by the junction of two streams
near Saósar on the eastern slopes of Hermon. One of these
comes from above Beit Jenn, through which village it flows
in a wādi with lofty sides of naked white rock, the stream
being fringed with poplar, walnut, and apricot trees. Below
the village it is augmented by 'Ain Beit Jenn, a large spring
on the r. bank, whence it continues in a deep channel to its
confluence with the other and larger branch, the ‘Arni. This
latter stream is formed by several small springs in a gorge which
penetrates to the centre of Hermon and flows in a deep channel
past ‘Arni, and Kefr Hawar and thence by a winding course
to the confluence near Sa-sa'. Close to their junction the two
streams are crossed by the new carriage-road from Jisr Banāt
Ya'qub to Damascus.
The trunk, now named N. el--Awaj or N. Zābirāni, flows for
about 6 miles in a north-easterly direction, having on the r.
an undulating plain thickly strewn with basalt boulders, and
on the l. a level tract where limestone takes the place of
volcanic rock. The whole district is forbidding and monoto-
nous. After turning east the stream flows in a tortuous and
very deep channel to Kisweh, passing on the l. the low range
of J. el-Aswad, between which and the stream there is a fertile
plain į mile wide. In this part of its course it is crossed at
Kisweh by the Damascus road. Continuing along the valley
between J. el-Aswad and J. Māni', the stream is crossed by
the Hejaz railway and, after sweeping round the last high
peaks of Māni', winds through the plain and enters the lake,
Bahret el-Hijāneh, near the village of Hijāneh. In summer
THE LEBANON AND ANTI-LEBANON
415
it is often dry below Kisweh. A large canal is carried
to Mu'adhdhamīyeh, which then turns i mile to E. and
meets another from the Barada. Above Jūn a large canal
is taken off from the l. bank to irrigate the fields of that and
other villages. Another takes off on the r. bank at Kisweh,
and waters the gardens of ‘Adalīyeh and Huryilleh. The
‘Awaj flows in a deep bed of basalt and the lower part of its
course runs parallel with the calcareous plain of Damascus and
marks the commencement of the basaltic region to the south.
The province in which its sources are found is named Iqlīm
el-Bellān, and comprises the whole eastern slopes of Hermon
with a section of the plain nearly to Sa‘sa'. The whole valley of
the river from Iqlim el-Bellān to the lake is called W. el-Ajam.
Nahr Barada.—This is one of the most important and
most fully utilized river in Syria. Besides irrigating the great
and fertile plain of Damascus, its waters provide the house-
hold water-supply, and produce the electric power and light
for that city. Above its source there are two copious springs,
the waters of which are diverted from the channel : ‘Ain
Hawar, which issues about 3 miles north-east of the plain
of Zebdāni and flows through a narrow and fertile valley to
the village of Zebdāni where it is entirely used for irrigation;
and 'Ain el-Funduq, a smaller spring in the north-east corner
of the plain, which, also, is entirely used for irrigation. The
actual source of the Barada is found in a small lake 300 yds.
long by 50 yds. wide, from which the stream descends through
the elevated plain of Zebdāni. The plain is 8 miles long from
north to south, and about 3 miles wide for half that distance,
beyond which it begins to narrow down until at its southern
end it is only about ] mile wide. Here the Beirut-Damascus
railway line which, to this point, runs along the l. bank,
crosses over to the r. bank of the river. Near by, at
Tekkīyeh, there is the electric power station of the Belgian
company which supplies Damascus with a force of 1,200 H.P.
from the water-falls. Receiving the winter torrents from W.
el-Qarn on the r., the channel bends eastwards in a narrow
precipitous chasm. Then, trending more southward, the
416
RIVER SYSTEMS OF NORTHERN SYRIA
gorge opens out, giving room for strips of luxuriant gardens
on either side of the stream. Below Sūq Wādi Barada, where
the gorge breaks through the J. esh-Sharqi the main chain of
Anti-Lebanon, there is a difficult ford and a modern bridge,
beyond which the stream takes a south-easterly course to
Deir Dānūn. It then bends more to the east towards
Fījeh, all the while rushing over boulders in a succession of
cascades, the banks being lined with luxuriant growth.
On the l. bank, about 70 yds. from the channel, “Ain
Fījeh bursts forth from fissures in a rocky cave, with such
force and volume as to form at once a stream 30 ft. wide by
3 ft. deep, and so rapid as to be unfordable. This is the
main source of the Barada, and contributes two-thirds of its
waters. The supply of pure water to Damascus from 'Ain
Fījeh was completed in 1909, the main pipe serving a
reservoir at Sālihīyeh: with 4,000 cub. metres per day by
which some 250 public fountains in the city are supplied, as
well as water for private use. At the spring the valley is about
200 yds. wide and bounded by cliffs 1,000 ft. high. Continuing
in this chasm in a generally south-easterly direction, the
river, before it reaches the plain, is held up by a succession
of dams built to feed the canals which, with the Barada
itself, furnish the main supply for the irrigation of the
Damascus plain. At Rubweh in the mouth of the valley,
there are five canals to r. of the road to Damascus, and two
to l. When the river emerges into the plain it takes an east-
ward bend and, after passing along the north wall of the city,
traverses the great plain, finally emptying by two channels
into the desert lake, Bahret el-Qiblīyeh. The Beirut-Damascus
railway line runs more or less parallel with the Barada through-
out its course to Damascus.
Nahr Maʻraba.—The most remote source of this stream
bursts from the foot of a cliff nearly 2,000 ft. high in the wild
and picturesque upper W. Helbūn which intersects the third
chain of Anti-Lebanon. The stream here irrigates many
orchards and gardens and, flowing in a gorge with overhanging
crags, is supplemented by a stream from 'Ain Sāhib, the waters
THE LEBANON AND ANTI-LEBANON
417
of which are utilized for turning a mill and for irrigation.
Thence it runs through a narrow neck into a deep gorge
and then bursts through a fissure in a cliff into a wide plain
surrounded by steep slopes. This basin is covered with
luxuriant fruit gardens and, after winding through it, the
stream enters another wild gorge in which it is carried across
the undulating plain-of Es-Sahra, the little valleys of which
are filled with orchards of figs. Continuing in a general south-
easterly direction, the channel cuts through several ridges
and is then joined on the l. by N. Menin, below the village of
Maʻraba, perched on a rocky acclivity overlooking the valley.
N. Menīn rises at the edge of a vast amphitheatre, of moun-
tains forming a basin from which ravinos divided by lofty
ridges of naked rock radiate in all directions. In the centre of
the basin is the village of Menīn, around the southern side
of which the stream sweeps through a fringe of poplars and
other trees. Thence the channel lies in a defile which opens
out into a valley of great depth, the bed being covered with
luxuriant foliage and the rocky sides rising up naked, smooth,
and white. Passing the village of Et-Tell, the torrent plunges
down a rocky bed fringed with walnut and poplar-trees to its
junction with N. Helbūn.
The trunk, now a fairly large stream named N. Maʻraba,
flows through open country with swelling hills intersected
by wooded valleys. It then breaks through by a chasm at
the north-eastern end of J. Qasyūn and runs in a tortuous
and rapidly falling bed between grey limestone rocks piled up
in huge masses. After watering the village and luxuriant
gardens of Berzeh, the stream emerges upon the Damascus
plain where it is entirely utilized for irrigation. The course
of the river from Helbūn to Berzeh is roughly parallel with
the Barada.
Irrigation Systems of the Damascus Plain
Besides the Barada and the Maʻraba, there are several
small perennial streams falling to the plain, many springs in
the plain itself, and extensive systems of canalization.
Dd
SYRIA
418
RIVER SYSTEMS OF NORTHERN SYRIA ·
*99MS,
1. The Barada Canals.-The canals taking off from the r.
bank of the river, are as follows:
The Diarāni takes off above the village of Dummar and
supplies a large mill there ; in many places it is carried through
deep tunnels in the rock. On account of leakage, its ori-
ginal capacity is much reduced, and it now contains a com-
paratively small quantity of water. As it turns out towards
the plain in the direction of the village of Dāreyya, which it
was apparently meant to supply, it contains little water and
is much overgrown by reeds.
The Mezzāweh is about 10 ft. lower, and contains a some-
what larger volume of water than the above. In places it
passes through rock tunnels, but is chiefly in the open and is
good deal overgrown with reeds. It goes to the village of
Mezzeh and the gardens beyond.
The Qanawāt leaves the Barada a good deal farther down,
having its.' take off' close to the railway signal-box, where
the road crosses the railway. It contains much more water
than the above mentioned canals, and passes east of the
barracks, running parallel with the railway in a covered
channel. It passes into Damascus by a fine Roman aqueduct,
and supplies water to a large section of the city.
The Bāniyās is also a large and important canal coming
from near the mouth of W. Barada and passing east of the
Merj. At several places it is carried through rock tunnels
and enters the city about half-way between the Qanawāt and
the Barada canal ; it supplies another large area of the city.
The Barada is the main canal and would be much
smaller but for the fact that there is leakage into it from
the canals on either side. It passes from Rubweh through
some gardens and emerges at the Merj, a large open
meadow, where it runs beside the Beirut road until it reaches
the Serai square. Here it passes under a bridge and
emerges a little farther on to run along the moat of the
north city wall until it reaches Bāb Tūma. Thence it winds
among the gardens to the Bahret el-Qiblīyeh.
The two remaining canals take off from the l. bank; they
THE LEBANON AND ANTI-LEBANON
419
are both large and of elaborate construction, being in many
places built up of masonry to a great height against the steep
cliffs.
The Yezīd, the larger and higher canal, leaves the Barada
near Hāmeh, and on reaching Rubweh makes a wide sweep
northwards, almost skirting the foot of the northern hills.
It supplies the suburb of Sālihīyeh and passes the villages
of Haresteh and Dūma.
The Tõra takes off not far up the valley. At Rubweh it
runs through a tunnel in an obstructing ridge and, on reaching
the open, works north-westward, making a greater sweep
around the northern flank of the city. It is shallow with
muddy banks overhung with trees, and passes chiefly through
gardens, but supplies also the northern suburbs outside the
city walls.
2. Other Streams and Springs in the Plain.-Various other
streams enter the plain from the ravines on the west and
north, but they are all speedily absorbed. A small stream,
Nahr Barbar, flows down from the wādi in which the village
of Qalʼat el-Jendel is situated. The fine gardens and fields
around the large. village of Qatana are abundantly watered
by a stream from a spring 1 mile west, but it is completely
exhausted after a course of 3 miles. A third comes from
a fine spring near Hafeyyer in the southern Sahra and passes
by a deep gorge to the plain. A fourth enters the north-
east part of the plain coming from a spring at Raheibeh
in the plain of Jerūd and is called N. el-Mūkabrīt (sulphurous
river), although the water is sweet. A fine stream passes
through Maqsūrah and waters the plain below; in summer
its water is wholly absorbed but, in winter, it falls into Bahret
esh-Sharqīyeh.
There are likewise occasional springs in the plain itself,
such as one à mile west of Qatana. Another, 'Ain el-Quseir,
near the base of the northern hills about 2 miles north-
east of Dūma, has three sources close together and the
stream waters a large tract, the surplus water falling into the
Tõra canal. The largest fountain in the plain is 'Ain
Dd 2
420
RIVER SYSTEMS OF NORTHERN SYRIA
Harūsh, about 5 miles south-east by east of Damascus, forming
a fine stream which flows eastwards to be used up in
watering five large villages with their fields and gardens.
3. Subterranean Canals.-A system of water supply, called
karez or felūj, is extensively practised in those parts of the
Damascus plain which cannot be reached by open canals.
This system, operative only on a slope, is as follows. A well
or pit is dug and water is found usually at a depth of 20–30 ft.;
then, following down the slope, other pits of gradually
decreasing depths are dug at intervals of about 100 ft. ; all
are then connected at the bottom by tunnels until at length
the accumulated waters run out to the surface. The courses
of these subterranean canals may be traced in the plain by
the long lines of mounds of earth around the pit heads even
from near the Meidān. On the Hajj road, about 3 miles
froni Damascus, there is a small canal in a deep artificial
channel made on this system. About å mile farther on is
one similar called N. Sabīneh and, 1 mile beyond, near the
foot of J. el-Aswad, is one called N. el-Bardi, the head of
the canal being 1 mile beyond Ashrafīyeh. In the north-
eastern part of the plain beyond Maqsūrah there are two
others. Many of these subterranean canals are now choked
up and are no longer in use.
The Desert Lakes
Lying on the verge of the desert east of the Damascus
plain, there is a group of lakes and marshes which receives
the surplus waters of the plain. The principal of these is
Bahret el-Qiblīyeh, which receives the waters of the Barada
and, in summer, covers an area of about 35 square miles.
North-east of this lake is the slightly smaller Bahret esh-
Sharqīyeh. The two lie about 1 mile apart and are separated
by high ground, across which there runs a small wādi. Certain
parts of the shore are clearly defined by high ground
which rises well above the water-level while, on other parts,
marshes spread out indefinitely. Both lakes and marshes are
covered with tall reeds 12-20 ft. high, only isolated patches
THE LEBANON AND ANTI-LEBANON
421
of water being visible. They are inhabited by great numbers
and varieties of water-fowl and the reeds provide, cover for
herds of wild swine.
About 5 miles south of Bahret el-Qiblīyeh is Bahret el-
Hijāneh, a smaller lake having as its principal feeder the N.
el-Awaj. This lake is also hidden by reeds; it covers an area
of about 22 square miles in winter, but is sometimes dry in
summer. East of these lakes is the desert.
II. JEBEL ANSARĪYEH
The main watershed of J. Ansarīyeh proper lies generally
N. and S. close over the Orontes valley. The eastern water-
courses are consequently short and unimportant, while the
western courses are comparatively long, carrying, in some
cases, a considerable body of water. The section of the range
north of Lādiqīyeh, included under this head, is structurally
quite distinct from the mountains to the south. Here
the watershed is on the W., and the chief watercourses fall
either eastward to the Orontes or southward to the Kebīr.
Generally the watercourses lie in deep ravines with a rapid
fall over rocky beds to the coastal plain on the W. or,
on the E., to the Orontes which flows close to the mountain
base. These ravines form a serious obstacle to commu-
nications. Little or no effort has been made to utilize
the water in this region for irrigation. During summer the
streams are much reduced and in many cases become dry,
but during the rains they are raging torrents.
Streams of the Western Slopes
The principal streams are grouped at the southern and
northern extremities of J. Ansarīyeh proper. A considerable
stretch between the two (approximately between Tartūs and
Jebeleh) is more scantily watered by small and comparatively
unimportant streams. Taking them from S. to N. the main
streams are as follows:
Nahr el-Abrash rises high up in the south-western slopes
422 RIVER SYSTEMS OF NORTHERN SYRIA
and passes close south of Sāfīta, falling in a south-westerly
direction to the plain. There is no information as to the
volume of water in summer, but during spring the stream is
much swollen, and is fordable in the plain with great difficulty.
It falls into the sea 31 miles north of the N. el-Kebīr.
Nahr Ghamkeh rises high up in the mountains and flows
in a wādi N. of Sāfīta, where it is a considerable stream ;
· after receiving several affluents on the r. it falls into the sea
11 miles S. of Tartūs.
the chief of which is 'Ain Hārūn. In the sea, a few yards
from the shore, is a very strong spring, ‘Ain Ibrāhīm, from
which, in calm weather, fresh water is drawn by the Ruwad
boatmen.
Nahr es-Sinn.--This is a short but very considerable stream
which has its source in a large spring issuing from under a spur
north of Marqab. It may, however, be the joint product of the
many springs which are said to abound in the hills in this
district. At its reputed source are the 'tombs of the forty
martyrs ', a place of pilgrimage, where the waters are taken
as a cure for numerous maladies The stream, of beautifully
clear water, is very deep and rapid, and is said to be unfordable
throughout The name Nahr el-Milk is sometimes given to
the stream from the tribe of sedentary Arabs who occupy
its banks. It is spanned by a bridge near the coast and
runs into the sea on the north side of Ras Beledeh.
· Nahr Snaubar rises in the upper mountains and, after
receiving a tributary on the r., flows in a deep ravine. It
is crossed, high up, by a narrow one-arched stone bridge ;
farther down, about 3 miles below Beit Sūhīn, there is a
forsakes its original channel which is crossed by a good bridge,
now unused, 9 miles N. of Jebeleh. It is fordable near its
mouth, where the coast road to Lādiqiyeh crosses. After rain
the torrent is exceedingly rapid and dangerous.
Nahr el-Kebīr (Lādiqīyeh).—This is the largest river on the
western slopes and its course marks approximately the division
JEBEL ANSARIYEH
423
between J. Ansarīyeh proper and the northern section of
the range. The basin includes a large area of the latter and
a comparatively small area of the former. Its most re-
mote source is high up in the mountains, where it is fed
by numerous affluents including that from the well-watered
basin of Urdeh at the base of J. el-Aqra'. One of its chief
affluents, on the l., is the Zerqa, which comes from 'Ain
ez-Zerqa and flows in a deep chasm. This affluent is fed by
numerous springs which, in the neighbourhood of Jisr Sheikh
el-'Ajūz, form abundant streams in deep gorges filled with
oleanders, planes, and other trees, the surrounding hills being
covered with oak and pine woods. It joins the parent stream
near Khān el-Jõz. The trunk rivér then flows through very
broken country in a deep gorge, and at Restān there is a
ford where the river is 50 yds. wide and 3 ft. deep (April):
near Damat there is another ford which is difficult in the
rainy season. The bed above the ford is filled with great
trap boulders of various kinds of rock—porous lava, globular
basalt, greenstone, &c.; the marl is rich in extremely
well-preserved fossils. On reaching the plain the river flows
between low banks of dark fertile soil, a deep but sluggish
stream and, some distance from the sea, it is crossed by
a many-arched bridge carrying the Tripoli-Lādiqīyeh road.
North of Lādiqīyeh there appear to be only small and short
streams. The most noted is that from the springs at Beit
el-Ma' which bursts from a perpendicular ledge of limestone
and falls over a succession of terraces to the Orontes.
Streams of the Eastern Slopes
The few watercourses of any considerable length are found
in the south, in the vicinity of Masyād-Hama and, in the north,
in the district of J. Quseir. Between these, i.e. approximately
between Qalʼat es-Seijar and Jisr esh-Shughr, there are only
short courses in deep gorges falling rapidly from the watershed
to the Orontes.
Nahr Sarūj is a torrent from the heights near Masyād
carrying a large volume of water during the rainy season.
424
RIVER SYSTEMS OF NORTHERN SYRIA
Near the point where it falls into the Orontes it is spanned
by an ancient bridge of 4 arches, called Jisr el-Mejdel, which
carries the road from Hama to the north-west.
Nahr el-Abyadh rises in the mountains NE. of J. el-Aqra'.
It is one of the largest tributaries of the Orontes and flows in
a south-easterly direction through broken country. It follows
a winding course through a gorge enclosed by perpendicular
rocks. Rushing through a thick growth of oleanders, it
doubles round the spur on which stands Qalʼat esh-Shughr,
and falls rapidly into the Orontes.
Nahr Bawardeh rises on the upper slopes of J. Quseir and
takes a general north-easterly direction from about Qal'at
ez-Zau. It doubles round the north side of the spur on which
the qal'ah stands and there receives an affluent. It receives
numerous other tributaries as it passes through a well-watered
country. Near Qal'at ez-Zau there is a ruined bridge carrying
the road to Antioch. The stream falls into the Orontes a
few miles above Jisr el-Hadīd.
III. COUNTRY EAST OF JEBEL ANSARĪYEH :
Rivers and Streams
The main watershed lies along the eastern verge of the
central depression, having a short and sharp fall towards the
west, and a long gradual slope eastwards. On the north,
the high plateau of Kurd Dagh sends some of its water
southwards into the lakes and marshes of the plain.
Apart from the Orontes, there are, in this district, only
small perennial streams about which little or no information
is available. A perennial stream flows from a spring in the
neighbourhood of Barri, forming swamps beyond Selemīyeh,
whence it runs through fields and orchards to the Orontes SE.
of Hama. Winter torrents from the highlands are numerous
and, except in the case of those falling to the Orontes, they
empty into marshes or basins, there to evaporate.
There are numerous small perennial affluents on the eastern
- slopes of the plain of El-Ghāb. In the district between Homs
COUNTRY EAST OF JEBEL ANSARIYEH
425
and Hama there are some wādis carrying streams from the
highlands on east.
Kuwaik Su.—This river rises near ‘Aintāb (see Handbook of
Asia Minor, vol. iv, pt. 2). Flowing west of Aleppo, it takes
a southerly course and at the village of Ansarīyeh is spanned
by a bridge carrying the Homs-Aleppo carriage-road. It
is followed on the r. bank, as far as Udeihi, by the railway
which there crosses the stream. The channel here bends
westwards to Khān Tūmān, then southwards, finally falling
into El-Matkh, a marsh, after having received a broad and
sluggish affluent on the r. near its outlet. The channel carries
a large volume of water in winter and spring and is well stocked
with fish; during summer the river is much reduced and,
below Aleppo, it is entirely used up by irrigation. Three
miles above its outlet it is spanned by a modern bridge
carrying the road from Aleppo to Palmyra via J. el-Hāss, and
here the river is about 20 yards broad and has a strong current.
Some distance above this, its banks are lined by a narrow fringe
of poplars and fruit trees among which are summer residences
of people of Aleppo besides bee-hive villages. The adjoining
lands are irrigated from the stream.
Nahr ed-Dahab.--This stream rises north-east of the im-
portant village of El-Bāb. Hereabouts, in ancient times, the
stream was diverted into three underground channels cut in
the rock and, at regular intervals, there are air-holes which
serve as wells. Following a southerly course, it finally
empties into Es-Sabkheh, or Jebbül Göl, one of a group of
salt lakes.
Lakes and Marshes
Very little information is obtainable as to the lakes and
marshes E. of the Orontes, most of which are dry in
summer. Those on the western border of the plain appear
to be basins into which winter torrents from the surrounding
mountains, are collected. Some are described as being thickly
overgrown with reeds and water plants which, as in the
case of the fish-stocked lakes S. of Aleppo, provide cover
426
RIVER SYSTEMS OF NORTHERN SYRIA
for enormous numbers of water fowl of almost every variety.
There are large winter lakes and marshes around the base of
J. Wustāni, notably the lake Er-Rūj, which receive the waters
of the surrounding mountains, and there are also marshes on
the eastern base of 'Alāla. A large lake, Mudhīq Göl, lies about
half-way between Maʻaret en-Nu'mān and Aleppo. It is well
stocked with fish, and is surrounded by villages whose inhabi-
tants carry on a considerable fishing industry. North of this
latter is the salt lake and marsh El-Matkh, also well stocked
with fish. South-east of Aleppo there is a group of salt lakes
Tatli Göl, Adji Göl, and Jebbül Göl or Es-Sabkheh. The
latter receives the waters of two streams—the Nahr ed-Dahab,
and another flowing from the neighbourhood of Aleppo. It
is surrounded by marshes which cover an extensive area after
the rains. The lake is dry in summer.
CHAPTER XIV
JUDAEA AND THE SOUTHERN DESERT
THE whole of the western section of southern Syria or
Palestine, south of the Nahr el-Lītāni, lying between the
Jordan and Dead Sea and the Mediterranean Sea, and com-
prising the three districts known, for the purposes of this
handbook, as Judaea and the Southern Desert, Samaria, and
Galilee, presents in the main the same general physical
features. Speaking very broadly, it is a region inter-
sected by groups of mountain ranges and peaks forming
a southern extension of the Lebanon system and running
southward till they finally lose themselves in the desert.
The water-parting of this system, however, is not continuous,
being broken between Galilee and Samaria by the broad
plain of Esdraelon, and is so placed that from two-thirds to
three-fourths of the country is on its western side. This fact,
taken in connexion with the great depth of the Jordan depres-
sion, or Ghör, has a peculiar effect upon the configuration of
the region as a whole : on the west side the slope is long and
fairly gradual; while on the east side it is short and steep,
precipitous even, especially towards the southern end, and is
intersected by valleys worn to a tremendous depth by the
force of torrents.
Longitudinally, the region divides itself into two main belts
-the mountain plateau on the E. and the maritime plain
on the W. South of the Esdraelon Plain, the central plateau,
varying in width from 15 to 20 miles, rises gradually until
round Hebron it attains a maximum elevation of over
3,000 ft. above the Mediterranean Sea. South of Hebron it
declines in broken and sloping strata until it terminates in
the plateau of the Southern Desert. The maritime plain
428
JUDAEA AND THE SOUTHERN DESERT
varies greatly in width from a few hundred yards in the N.
to anything up to 30 miles in the widest part towards the S.
The region under consideration in this chapter extends from
the Egyptian frontier on the S. to Samaria on the N. and is
bounded on the W. by the Mediterranean Sea and on the E.
by the lower reaches of the Jordan, the Dead Sea, and Wādi
‘Arabah. It embraces two areas, treated separately below
though merging one into the other, viz. the northern rectangular
block of Judaea and a desert area, roughly triangular in shape,
continuing southward to Akaba, the whole having a super-
ficies of some 7,500 sq. miles.
JUDAEA
Area
Judaea has no defined geographical frontiers either on the N.
or on the S. But, for the purposes of this handbook, the nor-
thern boundary line between it and Samaria, following the
indication of Fischer and Guthe's map, is taken as running
from near the small coast town of Arsūf, some 10 miles N. of
Jaffa, to the outlet of W. el-Humr into the Jordan, at about
lat. 32° N. The line runs somewhat S. of E. from the coast
and passes over the crest of the Judaean Highlands between
Sinjil and Lubban at a point about 10 miles N. of Jerusalem.
On the south the dividing line is considered for present pur-
poses to run from Wādi Ghazzeh to the south-west corner of the
Dead Sea, passing through Beersheba. The extreme length of
the territory thus defined, from N. to S., is 65 miles and its aver-
age breadth 50 miles, covering an area of some 3,000 sq. miles.
Under Turkish administration, the district of Judaea,
together with the greater part of the Southern Desert (see
p. 462), formed the sanjaq of El-Quds esh-Sherīf, or Jerusalem.
Administered by a mutesarrif of the 1st class, it was an
independent Governorate distinct from the rest of Syria and,
nominally at any rate, directly under Constantinople. The
whole sanjaq was divided into the kazas of Jerusalem, Jaffa,
Gaza, Hebron, and Beersheba.
JUDAEA
429
Physical Features
The Central Range.—As regards that part of the Central
Range which appertains to the Judaean district, it has
a breadth varying from 14 to 17 miles, reckoned from the
western edge to where, on the east, the level drops to the
Ghor. A zigzag mountainous section north of Jersualem is
known as J. el-Quds, the highest point of which is Nebi
Samwīl (alt. 2,935 ft.), 5 miles north of the city. South of
this begins the section of the range known as J. el-Khalīl,
around Hebron, where, at Halhūl, about 31 miles north of
this town, the Judaean mountains attain their greatest eleva-
tion of 3,270 ft. above sea level. South of Hebron there is
a sudden step down to a plateau of wolds and open arable
soil some 500 ft. lower, and farther south still another step
leads to the soft white limestone or marly region (and an
average elevation of 1,400 ft.), spreading round Beersheba
and sometimes known as the 'Negeb'. This region in turn
merges gradually into the Southern Desert.
On the west side of the watershed of the Central Range,
in Judaea, the mountainous country extends to about half
way to the sea. Its flank is rugged and steep in most part
and is penetrated and broken by deep valleys and passes.
Among the most important, enumerating from the north, are :
W. Selmān, which seems to have been the principal approach
to Jerusalem in ancient times; W. ‘Ali, a little distance south,
along which runs the Jaffa-Jerusalem carriage road ; W. es-
Sarār, main affluent of the Nahr Rūbīn, along which runs
the Ludd-Jerusalem railway ; W. el-Afranj, also tributary of
the Rūbīn; and, in the extreme south, W. el-Khalil, leading
from Hebron to Beersheba, and affluent of W. Ghazzeh.
For further details of the wādi systems of the western slope,
see Coastal Streams, pp. 435 ff.
On the east side the watershed dips sharply from a
maximum height of 3,270 ft. above the sea and
an average height of 2,500 ft. to a maximum depth of
1,300 ft. below sea-level in the Ghör —a fall of 4,000 ft.
430
JUDAEA AND THE SOUTHERN DESERT
ts heads on ty), rising near Jenalem to Jericho
or more within a distance never exceeding 20 miles. From
the frowning promontory of Qarn Sartabeh just outside the
northern border of Judaea, the eastern escarpment runs
southward like a mountain wall and extends along the Dead
Sea and beyond. This wall rises 1,000–1,500 ft. almost
directly above the Ghor and is everywhere steep and often
precipitous and inaccessible and is cleft to the base at short
intervals by deep and narrow valleys and gorges that issue
from the mountains. The principal of these, commencing
on the north, are : W. el-Aujeh, with branch wādis Suweinīt
and Fārah (not to be confounded with W. Fārʻah just N.
in Samaria); W. el-Qelt, down the steep lower course of which
runs the old road from Jerusalem to Jericho; W. en-Nār
(Kidron valley), rising near Jerusalem ; W. ed-Darajeh, with
its heads on the watershed just S. of Bethlehem; W. el-Ghār,
known in its lower course as W. el-'Areijeh ; W. el-Khudheireh ;
W. es-Seyyāl; W. Umm Bagheq ; W. Zuweireh ; and W. Ma-
hawat. The Qelt, Nār, Darajeh and Ghār gorges in particular
are so strikingly deep in comparison with their width and so
precipitous of side, especially towards their lower courses, that
they are uncrossable except at a few points, and their beds
are so choked with boulders as to be impassable. Their
upper courses or heads spread out fan-like into a perfect
labyrinth of shallower valleys.
The general character of the Judaean plateau is thus de-
scribed by G. Adam Smith. "The greater part consists of stony
moorland, upon which rough scrub and thorns, reinforced by
a few dwarf oaks, contend with multitudes of boulders, and
the limestone, as if impatient of the thin pretence of soil,
breaks out in bare scalps and prominences. There are some
patches of cultivation, but though the grain springs gaily
from them, they seem more beds of shingle than of soil.
The only other signs of life, besides the wild bee and a few
birds, are flocks of sheep and goats, or a few cattle, cropping
far apart in melancholy proof of the scantiness of the herbage.
Where the plateau rolls, the shadeless slopes are for the most
part divided between brown scrub and grey rock; the
JUDAEA
431
hollows are stony fields traversed by dry torrent beds of
dirty boulders and gashed clay. Where the plateau breaks,
low ridge and shallow glen are formed, and the ridge is often
crowned by a village, of which the grey stone walls and mud
roofs look from the distance like a mere outcrop of the rock,
yet round them, or below in the glen, there will be olive-
groves, figs, and perhaps a few terraces of vines.'
Nowhere in this area are there any large perennial streams
of water. On the whole plateau the only signs of permanent
water are the pools at Jerusalem, Bethlehem, or Hebron, and,
in the district from Beitīn to Hebron, even in springtime,
there are not more than six or seven tiny rills.
The Desert of Judaea. The sterile belt lying between the
water-parting of the Central Plateau and the lower course
of the Jordan and the Dead Sea and extending north and
south from the frontier of Judaea to abreast of the Southern
end of the Dead Sea, representing a rectangular tract roughly
40 miles in length by 12–15 miles in width, is known as the
Desert or Wilderness of Judaea. The configuration of this
region is virtually the same throughout its entire length from
N. to S. : from the high line of watershed between Jerusalem
and Hebron, at an alt. of 2,500–3,000 ft. above sea-level, the
country falls in a succession of terraces to the edge of the great
line of cliffs which, themselves, fall a further 1,000 ft. or more
almost sheer to the Ghör itself. This slope of triple gigantic
steps is riven, as described above, by a number of wādis
which have generally parallel courses and run for the most
part eastwardly or south-eastwardly to fall into the Dead Sea.
By their depth and direction they are effective obstacles to
easy traffic from north to south, so that but few tracks, and
these passable with much difficulty, traverse this area. Abso-
lutely dry in summer, these wādis form, in the rainy season, the
passages of torrential streams to the Dead Sea and each has
at its outlet a delta of boulders ; W. el-Qelt in the north and
W. Umm Bagheq farther south alone have perennial water.
From the hard limestone of the watershed the general geo-
logical formation of the desert changes to a soft limestone of a
432
JUDAEA AND THE SOUTHERN DESERT
yellowish colour and so porous that it swallows up rain almost
at once. There are, however, a few tracts of flat ground such
as the Buqei' plain, east of Mār Sāba, about 5 miles long by
2 miles in width, where the soil is of a more marly nature.
As to vegetation, there are no trees except by the rare pools or
rarer springs and occasionally in the bottoms of shady gorges.
Great expanses, especially on the high part, are absolutely
bare of plant life of any kind ; but in the depressions, in
spring, there is much desert flora and patchy grass which,
however, dries up with the first sirocco, leaving only burnt
grass and aromatic plants with few or no leaves. Added to
this the fact that such growth as there is, when cropped,
requires two years to spring anew it will be readily seen that
such a region is exceptionally inhospitable and fitted only for
small nomadic . pasturage. The region in fact can only
support a scant population, except perhaps in the rare oases
such as there are around the springs in W. el-Qelt, in the more
productive tract of the Buqei', in the district immediately
surrounding the spring of 'Ain Jidi at the mouth of W. el-
‘Areijeh, and in W. Umm Bagheq. Cultivation has no
prospects except of a most meagre kind at some of the spots
just mentioned and on the extreme western fringe ; to dig for
ground water is vain. Apart from the tents of the Bedouin
the only habitations of this wilderness are holy places such as
the Russian monastery of St. George clinging to the face of
the cliff on the way from Jerusalem to Jericho and the Greek
monastery of Mār Sāba, 10 miles further S.
The Maritime Plain.-The fruitful coast-plain of Judaea and
Samaria begins at the southern frontier near Gaza and ex-
tends northward, a uniform but gradually narrowing tract of
land, as far as the promontory of Carmel. The Judaean section
varies in width, from 30 miles in the extreme south to 20 miles
at Ascalon, and is divided, in name as well as in character, into
two parts at about the lat. of this place, the southern half
being known as the Plain of Philistia and that to the north
as the Plain of Sharon. Only the southern part of the Plain
of Sharon, however, lies within the confines of Judaea.
JUDAEA
433
The Plain of Philistia is mostly level, but rises now and
again into gentle ranges 250 ft. high and is cut by large
and deep transverse gullies—W. esh-Sheri'ah, Hesi, Mejma',
Burshein, Sarār, and others-outlets of the drainage of
the Judaean Highland (see Coastal Streams, below). The
plain embraces the notable agricultural centres of Gaza,
Mejdel, and Esdūd, and nearly all the low ground is capable of
cultivation; in spring, tracts of it have the appearance of a
vast series of cornfields interspersed with pasturage or patches
of reeds and rushes. There are but few trees except around
certain coast centres. Inland the soil is of a light brown
colour. . Along the whole sea-board runs a strip of downs or
dunes (with low cliffs here and there), sometimes composed
of pure sand, sometimes covered with patchy grass. The
drifting sand, which in places has encroached 21 or 3 miles
or even more inland, is often an impediment to agriculture.
South-west of Gaza, the plain rapidly merges into desert.
The part of the Plain of Sharon appertaining to Judaea
embraces the highly cultivated districts round the important
towns of Jaffa, Ramleh, and Ludd, and is traversed further
north by the Nahr el-Auja and its tributary wādis. It is
an admixture of cornfields, melon, cucumber and vegetable
gardens, orange and palm groves, and strips and patches of
sand covered in places with coarse grass, thorns or thistles,
with frequent villages situated on mounds. As in the
Philistian plain, water is abundantly found by digging, the
soil is light and fertile, and in places affords excellent pasturage.
The Shephelah. It should be noted that, as far as Judaea
is concerned, the Central Range does not fall immediately on
the maritime plain. Along a great part of the western base
lies a tract of lower hills, varying in breadth and forming
a middle or transition zone between the mountains and the
plain. It is a smaller and more open range, from 500–800 ft.
high (and one or two summits up to 1,500 ft.)—the so-
called “Shephelah', or 'low ground', extending northwards
from abreast of Gaza almost to the confines of Samaria,
and representing roughly an area 30 miles in length by
SYRIA
Ee
434
JUDAEA AND THE SOUTHERN DESERT
5-8 miles in breadth. The region consists principally of soft
chalky limestone forming groups of hills or downs inter-
sected from E. to W. by a succession of main wādis from the
mountains of Judaea, the groups being again intersected
by N.-S. transverse shallows and fertile valleys. Viewed
as a whole, these hills present the aspect of an amphitheatre
encircling the plain of Philistia on the E.
The Shephelah, as a hill group, is separated from the main
Central ridge by a well-defined chain of broad and shallow
valleys—W. es-Sūr, the plain of Es-Sant and W. en-Nejil-
running N. and S. from Wādi Selmān to near Beersheba and
W. Ghazzeh ; it is flung off as it were from the main system
into an independent group. Geologically the area has
a certain counterpart in the soft low hills which separate the
Central Range and Mt. Carmel, further N. (see p. 502 f.). In
some of the main cross valleys of the Shephelah are some
almost perennial water-courses and their bottoms consist of
broad pebbly beds intersected with patches of alluvial soil
which produces good corn. The terebinth and sycomore
fig are characteristic trees. Inhabited villages are frequent in
the district; but the unusual number of ruined cities scattered
all over the Shephelah shows that it was once more thickly
populated than it is now.
The Coastal Streams and Western Wūdi Basins. It would
be misleading to describe the streams of Southern Syria which
run into the sea south of Haifa, as rivers in the ordinary
acceptance of the term, with the possible exception of the
N. el-'Auja which, fed by strong springs, enters the sea a few
miles north of Jaffa; nor may they be described with certainty
as directly draining the Central ridge of Judaea and Samaria.
Robinson and others have regarded most of these streams
as deriving the bulk of the volume of their waters from direct
outflow from the very numerous wādis of the western slope
of the ridge ; more recent observers, however, including
Dalman hold the view that no considerable amount of water
reaches the sea direct from the mountain country even in the
rainy season and consider these water-courses purely as outlets
JUDAEA
435
of accumulated underground waters held up in the maritime
plain by the sand dunes which fringe the whole of the coast.
The course of perennial flow of water of all the streams is
short and the current generally slow—the length of the
'Auja, the longest, being not more than 15–20 miles. Some
of their tributary wādis, higher up, however, hold disconnected
stretches of water during longer or shorter periods of the
year, as e.g. W. es-Sarār, tributary of the 'Auja. In none of
the streams is the volume of water reaching the sea very
great and, with the possible exception of the ‘Auja, they are
of little economic importance. This is the only stream which
carries even small boats. But though they bring com-
paratively little water, each is the ultimate outlet to the
sea of a basin of a complex system of wādis in the interior.
The principal streams, enumerating from S. to N., are the
following: W. Ghazzeh, W. el-Hesi, N. Sukereir, N. Rūbīn,
N. el-'Auja, N. el-Fāliq, N. Iskanderūneh, N. el-Mefjir, and
N. ez-Zerqa. Of these, the first five belong to Judaea ; the
remainder are treated under Samaria.
(1) Wādi Ghazzeh runs into the sea about 5 miles SW.
of Gaza. It has two important branches which pene-
trate Judaean territory_W. el-Khalil, a long arm which
has its head near Hebron and joins the main valley a few
miles E. of Beersheba; and W. esh-Sherī“eh, which passes
Tell esh-Sherī“eh and crosses the Gaza-Beersheba road at
Abu Hareireh, to join the Ghazzeh about 8 miles from its
mouth.
Musil (in Arabia Petraea, II, i. p. 14) says that the main
channel of W. Ghazzeh carries perennial water from Bir
Shanaq some 17 miles upstream ; but Dalman says this
statement was based on hearsay evidence only, and adds that
there may be permanent stretches of pool as far up as this
point, but certainly not a permanent flow of water. Baumert,
a Consular Secretary in Jaffa, states that an actual permanent
water-course begins at about 11 mile from the coast, just
below the point at which the Khān Yūnis-Gaza road
crosses it. As to the W. esh-Sherī'eh, Dalman reports that,
Ee2
436
JUDAEA AND THE SOUTHERN DESERT
certainly no permanent water runs from it into W. Ghazzeh ;
but he records having seen water at Abu Hareireh at the end
of March 1908, and Baumert at the end of July 1913, though
there was no water at the mouth of the Sherī'eh at either of
these dates. See further p. 464.
(2) Wādi el-Hesi. The outfall of this wādi lies about mid-
way between Gaza and Askalon and it has its main heads on
the waterparting of the Judaean plateau between the villages
of Dūra, west of Hebron, and Dhāherīyeh between Hebron
and Beersheba. The main channel takes a generally westerly
course and enters the true maritime plain near Tell el-Hesi.
Continuing westward it passes close S. of the village of Deir
Sineid and, after a further course of some 4 or 5 miles, falls
into the Mediterranean Sea. A rather important branch,
known in part of its course as W. Muleiheh, falls in on the
1. bank near Tell el-Hesi after passing Tell en-Nejīleh, between
which two hills it carries a small sluggish perennial stream ;
another branch, W. Halīb, falls into the main wādi at Deir
Sineid.
The main channel of W. el-Hesi appears to carry perennial
water for only about 1 mile from its mouth, this stream
finding its supply of water in the neighbourhood of the coast
dunes.
(3) The Nahr Sukereir is the outlet of an extensive and
complex system of wādis draining the central ridge between
Bethlehem and Hebron. Its main arms, each with a generally
east-westerly course, are two : on the N., a long valley
bearing various local names_W. Musurr, Jindi, Sant (with
branch Es-Sūr joining at Shuweikeh), and Burshein—which,
after zigzagging through a gorge, enters the plain at Tell
es-Sāfi; on the S., a long wādi commencing near Dūra and
known as W. el-Afranj down which and its continuations,
W. Jemrūreh and W. Sharqiyeh, runs the important road from
Hebron to Beit Jibrin. Below this town, the southern valley
continues north-west as W. Mejma' to join the northern arm
at Jisr Esdūd about 2 miles N. of the village of Esdūd. The
southern arm receives an important branch, W. el-Ghuweit,
JUDAEA
437
from the south, which, after passing ‘Arāq el-Menshīyeh and
Felūjeh, joins it near Beit Durās. From Jisr Esdūd, the
united valleys, under the name N. Sukereir, run N. for
about 4 miles and finally make a sharp bend WSW., to
enter the sea about halfway between Askalon and Jaffa.
According to Dalman and to Tischer's map, the Sukereir is
perennial from a point a little below the bridge of Jisr Esdūd
(which carries the Gaza-Jaffa wheel-road across it), just
before the wādi cuts through the dunes.
(4) The Nahr Rūbīn is the outlet of the important system
of valleys intersecting that part of the western slope of the
central ridge extending from Bīreh to Urtās, on which
Jerusalem is situated. It falls into the sea about 9 miles
S. of Jaffa and about 1 mile N. of the ancient harbour
Minet Rūbīn, after passing E. of the village of Yebnah and
the shrine of Nebi Rūbīn, from which latter it takes its name.
Its all-important arm is W. es-Sarār, which has its head
not far from Bīreh, at mile 10 of the Jerusalem-Nāblus
road. Along the Sarār and a southern branch comprising
W. es-Sikkeh (with branch W. Bittīr), and W. el-Ward, is
carried the Ludd-Jerusalem railway. Other well-known
tributaries of the Sarār are W. en-Nejīl from the south and
W. el-Ghurāb, from the north, both joining near Deir Abān.
The Sarār enters the lowland hills near 'Ain Shems and
runs for about 9 miles in a north-westerly direction
receiving an important feeder, W. el-Menākh, from the
south. It then passes through a gap between the villages
of Mughār and Qatrah, turns due N. past Yebnah and finally
bears W. to enter the sea as the N. Rūbīn.
According to Dalman, permanent water begins in the marsh
country E. of the dunes near Tell es-Sultan, 3-4 miles from
the coast, just before the stream bends westwards. Fischer's
map, on the other hand, shows the Rūbīn as a perennial
stream to about 9 miles above its mouth, and the P.E.F. map
indicates permanent water for about 18 miles : the former is
probably excessive, and certainly the latter, for, though W. es-
Sarār is rich in springs along a considerable section, the flow
438
JUDAEA AND THE SOUTHERN DESERT
of water from these is insufficient to form a continuous
stream so high up the valley after irrigation needs have been
supplied. Robinson seems to support the testimony of
Dalman, for he records that 'in autumn the N. Rūbīn some-
times dries up'. The estuary of the river is closed in summer
by a sand-bar.
(5) The Nahr el-Auja, or the river of winding water', is
the most important of the coastal streams south of the Lītāni.
It empties itself into the sea about 5 miles north of Jaffa
and is the outlet of one of the most considerable wādi systems
of the western watershed. The basin lies mostly, though not
wholly, within Judaean territory and embraces within its
limits the important group of towns-Jaffa, Ramleh, Ludd.
Its very numerous upper ramifications receive the drainage
water of that section of the central ridge extending from
Bīreh, 10 miles N. of Jerusalem, almost to Nāblus. From
among the intricate tangle of water-courses composing this
basin, three principal arms may be singled out as being the
most important: (1) W. Musrāreh (or Bārideh), joining the
main stream from the south a few miles above its outlet and
known as it penetrates inland by the various names Wādi
Nusrah, Shellăl, and Selmān, along a section of which latter
and a well-known branch, W. ‘Ali, joining at Qubāb, runs the
Jaffa-Jerusalem carriage road; (2) W. Deir Ballūt, the main
middle arm ; (3) W. el-Ashkar, or Ishkar, known higher up
as W. Qānah, into which falls W. ‘Azzūn, an important branch
along which runs the most direct track from Jaffa to Nāblus.
The 'Auja proper derives its water partly from strong
springs the chief of which are situated at Ras el-`Ain in
W. Rabāh; but the main supply, according to Dalman, is
derived from the underground drainage water of the maritime
plain (see above, p. 434 f.). The stream runs in a deep channel
between soft alluvial banks which are sufficiently high to keep
the river from flooding the country. Its bed has no firm bottom
and for this reason, though the current is not rapid, the stream
is difficult to cross except at the bridge carrying the Jaffa-
Haifa road, where the channel is from 20-30 yds. wide.
JUDAEA
439
According to Dalman, the 'Auja is perennial only from
Ras el-'Ain, and, even below this point for some miles, it does
not carry a great volume of water; it is only when it begins
to draw on the subsoil water of the plain that the stream
becomes considerable. The P. E. F. map shows perennial
water much further up both the main wādi and its northern
branch W. el-Ashkar, but, according to Dalman, the latter has
no permanent stream though it carries much water in heavy
rain. The only perennial affluent of the ‘Auja is W. Musrāreh,
(the Bārideh of the Survey, but a name not known locally,
according to Dalman). This branch channel has the character
of a wide shallow gully which carries a torrent after rain, but
normally is only a trickling stream which begins about
1 mile above the steel bridge carrying the Jaffa-Haifa carriage
road across it. Dalman's indications as to the perennial
water of the 'Auja agree, substantially, with the indications
of Fischer's most recent map.
The estuary of the 'Auja is never completely closed by a
sand-bar, even in summer, as is the case with the N. Rūbīn.
The ford, by which the coast track from Jaffa to Haifa
crosses, is not at the mouth itself, for lack of sufficiently firm
ground, but some little distance inland where the stream
suddenly makes a N.-S. bend. The 'Auja is the only coastal
stream south of the Lītāni offering economic possibilities
of any considerable extent. Water is pumped from it to
irrigate large orange gardens, and the stream drives three or
four mills. Consular Report, 1913, says: “It is a slow-moving
stream with a perpetual flow ... offering many possibilities.
A power station for electricity would not be difficult to erect
and, lower down, irrigation would make the surrounding
country most productive, ... A sugar factory might be
established.'
Coastline
The coast from the Egyptian frontier to Haifa is
an almost straight line running from S. to N. with a slight
general inclination eastward. There are no strongly marked
440
JUDAEA AND THE SOUTHERN DESERT
irregularities producing deep estuaries or sheltered gulfs-
a small inland basin at Ascalon, low reefs at Abu Zabūra
and Jaffa, small curves of the beach at Tantūrah, a projecting
rock at 'Athlīt and the sand-barred mouths of some half
a dozen small streams are the only possibilities of natural
harbourage. Attempts at establishing permanent ports for
deep sea vessels have, so far, proved abortive, as witness the
remains of ancient moles at Ascalon, the suggestion of a double
harbour at Tantūrah and the solid ruins at ‘Athlīt; the
river estuaries have never been utilized as harbour sites.
Jaffa is an open roadstead with dangerous reefs and can only
be approached by small craft through a narrow strait in the
reefs which is difficult to negotiate in stormy weather ; the
beach at Gaza is straight and low and the roadstead even
more unsheltered than Jaffa ; the landing-place at Mīnet
el-Qal'ah is between reefs.
From the Egyptian frontier at Rafah to Gaza, 19 miles, the
coast is extremely uniform and trends north-eastward in
a slight curve and consists of a sandy beach with sandhills at
intervals. About midway there is a slight projection, Ras
el-Markab, and up to this point there is no vegetation near the
coast, but beyond, in the direction of Gaza, a few shrubs and
trees appear. A heavy swell is usually breaking on this shore.
From Gaza to Ascalon, 10 miles, the coast continues NE.
and is still very uniform. It is sandy with sandy hillocks at
intervals and there is an almost constant heavy surf along it.
At Ascalon, a bold line of cliffs rises to a height of 60 ft.
directly from the sea. From this point to Jaffa, 26 miles, the
foreshore is of very soft sand of deadly uniformity interrupted
by a few black rocky capes and now trends NNE. A wilder-
ness of shifting sand dunes, soft and waterless, which “march
with the winds ’, masks the plain from the sea and extends
from 2 miles to 5 miles inland. The N. Sukereir and N. Rūbīn
force a passage to the sea in this section, and the only other
noticeable irregularities consist of some rocks or islets that
form a sort of natural jetty at Mīnet Rūbīn. For 3 miles
S. of Jaffa and 2 miles N. of it the shore is fronted by rocky
JUDAEA
441
tn Naisārīyeh the coast consisuo ve-
reefs, awash and 50-100 yds. from the shore. The foreshore
here is very soft sand and about 30 yds. back the ground
rises in the form of a very indented sand-cliff, to the height
of about 30 ft. above sea-level. Jaffa stands on the brow
of a rocky hill about 115 ft. high. From Jaffa to Qaisārīyeh
(Caesarea), 28 miles, the coast trends N. slightly by E. For
2 miles it is low and sandy and rises, a few yards back from
the water's edge, to an undulating line of sand-hills 40-50 ft.
high; thence to Qaisārīyeh the coast consists of red cliffs, with
a sandy beach at the foot along which a good deal of traffic
passes, as being preferable for some sorts of transport to the
roads further inland, but the sand is not very firm. Three
miles north of Jaffa the N. el-Auja flows into the sea between
steep muddy banks, and the ancient port of Arsūf is situated
on a conical hill, in a little creek within the cliffs, about
6 miles further on. The coast from Qaisārīyeh to Tantūrah,
64 miles, is an almost straight sandy beach broken only by
the wide and deep estuaries of the N. ez-Zerqa and the N. ed-
Dufleh. About 1} miles inland the coastal plain is backed by
the Khashm, a prominent table-topped upland, 457 ft.
high, an extension of Mt. Carmel. Hammām islet, black and
rocky, is the largest island of a miniature archepelago situated
about 300 yds. off the beach about 31 miles south of Tantūrah.
Other groups of tiny islets, close in to the shore, appear at
Tantūrah and 'Athlīt. They are all, in reality, the protruding
heads of a long shore reef which extends intermittently from
south of Qaisārīyeh to near 'Athlīt. The islets at Tantūrah
extending in a south-westerly direction parallel to and
150–200 yds. from the shore form an efficient breakwater
at this port. From Tantūrah to ‘Athlīt, 6 miles, the coast
runs almost due northward and is rocky, with small sandy
bays at intervals. About 1 mile inland, a low rugged ridge
runs parallel to the coast and, behind this, is Mt. Carmel
which gradually approaches the shore as it runs northward.
‘Athlīt stands on a rocky promontory having on its
southern side a small bay which recedes about 500 yds. and
opens to the NW. From 'Athlīt the coast runs N. as a sandy
442 JUDAEA AND THE SOUTHERN DESERT
beach for 71 miles to Tell es-Semak, a low isolated peak on
a reef protruding seaward. Near Tell es-Semak, Mt. Carmel
approaches to within 300 yds. of the shore—a fine bold
promontory, about 550 ft. in elevation, on which stands
a lighthouse. From this point the coast trends ENE. for
11 mile to Ras el-Kerūm, and then bears SE. for 21 miles to
Haifa—a sandy beach with rocks off the shore all the way.
The currents of this coast run parallel to it and come laden
with sand and Nile mud that help to choke the few faint
estuaries, harbourages and creeks. The prevailing winds are
from the SW.
Geology
The general geological composition of the whole
region extending from the plain of Esdraelon to Beersheba
is impervious limestone (cenomanian), overlaid in places by
porous flinty chalk (senonian), and this overlaid in turn by
marine deposits of the Mediterranean Sea and alluvium.
The limestone, generally dark grey in colour, hard and
compact, and lying in nearly horizontal stratified beds
varying in thickness from 2 to 7 ft., appears almost without
interruption along the crest of the central ridge and, under-
lying the chalk, appears also round the edge of Mt. Carmel
and at the base of the cliffs on the western shore of the Dead
Sea. The chalk appears on the eastern slope of the ridge,
throughout the desert of Judaea, in the Shephēlah and
a great part of the western slope, and in northern Samaria
and Carmel. The marine deposits, interspersed with broad
tracts of alluvium, appear in the maritime plain—the former
also appearing in the Ghör and the latter in the Zor, see
Chap. XXI.
The configuration of the country is what would be naturally
expected from such formation. Where the limestone prevails
there are barren stony hills hemmed in and divided by
innumerable valleys, mostly narrow and nearly all dry, and
the horizontal beds give a tame outline to the hills, and their
summits are flat and covered with stones. Where the chalk
JUDAEA
443
appears, the outlines are softer and broad white patches and
bands run over the mountains; here the water has worn
down the hills, and plains result from the softer formation.
. Water-supply
As a general rule, springs occur where the limestone
(cenomanian), is predominant, especially at the juncture
with the overlying porous soil (senonian); but where there
is a great thickness of this latter, the water-supply is
either from deep wells cut through it, or from artificial tanks
and cisterns constructed to collect the surface water. As to
quality, the senonian water is hard but agreeable to the taste,
whereas the cenomanian rock, containing soluble magnesium
and sodium salts, renders the water, stagnant in it, brackish
and medicinal.
The water-supply of the Judaean hills is, in general, inferior
to that further north towards Samaria. Even Jerusalem itself
was remarkable for its insufficient supply, but since the
occupation, the city has been well supplied with water from
springs in Wādi el-Arrūb, collected into a reservoir and
carried thence by a pipe system. In the section of the
watershed to the N. and NW. of Jerusalem the supply is
principally from deep wells, cisterns and rock-cut tanks ;
but there are two notable springs, 'Ain Badrān and Yanbū“,
near the Samarian boundary, west of Sinjil. Further S.,
from Halhūl through Hebron to Dūra, the watershed is
well supplied with springs of good water. The district south
of Dūra is comparatively dry, the water sinking through
the soft chalky limestone, but there are here some springs
forming small streams that run perennially for a few miles,
notably 'Ain ed-Dilbeh. On the western slopes, springs
become numerous and, from some of the larger of these,
streams run down the valleys in the wet season. On the
eastern slopes, embracing the Desert of Judaea, springs
become more and more rare going eastward until the Ghör is
reached and the scanty supply is almost entirely from arti-
ficial reservoirs cut in the rock for the collection of surface-
444
JUDAEA AND THE SOUTHERN DESERT
water. In the northern part of this locality, however, ‘Ain
Sāmieh, 'Ain Fasā'il, 'Ain Fārah, 'Ain el-Qelt, ‘Ain ed-Düq
and Ain en-Nñei'ameh are fine sources; the springs of
‘Ain Jidi and Umm Bagheq (see p. 657) are also notable.
The water-supply of the Dead Sea Ghör is noted in chap. XXI.
The Shephelah is supplied almost entirely from spring-wells,
the water here being found just beneath the surface; there are
also a few brackish perennial springs, feeding slow small
streams, such as “Ayūn el-Hesi and 'Ayūn Qassābah. In the
maritime plain there is but little surface water and the main
supply is from wells which may be dug almost anywhere
and water found not far below the surface. Wells occur even
on the sea-shore, as at Sheikh 'Ajlin and Sheikh Hassan.
For further notes on wells and water in the coastal plain, see
chapter on Samaria, p. 484.
Climate
The climatic features of Syria as a whole are described in
Chap. II; peculiarities of the climate of Judaea may,
however, be further considered. Geo. Adam Smith says :
"Take a section of the country across Judaea. With its
palms and shadoofs the Philistine Plain might be part of the
Egyptian Delta ; but on the hills of the Shephelah which
overlook it, you are in the scenery of Southern Europe ; the
Judaean moors which overlook them are like the barren
uplands of Central Germany, the shepherds wear sheepskin
cloaks and live under stone roofs--sometimes the snow lies
deep ; a few miles further east and you are down on the
desert among the Beduin, with their tents of hair and their
cotton clothing ; a few miles farther still, and you drop to
torrid heat in the Jordan valley.'
The district thus affords considerable general differences of
temperature in different parts, due primarily to the range of
level from about 3,000 ft. above the sea on the watershed to
1,300 ft. below sea-level in the Ghör and to the configuration
of the country. The Central Range though subject to ample
annual changes of temperature is one of the healthiest of
JUDAEA
445
localities given good sanitary conditions. The mean annual
temperature here varies from 62° to 68º. Except when the
sirocco (sharqīyeh) blows, the warmest days of summer
seldom exceeds 90° and the cold of winter still more seldom
falls to freezing point. January is the coldest month with
a mean temperature of about 46°.
Dr. G. E. Post says : ‘In speaking of the temperature in
the shade in this land, we must not forget that it quite inade-
quately expresses the intense fervour of the direct rays of the
sun, when no cloud intervenes to mitigate the heat. On the
sea-coast the sun temperature often reaches 145º Fahr., and
sometimes over 150° Fahr., and in the Jordan valley and in
the narrow gorges which debouch into the basin of the Dead
Sea, the heat is blistering. One of these wādis is appro-
priately termed Wādi en-Nār, the Valley of Fire. The
temperature of the plateaux is subject to extremes of heat,
and to bitter cold winds.'
The following comparative table gives an indication of the
climatic conditions obtaining at Jerusalem and Jaffa, the one
situated on the plateau and the other in the plain :
Jerusalem. Jaffa.
Mean annual tomperature
anature
. . .
. 612° Fahr. 67.5° Tahr.
Mean annual rainfall. .
26.04 inches 23.6 inches
Averago number of rainy days in the year 56 days
62.5 days
Rainfall.—The mean monthly rainfall, in inches, and the
number of rain days at Jerusalem as compared with Jaffa, is
as follows:
Jerusalem.
Jaffa.
Rainfall Rain Rainfall Rain
η της. days. in ins. days
January .
6.5
15.2
February
10
10
March
7.4
.
April
1.6
June, July, August
September
:04
October
12
5.6
411 •
•
4.1
May
1.2
ܩܵܐ ܩܶܝܺܙ | ܚܰܕ݂ ܀
4.4
November
6.4
7.5
December
5.9
10.6
9.7
446
JUDAEA AND THE SOUTHERN DESERT
Rain is rare in May and September both in the plain and
in the mountain country, and almost totally absent in the
are December and January. The highest fall of rain for any
month recorded at Jaffa, during the years 1904–13, was
121 ins., during December 1911.
Winds. For direction of prevalent winds, see Chap. II,
Table XXII, pp. 74 ff.
Hail and snow.-During most winters hail and snow fall on
the Judaean hills. The former is common and is often mingled
with rain and accompanied by thunderstorms which happen
at intervals through the winter and are frequent in spring.
On the Central Range snow has been known to reach a depth
of nearly 2 ft. and to lie for 5 days or even more, and the
pools at Jerusalem have sometimes been covered with ice ;
but this is rare, the ground seldom freezes and snow usually
disappears in a day.
Natural Products
Minerals.—Judaea, like southern Syria in general, is poorer
there are practically no metalliferous deposits. Good building
stone is plentiful in the hill regions; á very hard reddish
limestone, used much in decorative work, is quarried round
Bethlehem. In the marly strata of some parts of the Ghor
sulphur is found and is used by the Bedouin for making
powder. Bitumen or bituminous stone is found in layers
or in loose blocks around Nebi Mūsa, W. Mahawat, and in
the Dead Sea Ghör, especially the former. Working for
bitumen would probably be profitable around the Dead Sea ;
drilling was already being conducted at the outbreak of war.
A kind of bituminous limestone known as hajar mūsa is in
demand at Bethlehem for making vases and other vessels of
ornament. There are gypsum and phosphate deposits in
certain parts of the Desert of Judaea, but they are unexploited,
chiefly owing to the difficulties of transport. Oil has been
found near Khirbet Khuweis south-east of Kurmul, in the
JUDAEA
447
Jāhalīn country and, just previous to the war, some
preliminary work had been done by an American company
and a metalled road from Hebron to the oil district was in
process of construction.
Flora.–Of woods, in the strict sense, there are none in
Judaea. Apart from olive groves of considerable extent,
trees of various kinds are (or were) only to be found in a very
scattered way throughout the district, and much of this growth
has now probably disappeared. The following are the trees and
shrubs most frequently met with. The oak (of which five
species are found in Judaea) is pretty generally distributed,
but is more frequent in the north than in the south. The
most common variety is the evergreen, with prickly leaves,
of scrub growth. The poplar and willow are very numerous
along the water-courses. The cypress is planted in towns and
cemeteries. The pine (Pinus Pinea, L.) is occasionally found,
but is more common in the districts further to the north.
The palm is confined to the maritime areas, notably round
Gaza and Jaffa. The terebinth, which often grows to a great
size in rocky places and on hill-sides, is common in the districts
N. and W. of Jerusalem, some unusually fine specimens being
found in Wādi es-Sant. The walnut is fairly common, usually
near springs. The sycomore fig, a fine tree producing edible
but poor dry fruit, is found in many parts, especially in and
about towns. A very fine specimen grows just below the
Pool of Siloam, near Jerusalem. The gum acacia is the
characteristic and most striking tree of the wādis west of the
Dead Sea south of 'Ain Jidi, notably of Wādi es-Seyyāl.
The most common shrubs are the hawthorn, of various
kinds, mostly thorny, in the mountain region; the tamarisk
of the variety Tamarix Jordanis, along the banks of the lower
Jordan; and the white broom, in the valley of the Jordan
and its affluent wādis.
Fauna.-Wild animals of the more formidable kind are no
longer found in this district. The ibex or wild goat haunts
the hills and the eastern and southern desert-region towards
the Dead Sea, notably about the wādis Qumrān, Sideir, and
448 JUDAEA AND THE SOUTHERN DESERT
Umm el-Badan. Gazelles are numerous in the same re-
gions. Wild boars, though rarely seen, exist in con-
siderable numbers in the cane-brakes and marshes of the
lower Jordan valley and the Oasis of 'Ain Feshkheh. The
coney is found in the hills and rocky cliffs bounding the Ghör
and Dead Sea, but is extremely shy and difficult to secure :
it is the characteristic animal of the solitary district between
W. Qumrān and Ras Feshkheh. In the Ghör, the hare and
the porcupine are also met with. Of noxious game, the fox
and the jackal are common, the latter being met with every-
were, especially in the Ghõr; the hyaena is very occa-
sionally met with in the lower eastern slopes of the Judaean
highlands. Winged game is abundant, especially rock and
wood pigeons, sand partridges, and quails, towards the plains
of Jericho and the Dead Sea Ghör. Of birds of prey, the
eagle, vulture, hawk, and falcon are not uncommon. Snakes,
some of a venomous kind, and reptiles, a few species of which
are of large size, are numerous. Mosquitoes are troublesome
in certain parts of the maritime plain and about the brackish
pools and marshy tracts on the western Dead Sea shore,
Industries
Agriculture. The approximate frontier between the 'desert
and the sown ’in Judaea is well shown in Fischer and Guthe's
map, scale 1 : 700,000. Broadly speaking the area of cultiva-
tion lies north and west of a line running inland from
the coast a little south of Gaza and keeping at first south of
‘Arāq el-Menshīyeh, Qubeibeh, and Dūra. Here it turns south,
passes round Semū‘a, then turns north and passes as a sinuous
line, with an easterly trend, to the east of Yutta, Hebron,
Halhūl, Bethlehem, El-Azerīyeh (11 m. E. of Jerusalem),
Deir Dīwān, and Tayyibeh. All south and east of this line
may be characterized as desert, with the exception of a few
small isolated tracts of cultivation, notably around Beersheba,
Dhāherīyeh, Deir Dõsi, 'Ain Fārah (Qelt basin) and cultivated
tracts in the Ghor around Jericho. The almost absolutely
barren tract between the line indicated and the lower Jordan
JUDAEA
449
and Dead Sea, embracing most of the eastern slope of the
Central Ridge, is the Desert of Judaea.
According to Cuinet (1901) roughly 1 million feddans of
land, centred for the most part in the Jerusalem-Hebron
region and round Jaffa and Gaza, were actually under cultiva-
tion, two-thirds being under grain. Twice this area is culti-
vable, but at present lies waste or fallow; about the same area
is covered with good pasture and scattered trees (mostly on the
hills); the rest of the district is bare, abrupt, rocky ground,
stony plateau, or desert.
The term 'cultivated' is, however, used only in a restricted
sense. Tracts of cultivation of any considerable extent are
only to be found in the maritime plain : on the crest and
slopes of the Central Ridge tillage is confined almost
wholly to the valleys and, even here, not in a very continuous
sense but rather in patches around springs and small streams
or where water can be conserved for irrigation in pools or
cisterns. Many of the latter, however, in their present ruined
and leaky condition count for little in the fertility of the
country.
The principal products of the mountain region are fruits
and vegetables ; cereals (chiefly wheat) are cultivated only
in comparatively small patches in certain open valleys, where
there is sufficient alluvial soil to be worked by the plough, or
on the lower plateaux. The grape is the staple fruit. The
vines are cultivated in terraces on innumerable hill-sides.
The culture of the vine had a tendency to decline, but in the
years just previous to the war it was rapidly returning to favour,
principally at Hebron and in the Jewish and German Colonies.
· Next in importance comes the olive; groves are found more
or less in every part of Palestine, but the soil of certain districts
such as Hebron, Jaffa, Ludd, and Ramleh is especially suited
to olive cultivation on a large scale. Other fruits are the fig,
white mulberry, lemon, citron, apricot, quince, and walnut; in
lesser abundance, the pomegranate, pear, peach, and almond.
Vegetables include the cucumber, tomato, artichoke, egg-plant,
and bāmiyeh, in addition to the more common kinds.
SYRIA
Ff
450
JUDAEA AND THE SOUTHERN DESERT
The outstanding products of the plains are cereals (barley,
wheat, dhura), sesame, oranges, grapes, almonds, melons, and
vegetables. Here the areas under cultivation are much more
extensive than on the hills, especially around Gaza and Jaffa ;
but even so it should be borne in mind that, at present, the
greater part of the plain lies untilled and is given over largely
to natural vegetation (wild grasses and grains, succulent plants
and hosts of wild flowers), affording merely pasturage for cattle,
very little of which, however, lasts through the summer.
Agriculture is carried on, on modern scientific lines, only
at the various Colonies (Jewish and German). For details
of the culture and products of the Jewish centres, see I.D. 1203.1
For the German Colonies, see p. 192 and p. 512.
The principal areas of cultivation, where native methods
still prevail, are the following :
(1) Gaza district. The main winter crop between Rafah
and Mejdel and extending inland almost to Beersheba, where
the soil is light and will not bear wheat so profitably, is barley ;
comparatively little barley is grown in the rest of Palestine.
Gaza barley is specially characterized as 'long, curved, tender,
and very white in colour unless it has been touched by rain ’.
The success of the crop depends almost entirely on the early
spring rains of March and April and in a good year it is esti-
mated that as much as 40,000 tons are available for export.
The barley of Gaza is the first to appear on the market and
is therefore in great demand. The summer crop of Gaza is
dhura, sown early in May but requiring a good deal more
preparation of the soil, and this crop is the mainstay of the
people. But few dry vegetables (lentils, horse-beans, &c.)
are produced in the Gaza district; but, around the town,
there are many large orchards and green vegetable gardens,
all under irrigation by the nāʻūrah. The orchards are said
to produce more pomegranates than any other locality, but
few oranges are grown; there are also extensive olive groves.
The palms in the Gaza district are poor and the crop not
1 The Jewish Colonies in Palestine (1882-1914), compiled by the Admiralty
Naval Staff Intelligence Department, January, 1919.
JUDAEA
451
very profitable, as the dates have to be matured artificially.
Of green vegetables, cucumbers, tomatoes, and egg-plants are
the principal, the soil being very suitable to these and their
growth quick; cucumbers can be produced in a few weeks
and the natives live on them as much as on anything during
the early summer months. On unirrigated, but carefully-
tilled land, a considerable area is normally under water-melons,
sown in May and June.
(2)•Beersheba district. Between this town and Hebron there
is a tract of plateau, 9 miles by 3 miles, where the soil is free of
stones, and the rolling red ground, broken here and there by out-
crops of lime-stone, is partially tilled with wheat and barley.
Pasturage is also good in this locality and supports large flocks
of sheep, especially north-west of Beersheba. South and
immediately east of Beersheba cultivation is very patchy and
the pasturage spare.
(3) The district round Hebron principally produces grapes
and fruit-figs ; little grain is grown. W. 'Ain el-Qūf, west
of Hebron, is especially famed for its grapes of large size.
Otherwise the district is poor in cultivation.
(4) Jerusalem district. Southwards, to Bethlehem and
beyond, there are wheat and barley-growing patches, mostly
stony and small in extent, but sufficiently large to be
ploughed with oxen. Around Jerusalem and northward, there
are some fertile patches of not inconsiderable extent where
a considerable amount of scientific 'dry farming 'is carried on;
the ground, not artificially irrigated, is kept loose by continual
tillage. Ploughing here takes place in January-February, and
there are two or three cross ploughings up to the beginning of
April, when sowing takes place, see further p. 255. The crops
are principally barley and wheat, with some sesame and dhura,
West of Jerusalem, at 'Ain Kārim and in the W. es-Sikkeh,
at Bittīr, vegetables are intensively grown, also water-melons,
there being in both of these localities a good water-supply
from perennial springs. Between Bāb el-Wad and Lātrūn
there is considerable cereal cultivation on terraces.
(5) The maritime plain, N. and S. of Jaffa and Ramleh.
Ff2
452
JUDAEA AND THE SOUTHERN DESERT
Cultivation here, as stated above, is largely in the hands of
Jewish and German Colonists, the chief crops being oranges,
grapes, and almonds; but the natives grow a good deal of wheat,
sesame, melons, and dhura. There are especially rich tracts in
the valleys east of Ludd, in the plain of Felūjeh to the south-
east, and around the large village of Mejdel. A scheme set
on foot a few years ago to dam the N. el-'Auja near Feri-
khīyeh, to provide irrigation for some 4,000 hectares of land,
did not materialize. Sugar-cane would probably be a suitable
and profitable crop here; it is already grown to a limited
extent, but the cane is only used for chewing.
(6) The lower Jordan. This locality produces large quan-
tities of fresh vegetables for the Jerusalem market. For
further details of the crops here, see p. 658 f.
Farming operations in Judaea and in Palestine in general,
outside the colonies, are carried on on most primitive lines.
Efforts to introduce modern agricultural implements and
machinery among the natives have so far met with poor success.
The necessity for modern ploughs and reapers has not yet been
felt, and harrows are not used. The peasant is quite content
with his home-made implements, and climatic conditions, early
harvests as well as cheap labour render, for the time being, time-
saving machinery almost superfluous. Moreover, the attitude
of the Turkish Government towards agriculture, as elsewhere
in Syria, has been one of almost complete indifference. The
increase in orange cultivation in the Jaffa and other localities
has rendered the question of irrigation a very important one
and on the more up-to-date farms modern appliances have
almost entirely taken the place of the old water-wheel or nā‘ūrah
for irrigation. Pumps of the barrel and chain and bucket types,
of improved patterns, worked by oil motor, have been exten-
sively introduced by the colonists, but the natives are, for the
most part, still content to irrigate with the primitive nāʻūrah.
The crops often fail, especially the barley crop in the
Gaza district; this is not due to the lack of fertility in
the soil, but partly to the scantiness and uncertainty of the
JUDAEA
453
rainfall and partly to the method of ploughing obtaining
with the natives and which is considered not usually deep
enough to keep the seed sufficiently well-moistened to protect
it from the heat of the sun at the period of the development
of the ear. The abundance of the crops (grain in particular)
depends not only upon the adequacy of the winter rainfall,
but equally upon the sufficiency of the later rains which are
essential to the swell of the grain, and also upon the absence
of hot E. winds which scorch and destroy. Lean years
are sometimes due to the ravages of locusts and much destruc-
tion is often done by rats. The locusts, if they come, usually
arrive from Africa in March and, unless dealt with before the
‘hoppers' are hatched, do untold damage. Early information
of their flight can usually be obtained from the Sudan : they
frequently miss Egypt and follow up the east coast of the Red
Sea.
Orange culture in the Jaffa district is fully described in
Chap. VII, p. 264 f.
Stock- rearing. — This branch of agriculture is very
restricted and comparatively neglected in proportion to
the resources of Judaea. The supply of meat is conse-
quently insufficient to the needs of the district and is very
largely supplemented by supplies brought by the Bedouin
to the principal markets at Jerusalem, Jaffa, and Gaza. Most
of the cattle are of a small black breed. North of Jaffa there
is a fancy breed of white oxen, but they are not numerous.
Horse breeding in southern Palestine is non-existent. Sheep
and cattle pasture mostly in the plain, and goats, in far
greater numbers, in the hilly districts, being capable of
living where other grazing animals would find little to support
life. In 1901, according to Cuinet's figures, the approximate
numbers of head of stock were as follows: Cattle (oxen,
bullocks, cows, buffaloes, calves), 19,000 ; sheep, 77,000 ;
goats, 159,000 ; horses, 700; donkeys, 4,800 ; mules, 400;
camels (including the desert to the south of the district),
3,500; but, though the proportions may be fairly accurate,
these figures in all probability give no correct estimate of the
454 JUDAEA AND THE SOUTHERN DESERT
beings of Ramleh and on at Jalth Syria a
actual numbers in the various categories at the present time.
Bee-culture is carried on in a primitive way, mostly in the
villages. Cuinet estimated the number of hives at about
2,700, producing annually 6,000 lbs. of honey and 1,800 lbs. of
wax. The quantity of honey produced per hive is very small
owing to lack of scientific treatment.
Manufactures. The industries of Judaea, other than
agriculture, are comparatively unimportant, and are mostly
carried on by the Jewish element. They include:
(1) Soap making. This may be regarded as the principal
manufacturing industry of southern Syria as a whole. In
Judaea, it is carried on at Jaffa and the neighbouring
towns of Ramleh and Ludd, a great number of oil-presses
being found at the latter place in particular; soap is also
made at Gaza and to a small extent at Jerusalem and
Bethlehem. The output of all of these places taken together
is, however, much less than that of Nāblus, the principal
centre of the soap industry in Palestine (see Samaria). The
olive oil, which forms the basis of the manufacture, is sup-
plied locally only in part; the bulk is obtained from
Samaria and a certain amount, inferior in quality, is imported
from Mitylene. Jaffa and district according to English Con-
sular Reports produce from 2,000–3,000 tons of soap in an
ordinary year. The soaps of Jaffa, as well as those of Nāblus,
are much esteemed in the Levant countries in Egypt in
particular.
(2) Wine making, perhaps the industry next in importance,
is carried on almost exclusively in the Jewish and German
colonies ; see I.D. 1203. Around Hebron, grapes are largely
dried for raisins.
(3) Sesame oil is produced at Jaffa and Jerusalem ; there
are two Jewish factories at the first-named place, working
with hydraulic presses.
(4) Cabinet making, inlaid work, and the making of
ornamental objects. Wood-work, inlaid with mother-of-
pearl, silver, &c., is carried on by Jewish and Christian
craftsmen at Jerusalem, as also the making of various articles
JUDAEA
455
in olive-wood for use or ornament; to a lesser extent, this
industry is also carried on at Jaffa and Gaza. Christian
craftsmen of Bethlehem specialize in the making of rosaries,
crosses, and other devotional objects and trinkets in olive-
wood; they also excel in mother-of-pearl and metal work.
Articles in glass-such as trinkets, rings in coloured glass worn
by the women as ornaments, lamps, &c.—are made mostly at
Hebron. The making of fragile vases and other ornaments
in black stink-stone from the Dead Sea, is an industry
confined to Bethlehem.
(5) Pottery of a rough but durable character, for domestic
use, is made mostly at Gaza, from a local clay containing
a good deal of iron. It is made at various other centres
in Palestine, but the Gaza industry is by far the largest, and
much is exported to countries of the Levant. Tiles and bricks
were made before the war at the German Syrian, orphanage
in a northern suburb of Jerusalem, and, though of quality
inferior to similar imported articles, they were cheaper and
found a ready sale.
(6) Weaving of coarse cotton and woollen stuffs, for articles
of dress worn by the fellahin, is carried on to a substantial
extent at Mejdel (500 looms), and Gaza (50 looms). The
cotton yarn is imported mostly from Manchester. Silk-weaving
is also a small industry at Gaza.
(7) Leather'tanning is carried on in the district of Gaza.
Pack-saddles for camels and mules are made mostly at
Bethlehem, and water-skins from goat hides in large numbers
at Hebron.
(8) Irrigation pumps (as distinct from motor engines),
were made at a German and a Jewish factory at Jaffa, which
before the war produced 80-90 per cent. of the water-lifting
plant required in the district.
(9) Quarrying and stone-cutting are carried on largely
around Bethlehem. The building trade throughout the
country draws largely from this locality both for materials
and skilled masons.
(10) Salt, for the supply of eastern Judaea, is collected
456
JUDAEA AND THE SOUTHERN DESERT
mostly from pans on the north-western shores of the Dead
Sea. The industry is a government monopoly, but much
illicit production and smuggling are carried on.
Trade and Commerce
The bulk of the trade of this district (both export and
import) centres on Jaffa ; the remainder, a comparatively
small export trade, is carried on at Gaza. A considerable
proportion of the trade of Samaria formerly gravitated to
Jaffa, but, since the opening of the Haifa-Der'a railway, the
trend of Samarian trade has been more towards Haifa.
The average value in round numbers of the direct trade of
Jaffa and Gaza for the three years preceding the war (1911-13),
the most recent years for which figures are available, was as
follows : Jaffæ : exports £750,000, imports £1,200,000, total
£1,950,000. Gaza : exports £100,000, imports (mainly
through Jaffa), total £100,000.
The trade movement of Jaffa is fully discussed in Chap. VIII
pp. 294 ff., and the trade of Gaza has already been touched upon
on p. 305. With further reference to the latter, it will be noted
that by far the most important export of Gaza is barley (an
average value of £80,000 for the years 1911-13). Other small
exports for the same period averaged, in round values :
wheat, £4,000; wool, £2,700; oranges, £2,600 ; poultry,
£2,000 ; pottery, £2,000 ; melons and melon seeds, £1,400;
dhura £1,300. Barley thus represents at least four-fifths of
its entire exports. The amount, however, fluctuates very
greatly from year to year owing to the uncertainty of the
rains on which the crop is entirely dependent. Thus the
amount available for export in recent years has been as
follows : 1913, 18,400 tons; 1912, 8,000 tons; 1911, 8,000
tons; 1910, nil ; 1909, 6,200 tons ; 1908, 38,000 tons; 1907,
nil; 1906, 35,000 tons. The barley, especially suited to
brewing, is sent almost entirely to Liverpool, direct, by
steamers which touch here after the harvest has been gathered.
Most of the remainder of the export trade of Gaza is carried
on with Jaffa and Egypt either by sea in coasting vessels, or
JUDAEA
457
by land on camels. Gaza pottery, dhura and melons go
largely to Egypt, wheat to other parts of Syria or Turkey,
and wool to the United Kingdom. The export of oranges is
insignificant in comparison with Jaffa. Gaza is a centre of
trade in camels and the average number that passes yearly
through this place is estimated at about 60,000, excluding
those sold in Gaza.
The trade of Jaffa is at present hampered by the absence
of good harbourage and landing facilities. The roadstead is
exposed to the full force of the south-west winds which prevail
during the winter months especially. Vessels have to lie from
two to three miles off the shore, thus rendering the embarking
of goods and passengers always more or less difficult and
frequently impossible for long periods during rough weather.
There were, for instance, in December 1913, twenty succeeding
days during which communication with the shore was imprac-
ticable except on one day when the sea abated sufficiently
to allow the mails to be landed. Gaza is also an open road-
stead subject to swells and sudden and dangerous storms.
In the barley season, the few steamers that call to take the
crop lie some distance off the shore and lighters are employed
to convey the cargo on board. It may be mentioned too
that the town of Gaza lies about 21 miles from the coast and
is connected with the landing-place only by a road, con-
structed in 1903, which in recent years has got covered with
sand and has fallen sadly out of repair. Goods for shipment
at Gaza are dumped on the open shore.
Jerusalem takes first place as an inland distributing centre
of Judaea and receives a large proportion of the imports
landed at Jaffa, both by rail and road (but mostly by the
former), and the city supplies not only the country imme-
diately around but also the district east of the Jordan in the
direction of Salt and ‘Ammān. Hebron is a less important
and more local centre of trade carried on by road. Jerusalem
and its neighbourhood produce little for export, as is shown
by the comparatively small quantity of goods sent by rail to
Jaffa, averaging (previous to the war) not more than 6,000
458
JUDAEA AND THE SOUTHERN DESERT
cequirembieets ander article buildi
There are industries at Jerusalem, but little is produced in
excess of local requirements with the possible exception of
flour, lime, devotional objects and souvenirs (the latter taken
away by tourists) and a few other articles. Besides general
commodities, the import of all kinds of building materials
and all the nec ssaries for house construction, except stone
and lime, is a striking feature of the inward trade movement
of Jerusalem and is due to extensive building operations
the erection of hospices, religious establishments and new
houses—which is always going on. The trade of the locality,
in normal times, was mainly in the hands of Jewish firms of
Austrian, Russian, Italian and German nationality who dealt
directly with foreign countries while more local business was
carried on by Moslems and native Christian traders. The
outward trade of Hebron (including Bethlehem) consists
in mother-of-pearl, metal and olive-wood,
Inhabitants
No reliable figures as to the present population are as yet
available.
Estimates of the total population of the sanjaq of Jerusalem,
embracing Judaea and a large part of the Southern Desert,
are variously given as follows :
Annuaire
Kazas
Cuinet
Oriental Buppาก 1
1896
1914.
1914.
Jerusalem (merlez-liwa). 127,000
120,000
123,017
Jaffa . . . . .
58,492
65,000
82,614
Gaza .
62,474
58,212
81,490
Hebron . .
93,672
30,347
Beersheba
33,000
55,000
Total . .
341,638 306,559 398,362
1 In Syrien als Wirtschaftsgebiet, Berlin, 1917, preface, August, 1916 ; by
Davis Ruppin, who was travelling in Syria in 1915, and claims to have had
acoess, by special sanction of Jemāl Pasha, to the best official sources for his
information. Ruppin states that his estimates are probably 25 per cent.
below the true totals.
JUDAEA
459
24,793
According to Trietsch, the population of approximately
the same area is 382,061.
The population, according to categories, is given by Cuinet,
1896, as follows:
Moslems .
251,332
Christians . .
. 44,389.
Latins.
Maronites .
401
United Greeks
1,014
United Syrians
179
United Armenians
499
Syrian Jacobites
150
Orthodox Greeks.
16,039
Armenians . .
715
Protestants.
Jews
Foreigners 3
6,051
Total . . . . . . . 341,638.
The Annuaire oriental gives the following categories and
figures : Turkish subjects (? Moslems), 200,305; Catholics,
63,000 ; Greeks, 15,000 ; Greek Catholics, 1,400 ; Armenians,
1,700 ; Protestants, 1,600 ; Jews, 45,000 ; 2 Copts, 2,000 ;
foreigners,3 8,000. Total, 306,559.
The most populous centres of Judaea are the following :
Jerusalem, pop. variously estimated at from 80,000 (Ruppin,
1914), to 110,000 (Trietsch, 1913), of whom, according to the
599
.
:
39,866
1 In Levante-Handbuch, Berlin, 1914.
2 These figures are now exceeded by the Jewish population of the city
of Jerusalem alone. During the years immediately anterior to the out-
break of war, there was a marked increase in Jewish immigration, mainly
from Russia and Poland, especially to certain centres such as Jerusalem
and Jaffa. The Jewish population of Jerusalem is reported to have in-
creased from 23,000 in 1888 to 65,000 in 1914, and of Jaffa from 1,000 in
1880 to 10,000 in 1914 (according to another source 15,000). In addition,
during the period 1903–13, the population of the Jewish colonies in Judaea
increased from about 2,700 to 5,500, the bulk of whom were immigrants.
See further, I.D. 1203.
3 The figures given above do not take account of the pilgrims and tourists
who come in great numbers to the various centres, especially Jerusalem
and Jaffa, during the winter and early spring. According to the Annuaire
oriental, 1914, the number of such people, coming to Jerusalem alone,
amounts to 25,000 annually.
460 JUDAEA AND THE SOUTHERN DESERT
latter, 53,000 Jews, 16,000 Christians and the rest Moslems.
The total population of Jerusalem is stated by one authority
to have increased from 40,000, in 1888, to 100,000, in 1914.
Jaffa, pop. variously estimated at from 40,000 (Ruppin),
to 50,000 (Trietsch, 1909), of whom 20,000-30,000 Moslems,
10,000–15,000 Jews.
Gaza, pop. 30,000 (Ruppin), 48,000 (Trietsch, 1909).
Hebron, pop. variously given at 20,000–25,000, of whom,
according to Trietsch, 18,000 Moslems.
Bethlehem, pop. 12,000-16,000, almost entirely Christian.
Ramleh, pop. 7,000–10,000, of whom, according to Trietsch,
2,600 Christians.
Ludd, pop. 7,000.
Beit Jāla, pop. 4,500-6,000.
Mejdel, pop. 3,000–5,000.
Beersheba, pop. 3,000 (Ruppin, 1914); it was inhabited
before the war by about 800 settled Bedouin.
The sedentary population of Judaea is confined almost
entirely to the region W. and N. of the line indicated on p. 448,
dividing the desert and the sown'. The nomads are
found only on the eastern slope of the Central Range and
on the confines of the Southern Desert. In comparison with
the great tribes east of the Jordan, the tribes to be met with in
Judaea are small numerically and unimportant from a political
point of view. The migrations of these western tribes do not
extend over large tracts like those of the Arabs farther east,
but are confined to comparatively small areas marked by
recognized boundaries. Among the tribes of the Judaean
Desert, the largest number of tents in a camp is about 30,
holding some 30 families or about 100 persons. The camps
of the different tribes vary in form : those of the Ta‘āmireh
are usually rectangular, of the Jāhalin, circular, and of the
K‘ābneh oval. Being small numerically, all the tribes avoid
open places for their camps in order to be out of sight and for
shelter from wind and rain; and they never camp quite close
to their watering places in order to avoid strangers. Natural
caves in the wādis are preferred to tents by some families,
JUDAEA
461
as they afford better shelter and protection in this exposed
region. There is little or no cohesion between the various
tribes ; were it otherwise they might be more troublesome
to the governing authority and to the fellahin on their western
border. Their water places are the few Springs, such as
‘Ain el-Qelt and 'Ain Jidi, to be found within the region,
standing pools of rainwater, and cisterns roughly cut in the
rock in the valley bottoms, all of which they jealously guard,
but, in spite of this, with the exception of the springs, there
are but few places where the water holds out through the year.
On the border between the cultivated land and the desert,
the people tend to change their mode of life—the sedentary
to become semi-nomadic and the nomadic to become semi-
or wholly sedentary. Thus the people on the western edge of
the Desert of Judaea go out into the desert with their cattle
and live a nomadic life, as, e.g., the Ta‘āmireh of the village
of Beni Na'im and other places who were originally fellahin.
On the other hand, genuine Bedouin in the desert region, as,
e.g., the Rashā'ideh of 'Ain Jidi, remain so long in certain
places as to become almost sedentary.
The following are the chief tribal families to be found in
Judaea :
Ta‘āmireh. Range, Teqūí to the Dead Sea. About
7,000 souls; the most numerous of the tribes. 3,000 sheep
and 2,000 donkeys and a few cattle and camels. Semi-
settled cultivators for the most part, as well as carriers and
contrabandists; they wander to Mādeba for hire. Among
their watering places is Mutukh Hasāsah, a rain-filled pool
in W. Hasāsah.
Jāhalīn. Range from Wādi el-Ghār to Tell ‘Arād and Wādi
Zuweireh. According to Musil, some 50 families. Their chief
watering place is the very fine spring in Wādi Umm Bagheq.
Dhullām. Range, south of the Jāhalin, between Beersheba
and the Dead Sea; see further, p. 471. -
Rashā'ideh. Range round the spring of 'Ain Jidi which
they own. Now a small and insignificant tribe, said to be
under the protection of the Ta‘āmireh ; formerly much more
462
JUDAEA AND THE SOUTHERN DESERT
numerous and important, but a great many were done to
death during the Egyptian control of Palestine, 1831-400
K‘ābneh. Range the desert between the Jāhalīn dira and
the Dead Sea, south and west of Wādi el-'Arejjeh. Some
150 souls with about 50 tents (Conder).
Abu Naseir. Range the hill-country round Wādi el-Qelt
and parts of the Ghör around Jericho. Watering places at
'Ain el-Fārah and 'Ain el-Qelt.
‘Abbeidīyeh. A small tribe living in Wādi en-Nār around
Mār Sāba and, according to Schwöbel, under the protective
control of this monastery of Mār Sāba.
Qedeirāt. A small tribe ranging the desert E. and NE. of
Beersheba.
Teyāhah ; see Southern Desert, p. 471,
THE SOUTHERN DESERT .
This most southerly section of West Palestine extends
between the line drawn through Beersheba, indicted on
p. 428, and the Turco-Egyptian frontier line from Rafah
to the Gulf of Akaba ; on the west it is bounded by the
Mediterranean, on the east by the Wādi “Arabah. The
northern frontier as it at present stands is purely artificial ;
geographically the longitudinal division of the surface charac-
teristic of the country to the north (see Judaea) continues to
the neighbourhood of the Red Sea gulfs.
The greater part of the Southern Desert belongs to the
sanjaq of Jerusalem, but all that lies east of the Medi-
terranean-Red Sea watershed is included in the Kerak
sanjaq of the vilayet of Damascus, see Chap. VI, p. 240.
The area thus outlined may be subdivided into three parts,
in accordance with the above-mentioned longitudinal division :
(1) the Coast. (2) the Maritime Plain. (3) the Central
· Range.
The Coast
The coast is a narrow strip, mostly of firm sand, between
the sea and a line of sandhills extending, with only two
THE SOUTHERN DESERT
463
interruptions, from beyond the frontier to Gaza. This zone
in places attains a height of over 200 ft., and has a maximum
breadth of 3 miles between Rafah and Khān Yūnus, narrowing
to 2 miles near Gaza. The first of the two breaks occurs
opposite Deir el-Balah, where the width of the dunes contracts
to mile: in this neighbourhood the Wādi Selqi cuts its
way through to the sea, and there is some low ground, known
as Sabkhet ed-Deir. The second is the larger interruption
at the mouth of the broad Wādi Ghazzeh, 41 miles south of
Gaza. Running thus in long stretches unbroken for many
miles, the zone of sandhills interposes a distinct obstacle to
approach from the sea. A caravan track, generally much
used by Arabs, but often washed by the sea, runs from
beyond the frontier (El-`Arīsh) to Deir el-Balah, where it
turns inland to the village. Water can be obtained along
the beach in places by digging to a depth of 6–8 ft. (especially
north of Deir el-Balah).
The Maritime Plain
This plain, including the foothills transitional to the higher
country, extends inland for the better part of 30 miles.
In the south-west corner of this area, from the neighbourhood
of Khalasah along the foothills to the Egyptian frontier, and
northwards to Ed-Dabbeh (square M. 21 on the Rafah sheet of
the Sinai 1:250,000 map, 10 m. SSE. of Rafah) there are great
tracts of dunes, which over the greater part are soft and
high (some 50 ft.), and are only bound with scrub and of hard
consistency along a northern fringe or zone 4-5 miles wide.
The soft dunes, setting approximately E.-W., present serious
obstacles to traffic going N.-S. ; but they are traversed at
the broadest part by the Darb ez-Zöl running from Muweileh
to Khān Yūnus, a route often used by the Bedouin caravans,
and by other tracks. The hard dunes, which are lower, and
interspersed with occasional patches of cultivation, offer no
difficulty to pack animals travelling E.-W.; it is doubtful,
however, whether light carts could pass them except along
worn tracks. Both types of sandhills extend far across the
464 JUDAEA AND THE SOUTHERN DESERT
Egyptian frontier, and the tracts which they cover in Syrian
territory are merely the continuation of a greater westerly
expanse. The greater part of the plain is stoneless, and has
an undulating surface of sand and earth which can be traversed
in any direction by carts and motors. It is fertile, and
cultivated almost the whole way from Gaza to Beersheba,
and for a considerable distance south and south-east of Rafah.
The only natural obstacles are the beds of wādis, which are
often deep with abrupt sides. The chief of these is the Wādi
Ghazzeh in the north-east, rising in the hills south-west of
the Dead Sea, and during its long course known in its upper
reaches by various local names, Wādi es-Seba', Wādi Shanaq,
and Wadi esh-Shellāl. Its banks are steep from about a mile
south of the Gaza road crossing to lj mile west of Shellāl, a
total distance of about 10 miles, in which there is only one
important crossing at Tell Jemmeh. Its chief tributaries, the
Wādi esh-Sherī'eh and Wādi Muleiheh (or Imleih), present
similar features, and all, after heavy rains, may run in flood for
periods ranging from six hours to three days. At such times
the surface of the plain and of unmade tracks is slippery
and difficult for camels. After the outbreak of the war
the Turks constructed metalled roads between important
points, for example between the railway station at Sheri'eh,
south-east of Gaza, and the Wādi Ghazzeh at Shellāl.
As the maritime plain extends inland, it gradually passes
into a barren limestone plateau, the surface of which is often
strewn for miles with flints tinted a deep ruddy brown, and
so polished by sand-bearing winds as to have the appearance
of being wet with dew. It should be noted that any excava-
tion in these flint-strewn tracts is conspicuous, the limestone
subsoil showing up white against the exceedingly dark surface.
Yet further inland, the plateau gradually merges into undulat-
ing ridges with intervening hollows, the ridges having hard
rock very near the surface. They increase in size, and are
often littered with loose stones until, some 25 miles from the
coast, they meet a small chain of steep sharp limestone hills
extending NNE. between El-'Auja and Beersheba, and
THE SOUTHERN DESERT
465
.connected with the higher mountains by low saddles across
which run the inland roads between Palestine and Egypt.
These hills and saddles form the transition to the Central
Range.
The Central Range
The range, continuing the high country of Judaea, runs in
the general direction NE.-SW., to traverse almost the whole
breadth of the Sinai peninsula. It consists of detached
heights, or groups of heights, of which the greater are eiliptical
in outline, originally round-topped and much hollowed by
erosion, the lesser, isolated plateaux with abrupt sides,
against the foot of which talus has collected ; the whole area
is desolate ; large regions are filled with petty hills and
shallow valleys, forming an intricate monotonous landscape
extremely inhospitable of aspect. Following the main crest,
which runs at a distance of 20–30 miles from the ‘Arabah,
and two or three times as far from the Mediterranean, we
find the altitudes rising both from north and south to moun-
tain masses south-east of Kosseima (Qoseimeh), about midway
between the Mediterranean and the Gulf of Akaba, where the
chief summits are Jebel Kharūf (3,262 ft.), Jebel Lussān
(3,140 ft.), and Jebel Maghāreh (3,040 ft.). From this middle
point the crest runs south to Jebel Samāweh (3,329 ft.), and
afterwards a little west of south to Jebel el-Junna and other
mountains in Egyptian territory; towards Judaea, it is
marked by the ridge of Tāreh Ramān, Jebel en-Nafkh, Jebel
Haleiqim, Jebel Madheifi, Jebel Majrūn, and Ras Zuweireh,
the last rising eight miles from the west shore of the Dead
Sea, and due east of Beersheba.
The Central Range falls by broad steps to the ‘Arabah,
which it finally reaches as a broken and often precipitous
escarpment, everywhere of considerable height except along
the Akaba-Dead Sea watershed (30° 08' to 30° 14' N. lat.),
where it ceases to form a conspicuous wall (see p. 661). The
system is almost wholly limestone. Only towards the south
end of the escarpment do other formations appear (sand-
G g
SYRIA
466
JUDAEA AND THE SOUTHERN DESERT
stone, granite, porphyry, diorite); on the Kosseima-Akaba
road the transition from cretaceous to other rock occurs in
the neighbourhood of Jebel Hamra, some 20 miles NW. of
Akaba.
The water-courses east of the range are more numerous and
more important for the traveller crossing the peninsula than
those on the opposite slope ; on this side there is no plain
permitting freedom in choice of direction ; a difficult broken
country must be traversed along the rare lines which practic-
able tracks can follow, and these are in many cases determined
by the courses of the wādis. The chief among the eastern
water-courses, the Wādi Jerāfi, rises far beyond the Egyptian
frontier in a latitude south of Akaba, joining the Wādi el-
Jeib (here Wādi el-Ghamr) north of the Dead Sea-Akaba
watershed. Its principal affluent, the Wādi el-Heyāneh, runs
for a long distance parallel to it on the SE. ; the Wādi Jerāfi
and Wādi el-Heyāneh at their junction enclose the plain of
Bāhah, an important resort of caravans.
The Wādi Ramān rises by the Naqb el-Arūd near the nodal
point of the main watershed, running first NE. through a valley
with precipitous sides, then SE. through a long gorge to
enter the main Wādi of ‘Arabah, here called Wādi el-Ghamr,
under the name of Wādi Merzebeh.
The Wādi Fiqreh, rising from Jebel el-'Ajrem, in the same
region as the Wādi Ramān, is known in part of its upper
course as Wādi en-Nafkh. After turning the hill of ‘Abdeh it
is successively called El-Murrah and Wādi el-Madra, and
narrows to a deep gorge, running ESE. and NE., its valley
in the latter direction broadening but still preserving its
steep flanks. After the junction of Wādi et-Tabbān on its
r. bank, there is on the right, between it and the Wādi el-Jeib,
an almost impassable region of limestone fissured with steep
· gorges; it finally flows through the Ghör into the Dead Sea.
The chief water-courses of the Mediterranean slope, the
Wādi Ghazzeh and its affluents, have been already mentioned,
p. 464. The only other wādi on this side which need be noted is
the Wādi Hafīr, the main castern tributary of the Wādi el-
THE SOUTHERN DESERT
467
‘Arīsh, which runs for some miles near the Egyptian boundary
in the region of El-Auja. Known at first as the Wādi 'Ajrem,
it rises in the central mountain mass, not far from the head of
the Wādi Fiqreh, to run in a north-westerly direction past
El-'Auja ; soon afterwards it receives the Wādi Abyadh from
the east, and crosses the frontier, to be known henceforward
as Wādi el-Azāreq.
Water-supply
Although the area is poor in water, its supplies are not
inconveniently situated, and the distances between wells are
seldom great. There is nothing which can fairly be described
as a perennial stream, unless the scanty brooks formed in the
extreme lower course of the Wādi Ghazzeh, or further up,
south of Shellāl, can be held to deserve the name ; but the
winter rains which cause the wādis of the western slope to
run in flood several times in the wet season, leave behind
them pools which may yield water for a considerable time,
and the coastal tract is comparatively rich in water.
Many miles inland a line of important wells runs parallel
to the Central Range at the foot of its western slopes (Beer-
sheba, Khalasah, Raheibeh, El--Auja, Muweileh, Kosseima),
most of them at road junctions, since from very ancient times
they have attracted to themselves both the routes between
Egypt and Palestine and those crossing at right angles on
their way south-east from the Mediterranean. Attention
may be drawn here on the exceptional importance to hydro-
graphy of the centrally situated Kosseima region. This
district is perhaps the only part of interior Sinai where a
considerable force could be continuously supplied without
carrying water from an excessive distance. Within a radius
of a few miles there are four perennial sources : Kosseima
itself (1,000 camels a day.); Muweileh, 3 miles to WNW.,
with permanent pools supplying 2,000 camels; 'Ain Ghadeirāt,
45 miles to SE., with an unlimited supply; and ‘Ain Qadeis,
6 miles further in a direction E. of S., with water for 1,000
animals. Of these sources, 'Ain Ghadeirāt, locally known as
Gg2
468
JUDAEA AND THE SOUTHERN DESERT
'Ain el-Mefjir, is at once the most copious and the least
visited; though it has been described as the richest spring
in Sinai, it lies apart from all the roads. It is situated a mile
up the Wādi “Ain Ghadeirāt, a tributary of the Wādi el-'Ain,
which is passed on the left a couple of miles after leaving
Kosseima by the Akaba road. Ascending the larger wādi
for a mile, the track to the spring takes a sharp turn to
the left into the mouth of the Wādi “Ain Ghadeirat, partly
choked by débris and boulders. The spring lies 2 miles up
the valley, gushing strongly from fissures in the limestone
in three jets each as thick as a man's arm. It forms a brook,
running for some distance down the valley, and used by the
Bedouin for irrigating crops of barley. The place has a bad
name for fever in the summer months ; but it could probably
be made healthy by destroying the mosquitoes which breed
in the pools, as the altitude is about 1,500 ft.
Flora and Fauna
Grass grows on the plain in spring, but the chief wild
growths of the region are the various scrub bushes of the
wādi beds : tarfa, eaten by camels but not nourishing, and
burning too fast to make good fuel ; causej, with edible red
berries ; ratam, a kind of white broom, comparatively slow
in burning, and yielding an indifferent charcoal; tamarisk,
also serviceable for camp fires. In the winter season travel-
lers in Sinai can always have a fire to warm their camps'
(Lawrence and Woolley). Such trees as exist beyond the plain
are chiefly acacias, found more especially in the basin of the
Wādi Jerāfi. Palms in this region occur only in the coastal
zone.
The wild animals include wolves; hyenas, jackals, and the
grey desert hare. Vultures are the most conspicuous birds;
. only sea fish are known.
DUI
Climate
The climate in the interior of the western area is more
subject to extremes than that of the coast, Winter lasts from
THE SOUTHERN DESERT
469
November to February, and is often very cold, with nocturnal
frost and violent winds from different points of the compass.
Rains begin early in December, and are usually heaviest in
February ; they are always intermittent, and sometimes al-
most entirely fail, as in 1911, 1912, and 1913. In spring
heat and cold alternate, and there is occasional rain and
sleet, but the heat soon prevails : “ February's green vanishes
under the suns of March ’. From May onward the heat
is intense until September, and no rain falls; at this period
of the year mirage effects are frequent, distant objects seeming
more remote than they are, and depressions appearing pools or
lakes. In October days are hot and nights cold. For data
of the character of the climate of this region, see under
El-Arīsh, Chap. II, pp. 52 ff.
Communications
It has been indicated that through so rugged a barrier
as the Central Range roads easily passable by laden camels
are few; fewer still are those which, over their entire length
of the greater part of it, can be made passable by wheels.
Of the latter class there are in fact only two: (1) the road
through the central Naqb el-Gharīb pass, south of Khalasah,
above the convenient Wādi Marrah; (2) the road to Akaba by
Kosseima, which, turning the chief mountain mass, has no
pass to cross before the naqb, or pass, down the escarpment
near the head of the Gulf.
Two other through tracks are partly practicable for wheels :
that running eastward from Beersheba, and reaching the Ghör
through the pass of Zuweireh ; and that coming down from
Beersheba to Qöz 'Ain Hosb through Sirr, Qurnub, and
the Naqb es-Sefei, where the whole section south of Qurnub
is impossible for wheels. These four roads are the chief
approaches by which Edom, Arabia, and Moab may be
entered from the Mediterranean plain; from their terminal
points in ‘Arabah, connecting tracks lead by the Wādi Yitm,
by Petra, and by the Wādi Dākhel to the Hejaz road and
railway. The passes on these roads would become important
470
JUDAEA AND THE SOUTHERN DESERT
to the defences of an expanded Egypt, should the present
artificial frontier be moved north across the desert, and
with them various points on the western side of ‘Arabah
(see p. 665 f.).
Inhabitants
The inhabited places, exclusive of mere military or police
posts such as Rafahor El-Auja, are confined to the
neighbourhood of the sea, from which none are distant more
than 5 miles; the whole region between the Mediterranean
and ‘Arabah, some eighty miles across, is uninhabited except
by a few nomads. The few settlements, from south to north,
are : Khān Yūnus, Beni Selʻa (or Suweileh), ‘Abesān, and
Deir el-Balah. All are agricultural villages of fellahin with
wheat and barley fields, fig trees, date-palms, and vegetable
gardens : tobacco is grown at Beni Selʻa. The population of
these places is variously given; the largest is Khān Yūnus,
which has been described at different times as possessing
5,000 and 600–700 inhabitants; the smallest is ‘Abesan,
with some 50 huts. There is wide cultivation of wheat
and barley on the maritime plain, the fields extending
almost the whole distance from Gaza to Beersheba, and
for miles east of Rafah and Khān Yūnus, patches of culti-
vation being found even among the interior sandhills. In
normal times considerable supplies of grain might be obtained ;
but Turkish requisitions of grain and labour since the begin-
ning of the war must have exhausted accumulations and
largely diminished the output. A little cultivation of cereals
is found far inland beyond the limits of the plain, generally
along wādis or near wells, as, for instance, in the plain round
Tell el-Milh, in the Wādi Umm Hallūf, and near Bir Mayein.
But these scanty fields are the result of sporadic efforts, and
depend on uncertain rains; the above-mentioned valley of
‘Ain Ghadeirāt appears to be the one example of irrigation.
The general conditions are indeed too unfavourable to en-
courage permanent settlements, or the transformation of
Bedouin into fellahin as witnessed east of Jordan and the
THE SOUTHERN DESERT
471
Dead Sea. Systematic terrace-culture, of which the traces
still remain near the ruined Roman and Byzantine sites (e.g.
Abdeh), is beyond the efforts or desires of a scanty and
careless population.
The inhabitants of the cultivated districts are Bedouin,
in no way formidable to armed men. The Terābīn, whose
dīra begins as far west as the Gulf of Suez, range the country
east of the Rafah and Gaza plains. The Teyāhah are next to
them, beyond the line Beersheba-Raheibeh-Kosseima. East
of the Teyāhah are the Dhullām, who haunt the hilly desert
between the Wādi el-Milh in the north, and Jebel Lussān
in the south. The ‘Azāzmeh intersect the Dhullām, ranging
across the Wādi Marrah from NW. to SE. The dira of the
Saʻīdiyin, south-east of the ‘Azāzmeh, extends into and crosses
‘Arabah. With the exception of the Terābīn, the Bedouin
formi small and weak communities. Sinai has indeed been
described as the unenvied resort of defeated tribes too weak to
face the strenuous life of the greater deserts.
In former years travellers have reported trouble with the
Arabs, usually at wells or ruined sites regarded as sacred ;
Musil had frequent disputes with representatives of different
tribes, and encountered a heterogeneous armed band in the
frontier region not far from Kosseima. The establishment of
Egyptian posts had probably made brigandage less profitable
even before the war; while as regards relations with the Bedouin,
difficulties may have arisen as much from an imperfect appre-
ciation of Arab character as from any other cause. During.
the survey, Capt. (now Lieut.-Colonel) Newcombe established
the most friendly relations in every district by getting to
know the sheikhs, giving no presents, and refusing to pay
blackmail. The result of this method was that all the tribes-
men proved ready to act as guides or emergency helpers,
very hospitable, and most scrupulously honest' (Lawrenco
and Woolley).
TT
CHAPTER XV
SAMARIA (INCLUDING CARMEL)
A-
AREA
BOUNDED on the west by the Mediterranean Sea and on the
east by the middle course of the R. Jordan, Samaria has its
southern frontier conterminous with that of Judaea; see p. 428.
On the north, the boundary, for the purpose of this handbook,
is considered to run along the southern edge of the Merj
ibn 'Amir, or plain of Esdraelon, at the northern foot of
Carmel to near Jenīn, when it turns northward, passes round
the sharply marked escarpment of J. Fuqū“ (Mt. Gilboa)
spur, and thence runs east by south along the Jālūd valley to
the Jordan. The plains of Esdraelon and Jezreel are thus not
counted to the district of Samaria, while the plain of Beisān
falls just within its borders. These limits enclose a territory
roughly rectangular in shape, with a big dent on the northern
side, some 40–42 miles in length from north to south and
about 36 miles from east to westor roughly an area of
1,600 sq. miles.
Administratively, Samaria as here delimitated formed
a part of the vilayet of Beirut. It includes the whole of the
sanjaq of Nāblus (composed of the merkez-kaza of Nāblus
and the kazas of Jenīn and Beni Sa‘b), and most of the kaza
of Haifa, of the sanjaq of ‘Akka.
PHYSICAL FEATURES
Relief.-Judaea and Samaria, halves of the same mountain
range, present the same broad physical features ; see p. 427 f.
There is the central plateau flanked on the western side by
the maritime plain and on the east by the Jordan Ghör.
But, while the highlands of Judaea form à more or less
PHYSICAL FEATURES
473
compact mass, presenting the aspect of a single mountain
massif, the Samarian section of the range, especially towards
the north, becomes more strictly a succession of high plateaux
and terrace-like slopes and finally, in the extreme north
of the district, gets broken up into more or less isolated
groups of hills interspersed with plains. Judaea is a dissected
plateau of hard horizontal limestone while Samaria is a moun-
tainous region of gently tilted strata of varying hardness
declining gently northward, with the result that the land
of Samaria is of a much more open character than that of
Judaea. The transition from the Judaean plateau to the
Samarian mountains is not sufficiently pronounced to indicate
any inevitable physical boundary between the two districts.
The eastern slope of the district is not nearly so deep as in
Judaea and is not so well watered as the western slope ;
but is far from being an absolute desert like that of Judaea.
The highlands of Samaria extend northward in two pro-
minent spurs of Carmel and J. Fuqū'. The former runs
as a long straight ridge from SSE. to NNW., about 15 miles
in length until it terminates in a high promontory on the
coast of the Mediterranean, forming the southern headland
of the Bay of Akka. The ridge of Carmel is connected
with the main hills of Samaria by a range of lower rounded
hills, the Belād er-Rūhah, about 10 m. in length separat-
ing the plain of Esdraelon on the NE. from that of Sharon
on the W. ; see further, pp. 500 ff., for physical features of
Carmel. The other and much shorter spur of J. Fuqū'
protrudes some 5 or 6 miles towards the Esdraelon plain
where it terminates in a steep and almost bare wall of rocks.
The chief summits of the Samarian highlands, naming from
the south, are : Jebel et-Tõr or Mt. Gerizim (alt. 2,849 ft.)
and J. es-Suleimīyeh (Eslāmīyeh) or Mt. Ebal (3,077 ft.) on
the south and north side respectively of Wādi Nāblus,
Sheikh Beyāzīd (2,375 ft.) north of Sebastiyeh, Ras-el Aqra'
(2,230 ft.), and Ras Ibzīq (2,404 ft.) north of Tūbās, all
elevations of the main watershed; J. Abu Madwar
(1,648 ft.), the highest point of the Fuqū“ spur ; J. Iskander
474 SAMARIA (INCLUDING CARMEL)
(1,699 ft.), in the Belād er-Rūhah; and Qamū'at ed-Durziyeh
(1,808 ft.), the highest summit of the Carmel ridge.
les the Carmel Ridol wádis, many Shūbāsh,
From the elevated lands forming the highlands of Samaria,
emerge valleys leading down west, by long easy gradients,
to the Plain of Sharon and east, by shorter deeper and more
abrupt courses, to the Jordan. .
On the western slope, the broad W. Nāblus is the principal
and most well-marked of these valleys; others are W. Selhab,
W. et-Tīn, and W. Qānah. For further details of the western
slope, see Coastal streams, pp. 478 ff.; and for details of the
principal wādis of the Carmel Ridge, see p. 501.
On the eastern side, the principal wādis, many of which
carry permanent streams, are W. el-Hamra, W. Shūbāsh,
W. el-Khashneh, W. el-Mālih, W. el-Buqei', W. Fār'ah, and
W. el-Humr. Of these W. el-Mālih and W. Fārʻah alone
call for special mention. The former with its two main
branches W. el-Hirreh and W. edh-Dhuba' has its head in
that section of the watershed which lies around Ras
el-Aqra'. The wādi takes its name from a copious saline
spring, 'Ain el-Mālih, and it forms an important line of
approach to Beisān from Nāblus. W. Fār'ah, carrying the
trunk road from Nāblus to Salt and the Belqa is by
far the most important affluent valley of the Jordan in
this district. It carries a strong perennial stream which
derives its waters from a number of springs, the chief of
which is 'Ain el-Fār'ah, south of Tūbās. The head of the
basin of this wādi is a semi-circle of hills running from Tūbās
to J. et-Tõr and, after a south-easterly course of about 30
miles, the wādi leads into the Jordan under the name of W. el-
Jözeleh. The only tributary of the Fār'ah of importance is
W. Bilān or Bidān, a deep and narrow chasm joining from
the south and bringing its quota of water to the main stream.
Some distance below the junction, the main stream flows
through a basin of meadow-like land where it is bordered,
as well as in spots lower down, by a dense growth of oleanders ;
then follows a section in which it descends among precipitous
PHYSICAL FEATURES
475.
rocksending in a narrow gorge ; below this the valley
gradually broadens to form a rich plain, known as the Qarāwa.
Finally, at the bluff of Makhrūq, it emerges on the Ghör
and, the stream, now much reduced in volume by the irrigation
of the Qarāwa, takes a sinuous course southward to enter the
Jordan a few miles south of the Dāmieh ford. In its short
course, the wādi descends from an altitude at its head of
about 2,240 ft. above sea-level to 1,160 ft. below sea-level at
its outfall into the Jordan. The fall in the upper valley is about
one in twenty and in its lower part about one in seventy.
Plains. (a) Interior, (6) Maritime
(a) Within the relatively loose mass of the northern part of
the Samarian hills are a number of plains and spacious
valleys. On the north, in the gap between Carmel and
Fuqú', a broad arm of the Esdraelon Plain penetrates for
7 miles to Jenīn and thence a succession of level and more or
less connected tracts spreads southward to within a few
miles of the southern boundary of the district. First, going
southward, comes the Sahel ‘Arrābeh, or plain of Dothān,
separated from the Plain of Esdraelon by a narrow tract of
rolling land, through which pass one or more valleys draining
the northern part to Esdraelon, while the western part is
drained by W. Selhab into the N. el-Mefjir. The plain from
N. to S. measures some 6 miles in length and, in the broadest
part, stands Tell Dothān. Not far to the south-east is spread
out another plain or elevated depression, the Merj el-Ghuruq,
oval in form, 3-4 miles in diameter and surrounded by
hills. It is perfectly level with an alluvial soil of rich dark
loam and has no visible outlet for its waters which, therefore,
in winter, collect upon it and form a temporary lake or marsh
so that during a great part of the year it is not available for
crops. It is in fact a lake which has gradually been filled up
by the débris of the surrounding heights. Next follows
a series of smaller plains running south, past Wādi Nāblus to
the Sahel el-Mukhneh. This fine plain runs for 8–9 miles
from NNE. to SSW. along the eastern base of J. es-Suleimīyeh
476
SAMARIA (INCLUDING CARMEL)
and J. et-Tõr with an average breadth of 11–2 miles, being
narrow in the north and south and broader in the middle.
At about one-third of its length from the north, W. Nāblus
comes in from the west. The hills on its eastern side are
low but rocky and often project into the plain, and, directly
opposite the Nāblus valley, an offset or arm—the Plain of
Sālim (3 miles by l] mile)-runs up at right-angles among
the eastern hills. The Mukhneh plain is drained mainly
by W. Qānah, and the plain of Sālim by W. Bidān affluent
of W. Fār'ah.
The Plain of Beisān, which calls for special notice, may be
said to extend from the Nahr Jālūd to Wādi el-Mālih (see p. 474),
a distance of 11 miles. The valley of the Jordan here undergoes
a great widening which commences 'at the outfall of the Jālūd
into the R. Jordan and thence stretches westward along the
foot of the hills on the north of Beisān and up the Jālūd
valley, to the waterparting between it and the Plain of
Esdraelon, about 15 miles from the Jordan. On the south
side of the Jālūd valley the plain is bounded by J. Fuqūr
until it comes to about 3 miles west of Beisān when the
mountain range turns to the south and forms the western
limit of the plain of Beisān. For about 7 miles south of the
N. Jālūd, the plain is 6 or 7 miles wide ; beyond this, low
hills advance suddenly and reduce it to a width of about
3 miles at its southern end.
An abrupt rise takes place in the plain, occurring along the
whole length of the broad part from the N. Jālūd and Beisān
on the north towards the advancing hills on the south, and
it lies about midway between the Jordan Zor and the foot
of the western mountains and parallel to them--the plain is
thus on two levels. The height of this remarkable bank
amounts to 400 ft. or more and it appears to be the proper
ļimit of the western Ghor at this point. The village of Beisān
lies on its edge and so does the road which connects Beisān
Nāblus.
The Plain of Beisān is a tract of great agricultural possi-
bilities, now given over mostly to wild and rank vegetation.
PHYSICAL FEATURES
477
It is intersected by an abundance of irrigation channels
spread nearly all over the upper (western), and lower (eastern),
terraces, most of them now derelict but some still partially
in use. The channels derive their water from the N. Jālūd
and from numerous springs and brooks that descend from the
hills. From these sources, several streams pass from the
upper to the lower terrace and from the latter to the Jordan;
as many as six permanent streams thus finding their way
across the plain to the river.
All over the upper and lower terraces of the great plain,
the soil of which is very rich, numerous tells or mounds are
distributed ; they are the sites of ancient habitations and
are evidence of the former populous character of the region
and of high development of productive industry. Much
sugar-cane and cotton were formerly grown in the plain of
Beisān.
(6) The maritime plain of Samaria, continuation of that of
Judaea, extends along the whole length of the coast and is
cut through by a number of stream courses, outlets of wādi
basins (see below, pp. 478 ff.). Along its southern half it has
a uniform width of about 9 miles. At the Nahr ez-Zerqa it
suddenly narrows to about 2 miles and continues as a gradually
narrowing strip northward to the headland of Carmel where
it measures but a few hundred yards across. The wider
part of the plain between the N. el-'Auja and the N. ez-
Zerqa is known as the Plain of Sharon. Of this, the
southern section is much diversified by groups of low hills
ranging up to 300 ft. in elevation ; the northern part is more
uniformly level and open. The soil of the plain proper is
mostly a red sand and is very fertile. That part of the plain to
the east of Qaisārīyeh, between the Mefjir and Zerqa was once
covered with an open forest of fine oak-trees, but this wood-
land has now almost entirely disappeared. On the coast
side, the whole plain from the Carmel headland to the extreme
south is bordered by a well-marked line (sometimes a double
line) of dunes which, in places, extend some miles inland and,
in others, are much narrower. Formed originally of fine drift
478
SAMARIA (INCLUDING CARMEL)
sand, these dunes have become petrified and the stone is
much used locally for building purposes.
The crops of the plain are chiefly cereals, sesame, and
melons, with orange and other fruit plantations in the Jewish
colonies. Fat-tailed sheep in great numbers, black goats
and small red oxen find good grazing. In former times, many
spots along certain of the coastal streams were canalized for
irrigation, the surplus waters being drained off by artificial
cuttings through the solid rock of the dunes near the sea.
These ancient irrigatory systems have been destroyed and the
outlets are partly choked up so that extensive and unhealthy
swamps have formed in several places. Where Jewish
colonies have been established in the plain these swamps
have been partially drained and extensive groves of eucalyptus
trees planted.
For details of the section of the plain north of Sharon, see
Carmel p. 500, and for the description of the coastline of
Samaria see Judaea, p. 441 f.
Coastal Streams and Wādi Basins.
These streams form the outlets of the various intricate
wādi systems of the western slope of the Samarian highlands
and are here treated in order from south to north.
(1) The Nahr el-Fāliq. The basin, of which this short stream
is the outlet, is restricted to a small section of the maritime
plain lying between the village of Tireh and the coast; it
does not extend inland to the mountains. The basin extends
for about 10 miles along the coast, north and south of the
old harbour of Arsūf, and its greatest depth inland scarcely
exceeds 7 miles. The perennial stream, not more than
l] mile in length and only a few yards wide, drains a marshy
depression of considerable area known as Birket Ramadhān or
Basset el-Fāliq situated east of the dunes through which
latter it runs in a deep narrow cutting in the calcareous
sandstone, 40 metres in length. The marsh is one of the largest
of its kind in Palestine ; aquatic birds are very numerous
in its vicinity. There is a belt of sand at the stream mouth.
PHYSICAL FEATURES
479
(2) The Nahr Iskanderūnėh enters the sea at Minet Abu
Zabūra, 7 miles south of Qaisārīyeh, and receives the western
drainage waters of the Samarian watershed between Yāsīd
and J. et-Tor. On the south, the basin is partly conterminous
with that of the 'Auja, described under Judaea (p. 438 f.),
and partly with that of the Fāliq. The principal channel is
the important W. Nāblus (known in its lower course as
W. Zeimer), which takes its rise at Nāblus and forms the
main pass across Samaria, being prolonged on the eastern
slope by W. el-Fār'ah. Up this wādi runs the Jaffa-Nāblus
carriage road. W. et-Tīn, the principal southern branch,
rises in J. et-Tõr and, after a winding course, enters the plain
south of Tūl Keram when it joins W. Qalansaweh, which
latter runs into the main wādi some 10-12 miles above its
mouth.
The P. E. F. map shows the Iskanderūneh as perennial
up to the junction of W. Qalansaweh. Dalman, however,
states that there is no constant flow of water above a
point just east of Tell Madd ed-Deir where, some 4-5 miles
from the coast, the channel makes an almost retrograde bend
from S. to NW. At the base of this hill is a strong source,
'Ain Madd ed-Deir, which is indirectly connected with the
river and, from this point, he says there is certainly connected
water to the coast, for, in rainy years, throughout the summer,
the whole district round about, on the eastern side of the
dune, is a marsh, with a large area of water in the middle.
The spring and marsh therefore appear to be the never-
failing source of supply to the river. In summer, when the
water is low, a sandbar prevents an actual outlet to the sea.
The same writer says that the name “Iskanderūneh' is
unknown locally. The river channel is called W. el-Hawārith
by the Hawārith Arabs who people the district and this name
appears to be current upstream as far as Burj el-Atöt, some
distance up W. Qalansaweh. The stream is also locally known
as El-Mefjir el-Qibli, (the southern outlet), to distinguish it
from the other Mefjir, to the north.
(3) The Nahr el-Mefjir runs into the sea 27 miles south
480
SAMARIA (INCLUDING CARMEL)
of Qaisārīyeh and is the outlet of a considerable basin em-
bracing a system of wādis which have their main heads on
the Samarian watershed between Ras Ibzīq, Ras el-Aqra' and
the village of Yāsīd. The principal channel of the Mefjir basin
takes its rise near Ras el-Aqra'. Known at first as W. Selhab,
it passes through the plain of 'Arrābeh, when it takes the
name W. el-Ghamīq and then Abu Nār. Passing between
Jetta and Bāqa and soon after entering the plain, it takes
the name W. el-Mālih and then W. el-Khudheireh where
a permanent stream begins and runs to the sea under the
name Mefjir. A considerable affluent valley, W. er-Röz, joins
W. el-Mālih from the south, while the most considerable
branch from the north is W. “Ārah, along which runs an
important road from the maritime plain to that of Esdraelon
at Lejjūn. The basin of the Mefjir is considered to include
within its limits the remarkable inland depression Merj el-
Ghuruq, see above, p. 475.
“Mefjir' (the outlet), is the name by which, according to
Dalman, the stream is ordinarily designated by the neigh-
bouring inhabitants, but he suggests that W. el-Khudheireh
is the correct name.
The Survey Map shows the Mefjir as perennial for
a distance of 8–9 miles, as far up as Tell edh-Dhrūr just
E. of the Jewish colony of Khederah, but, according to
Dalman, the permanent water-course is not more than
4 miles in length and begins only near Sheikh Helu, a cal-
careous sandstone-hill situated on the south bank just above
where a rapidly flowing rivulet from the Basset er-Rishāsh
marsh empties into the main channel from the north.
Immediately below Sheikh Helu, the stream is 4-41 yds. in
width, but after piercing the dunes it rapidly broadens to
10-12 yds. and is then considered uncrossable even at the
end of the dry season. In spring, the stream becomes very
full of water and boats can pass up it for some miles above
Sheikh Helu, as far as the bridge which carries the wheel-
road from the Jewish colony of Khederah to the colony of
Zimmārīn. A strip of dark-coloured cultivated soil lies
PHYSICAL FEATURES
481
along the north bank of the stream to the point at which it
breaks through the dunes. The mouth of the river is closed
by a sandbar by which the coast road crosses.
(4) The Nahr ez-Zerqa, or Crocodile River, running into the
sea about 21 miles north of Qaisārīyeh, drains a northern por-
tion of the Belād er-Rūhah and Plain of Sharon and a small
part of the southern Carmel area. Its principal feeder is W.
es-Sindiyāneh in the north, to which just under the bluff of
Khashm en-Nadhir unites another considerable arm from
the south. W. es-Sindiyāneh, according to Von Mülinen,
carries perennial water from ‘Ain Meyyiteh and other springs
situated some 8 or 9. miles from the coast, and the southern
branch for about 2 miles above the junction. The Zerqa is
crossed by an old stone bridge at Tāhūnet Abu Nūr, and
by another stone bridge. built in 1898 close to its mouth.
Between the two bridges, a stone dam forms a large pool
and carries a track from Qaisārīyeh to Tantūrah across the
river. Below the dam the river runs in a strong stream to
its outlet. North of the Zerqa, to as far as the N. ed-
Dufleh, and on its southern bank are extensive and un-
healthy marshes much overgrown with tall canes, papyrus
and tamarisk.
(5) The Nahr ed-Dufleh, or Oleander River, the smallest of
the coastal streams, is the estuary of W. Fureidīs, an important
wādi of southern Carmel. It has its main heads, W. esh-
Shaqqāq, Fūwār, and Khalīl, in the Belād er-Rūhah, near
the village of Dāliyet er-Rūhah and, after entering the
Carmel area near Umm et-Tūt, passes a little north of
Zimmārīn. It then makes a sharp turn southward to
pierce the dunes at Hajar esh-Sheikh, turns abruptly N. to
run for a mile parallel with the coast, and eventually enters
the sea about one mile S. of Tantūrah. Abundant water flows
down W. Fureidīs during the greater part of the year, but
there is perennial water in the Dufleh estuary for about
11 miles only, to the bridge at Hajar esh-Sheikh. At the
mouth of the estuary is a sandbar by which the Jaffa-Haifa
coastal track crosses.
Hh
SYRIA
482
SAMARIA (INCLUDING CARMEL)
GEOLOGY
For the general geological formation of Samaria, see
Judaea (p. 442 f.), with which in the main it conforms. There
is, however, this difference with regard to the strata, viz., that,
while they are horizontal in Judaea, there are slight bendings
and warpings in Samaria which help in giving the elevations
a more rounded and less rugged appearance. The plateau is
mainly Senonian, but Cenomanian appears on both the
western and eastern slope.
There are outcrops of cretaceous basalt in the vicinity of
the village of Umm el-Fahm, notably J. Sheikh Iskander and
other smaller cones west of it. This formation, described
also as volcanic tufa, forms a water-bearing bed, so that
digging in the district leads almost invariably to water.
The district of the Belād er-Rūhah is mainly comprised of
Senonian pervious strata overlying impervious Cenomanian.
In places, as in W. “Ārah, the Senonian strata are not deep
and are of a very friable nature.
The alluvial coastal plain of Samaria is fringed on the west
by a well-marked and almost continuous line of dunes.
Originally formed of drift-sand, these dunes, in places, have
become hard stone by atmospheric action. The stone is known
locally as hajar ramleh (sand stone) and numerous ancient
quarries show that it was once much used for building pur-
poses : indeed the mediaeval castles on the shore and also the
present village of Tīreh are built of it. For remarks on the
geology of Mt. Carmel in particular, see p. 502 f.
WATER-SUPPLY
(1) The hill belt. The district around Nāblus is principally
supplied by wells of living water dug down to the harder
strata beneath. Nāblus town possesses an abundant supply
of good water; there are five main primary sources and
eleven smaller ones which feed the numerous springs and
fountains in the town. The basin of Wādi Nāblus is well
supplied with small springs of clear water situated near
WATER-SUPPLY
483
villages. The wādi carries a perennial stream and, in winter,
water flows as far as Rāmīn, in summer as far as Beit Iba ;
but this water iš not suitable for drinking purposes, being
contaminated by the sewerage of Nāblus.
NE. of Wādi Nāblus and the Samarian hills and also
SW. of the Tūl Keram-Deir Sherāf section of the Jaffa-
Nāblus road, water is very scarce, the supply being almost
entirely from rain-water cisterns which dry up in summer.
The district S. of Nāblus and W. of the Jerusalem Road is
well supplied, the springs round Selfit and in W. Matwi
having an abundant yield; the 'Ain er-Rāja, near Yāsüf,
also yields abundantly. In the Mukhneh Plain, east of the
Jerusalem-Nāblus Road, good wells are frequent.
The district N. of Sebastiyeh, including the Sahel ‘Arrābeh,
is remarkable for its fine water-supply, from springs. In the
Merj el-Ghuruq, a plain from which the water has no outlet,
the valleys in the low surrounding hills bring down water
in winter and, at this time of year, the plain becomes a marshy
lake ; but no springs exist near. On the northern borders
of Samaria, along the SW. edge of the Plain of Esdraelon
between Tell Abu Qadeis and Tell Qeimūn, are numerous
groups of springs, notably around Lejjūn.
The Belād er-Rūhah is composed of pervious Senonian
strata. Villages are far apart because water is scarce.
Springs, however, appear along the wādis at the junction of
the Senonian and impervious Cenomanian strata, but the
yield of most of them varies greatly with the seasons.
(2) The maritime belt. This section of Samaria is plentifully
supplied with water, (a) from the coastal streams-Fāliq,
Iskanderūneh, Mefjir, Zerqa, and Dufleh-and, (b) from
wells and water-holes. Between the Nahr el-'Auja and Haifa
the rock is limestone, with strata inclining towards the sea.
Water in abundance can be found under the rock and in the
plain above it. Above and below the limestone rocks are
layers of clay between which the water is retained. Owing
to the inclination of the strata towards the sea, the various
layers of water are struck above sea-level. Water is found
H h 2
484
SAMARIA (INCLUDING CARMEL)
practically on the surface in the basin of the Nahr el-Fāliq
and in that of the Iskanderūneh farther N.
Along the coast close to the sea and alšo farther inland,
water-holes are dug by the Bedouin and water is readily
found. These wells or water-holes are made in the following
manner : A circular hole is dug and a barrel with the bottom
knocked out is placed in it and pressed down in the sand
until the top is level with the ground, the sand being then
scooped out from the inside. Water generally sweet, but
sometimes brackish, thereupon appears. These holes are
liable to get choked from time to time by sandstorms or to
be flooded by rough seas. Waterholes found round the
marshes prevalent near this coast contain water which,
though possible for drinking purposes, is flat and unpleasant,
and is said to cause indigestion.
Abyssinian wells could be bored through the clay, near the
coast, with good results and abundant water found in the sand
underlying it at an average depth of 20 metres.
Farther inland, along the line of the ‘Afūleh-Ludd railway,
the rock appears on the surface and to get water here it is
necessary to bore through it. The water so obtained is said
to be almost unlimited and does not seem to decrease even
by abnormal use. At Tūl Keram, the rock was penetrated
and water found at 90 metres and it rose 20 metres in the
bore. Farther eastward still, rain-water cisterns are used for
the collection of the surface water from the hills.
There is an abundant supply of water at Haifa, obtained
almost entirely from wells most of which, however, are more
or less brackish.
(3) The eastern belt. In the southern part of this belt two
abundant perennial streams are found, viz, the Fār'ah, with
its W. Bidān, and W. el-Mālih. The two main sources of the
Fār'ah, viz. 'Ain el-Fār'ah and 'Ain ed-Duleib, are situated
at head of the wādi near Burj el-Fār'ah and the strong
stream in W. Bidān is fed by a group of springs known as
‘Ayūn Bidān. In Wādi el-Mālih a group of strong springs
combine to form a stream which turns a mill and, in addition,
WATER-SUPPLY
485
irrigates some gardens. El-Hammām and other springs in
the neighbourhood yield water as hot as a'man can bear.
The plain of Beisān is, in large part, well watered by
short streams fed by springs. The town of Beisān has an
unlimited water-supply. There are three main springs the
yield of the largest of which is estimated at 1,000 cubic metres
per hr. ; this spring and one of the others are regarded as
among the largest sources in southern Palestine ; they rise
from deep water-bearing strata.
The extreme north of the eastern belt abuts on the abun-
dant perennial R. Jālūd which belongs to the district of
Galilee (see p. 531 f.).
CLIMATE
The general climatic conditions of Judaea obtain also in
Samaria. No systematic records of rainfall or temperature
are, however, available for any particular places, excepting
Haifa. The average annual precipitation at Nāblus is said to
be about 25.6 in. As in Judaea, the amount of rainfall increases
slightly from the coast to the watershed and then rapidly
diminishes; but on the eastern side of the watershed of
Samaria the precipitation is somewhat greater than is the case
in Judaea, so that the eastern slope here does not reproduce,
so markedly, the absolutely sterile features of the wilderness
of Judaea. Marshy tracts in the maritime plain are extremely
unhealthy, see pp. 478 and 500. For the peculiar atmospheric
conditions of the Carmel district, see p.504 f,, and for Haifa, see
Chap. II, p. 44 f.
NATURAL PRODUCTS
Minerals.With the exception of good building stone,
· found almost everywhere, and salt, obtained from pans
along the coast, the mineral resources of Samaria are, as far
as is known, of no great importance. There are hot saline
springs in W. el-Mālih, about 6 miles almost due E. of Tūbās.
For details of the mineral resources of Carmel, see p. 505 f.
Flora.-In the comparatively open districts of Samaria
486
SAMARIA (INCLUDING CARMEL)
natural vegetation is somewhat more varied and abundant
than in Judaea. Several of its hillsides are (or were), covered
almost to their summits with tree-growth; tracts, such as the
low chalky plateau of the Belād er-Rūhah, on the other hand,
are absolutely devoid of trees. The upland of Carmel is now
bare but its fringe has a luxuriant growth of trees and shrubs
especially on the western side...
· Among the forest trees the evergreen holm-oak, or ilex, is
the most common on the hill-sides and the most widely dis-
tributed. The deciduous oak is more rarely met with and
prefers the valley bottoms. The terebinth tree is fairly general
and the strawberry tree or arbutus, less common. Sycomore
figs are frequently found near springs. The palm is rare, even
in the coastal plains of this district. The eucalyptus, intro-
duced in recent years, has been very extensively planted in
certain marshy districts of the maritime plain, notably near
the courses of the N. el-Mefjir and N. ez-Zerqa. In the former
region no less than 300,000 are reported to have been planted
by Jewish colonists, but the bulk of these are said to have been
cut down for fuel since the outbreak of war.
Of shrubs and bushes, the hawthorn, the thorny burnet, one
of the so-called 'Christ-thorns' (billān), and the blackberry
bramble, are the most common and are very abundant. The
oleander grows luxuriantly along the banks of streams,
especially that of W. el-Fār'ah.
Fauna.—There are many hyaenas and jackals but the fox
and badger are rare ; wolves are not yet entirely exterminated
in this district. The weasel and another weasel-shaped
mammal, the ichneumon, are common and particularly
destructive of poultry. Porcupines are found in the caves of
Samaria. Gazelles are occasionally seen in the remoter hill
districts, and wild boar are reported in the lower swampy
parts east of Qaisārīyeh where there is much dense and rank
vegetation. The crocodile is said to be still found in the
N. ez-Zerqa. A peculiar but harmless animal known as the
rudhdha', or ground crocodile, resembling a green snake with
feet and often about 24 in. in length, is met with. For the
NATURAL PRODUCTS
487
animals more or less peculiar to the Carmel section of the
district, see p. 507.
Of wild birds, vultures, kites, and crows are common, but
song-birds are entirely absent. Wild fowl are extraordinarily
plentiful in the marshes and swamps of the maritime plain,
notably round about Birket Ramadhān. Reptiles are
numerous, also grey lizards of great size, and large-sized
venomous snakes are occasionally met with on the hills..
There is a marked absence of coleoptera ; but scorpions,
3 or 4 in. in length, large yellow-coloured spiders, and
a dangerous species of centipede some inches in length, are
numerous. Leeches are very common in many of the wells,
as is the case in other parts of southern Syria, and special
care has to be exercised when watering cattle.
.
INDUSTRIES
Agriculture
The chief agricultural products of the Samaria district as
a whole, arranged more or less in the order of their importance
and value, are : olives, wheat, dhura, barley, fruits (chiefly
apricots, citrons, and oranges), beans, onions and other
vegetables, and tobacco. As is the case in Judaea, cultivation
divides itself into two types—that of the plain in the west
and that of the hills in the centre and east.
That part of the Plain of Sharon which lies within the
limits of Samaria is composed of heavier soil than the part
round Jaffa and is specially adapted to cereals. In the
opinion of one authority, it is so fertile that, under proper
cultivation, it would supply the entire population of southern
Syria with food-stuffs ; but much of it at present is given
over to thorns and thistles and natural pasturage. Outside
the Jewish colonies (for the crops of which see I.D. 1203), the
plain is cultivated by the Arabs for cereals, chiefly a hard
bearded kind of wheat. A good deal of sesame, and dhura
and melons are also grown. The sesame produced around
Haifa and in the Plain of Esdraelon (Galilee), is some of the
488
SAMARIA (INCLUDING CARMEL)
finest in Syria. Melons, a very important summer crop and
a staple article of local consumption, are grown in great
numbers in the lighter sandy soil all along the coast, notably at
Mukhālid between the N. el-Fāliq and the N. Iskanderūneh.
The surplus melons, sometimes as many as 4 millions in
a year, are exported, mostly from Mīnet Abu Zabūra, the,
trade being chiefly in the hands of the Bosnian colonists of
Qaisārīyeh. A certain amount of tobacco is grown in the
plain as well as in the hill-country; the amount of leaf
produced, according to Cuinet, 1901, was about 60,000 kilos.
The eastern half of Samaria is in general hilly and stony,
and cultivation, almost entirely in Arab hands, is very
patchy. Lentils, barley, wheat, and onions are the principal
products of this section, but, the country being here populous,
the surplus produce for sale outside the immediate district is
small. Nāblus is the central market town. Around Nāblus
itself springs are very numerous and in its extensive irrigated
gardens vegetables and fruits are very largely grown ; there
are also a good many olive groves in this locality. W. Nāblus,
sometimes known as W. esh-Shaʻir, grows good and abun-
dant corn and barley. South of Nāblus, towards Jerusalem,
there are practically no springs, so 'dry farming ’ is mostly
carried on. The district north of Nāblus is perhaps the
richest part of Samaria : between Nāblus and Jenīn the
land is plentifully supplied with water and vegetables,
especially onions, are grown; this locality is in fact the
principal source of onions for all western Palestine south of
Haifa. The Plain of “Arrābeh and the Merj el-Ghuruq
lie in this direction; the latter with a soil of rich dark
loam is planted chiefly with a summer crop of millet, though
in some parts of it, where the surface is more elevated, wheat
is also sown. Considerable quantities of apricots are grown
at Sīlet edh-Dhahr; at Jenīn, approaching the edge of
Esdraelon, the land is mostly under cereals (wheat and dhura),
and sesame. South-east and east of Nāblus are the plains
of Mukhneh and Sālim, both of which produce good crops of
wheat and millet, though the soil seems to be less rich than
INDUSTRIES
489
that of the plains in the north. Around Haifa, cultivation
is largely in the hands of German colonists who have brought
about 3,000 acres of land into a high state of productiveness,
the chief crops being sesame, wheat, barley, dhura, and
chick-peas ; see further, p. 508. The Plain of Beisān gets
ample water and is highly fertile in parts, nevertheless culti-
the springs which the Arabs till mostly for wheat, the rest
being given over to a very rank natural vegetation. The
Samarian section of the Jordan Ghör is occupied mainly by
Bedouin herdsmen and there is here very little arable tillage;
but W. el-Fār'ah is a notable exception. This valley, well
watered by a fine stream of perennial water, embraces the
oasis of Qarāwa, a tract of remarkable fertility extending
for some 5 miles towards the Ghör. It is one of the richest
spots in southern Syria, producing corn, vegetables, and fine
pasturage.
The olive flourishes even better in Samaria than in Judaea,
the soil and climatic conditions being particularly favourable,
and Samaria is quite one of the principal districts of its
cultivation in the whole of southern Syria. The groves are
(or were) extensive especially around Nāblus, as well as on
the hills north of Wādi esh-Shaʻīr and in the Haifa district.
The crop varies very greatly from year to year—a peculiarity
of the tree being that it rarely bears well two years in suc-
cession. The other most common fruit trees of the district
are the fig. apricot, and lemon: W. Nāblus, especially
around the town of Nāblus, is essentially a fruit-producing
locality. The grape-vine is, in general, much less cultivated
than in Judaea, except in the Jewish colonies; see I.D. 1203.
Cotton.-Experiments in the cultivation of cotton have
been made in recent years in various localities of Samaria and
other districts. In 1909, about 580 feddans of irrigated land
the country behind Haifa were placed under cotton ; in 1910
the total area under cultivation was increased. The results
of the trials in the plain of Beisān were considered satisfactory,
490
SAMARIA (INCLUDING CARMEL)
where the crop yielded from 45 qantars per feddan; at Haifa
results were disappointing, the yield per feddan being only
1 qantar, but in the latter case the failure is attributed to want
of experience in the proper methods of cultivation. The
soil in the Plain of Beisān and in certain other parts of the
Jordan valley is reported, by Egyptian experts who have
been in the country, to be admirably suited for the cultivation
of cotton; but it is thought that the questions of irrigation
and labour are obstacles which will have to be overcome
before cultivation can be undertaken on a large scale. Con-
sular Report, 1911, says : Should cotton growing be taken
up by a competent company, the cotton yield would probably
not be inferior to that of Egypt in quality. Up to 1911
there was no ginning plant in Syria, except one machine
at Haifa, and the bulk of the yield was sent to Mansürah in
Egypt to be treated and sold.
Sugar-cane was once largely grown in certain parts of the
Ghör and there seems to be no reason why it should not again
become a profitable crop.
Stock-rearing.–According to Cuinet (1898), the approxi-
mate number of head of stock in the Samaria district was
210,000, comprising : oxen and cows, 5,100 ; buffaloes, 500 ;
horses, 2,300 ; donkeys and mules, 3,700 ; sheep, 30,750 ;
goats, 168,000 ; and camels, 740. There were at this period
more horses in Samaria than in Judaea. In proportion to
the area, the number of oxen and cows appears to have been
much less in Samaria than in Judaea ; on the other hand,
sheep were relatively much more numerous and goats slightly
more so. On the whole, there is in Samaria a larger area of suit-
able pasturage for sheep and goats than in Judaea. Buffaloes
graze in the swamps of the N. ez-Zerqa. Fowls are largely
kept in the villages.
. Turning to more recent information, an authority says :
'In this area (Samaria), there is very little stock. Very
few sheep in the hilly country and oxen are not numerous.
Four years ago there was a serious epidemic among sheep
and cattle, and the stock was very much reduced. Now
INDUSTRIES
491
there is practically no stock left, there being especially a
great scarcity of transport oxen. The same authority says :
'no mules are bred in Palestine, all are brought from
Northern Syria' (Ormesby Gore, 1917).
Bee-keeping is a profitable industry, in the district of
‘Arrābeh in particular.
Manufactures
The olive-oil and soap industries are by far the most
important of the district of Samaria. The oil of Nāblus is
considered the best in Syria. Presses for the extraction of
olive-oil are scattered about in various towns and villages
throughout Samaria but most are to be found in the
neighbourhood of Nāblus and the district just north of it,
the other main centres being Silet edh-Dhahr, Qubātiyeh,
Jenin, and Haifa. The methods of extracting the oil from
the fruit are mostly of a very rudimentary description, the
presses of wood being of primitive construction and turned
by horses; but hydraulic presses are also used, mainly
in the Haifa-Akka district. The process of extracting
edible oil (as distinct from oil suitable only for making soap),
to be effective must be rapid in order to obtain the oil before
fermentation of the berry sets in. The more rapid production
of a larger percentage of oil is only possible by the use of
hydraulic presses. The old process generally obtaining in
Samaria is therefore wasteful and, by it, only a small part
of the olive crop can be treated for edible oil before the
berries become rancid and unfit for human consumption,
with the result that the bulk of the oil obtained is only
suitable for making soap. Most of the edible oil produced
throughout Syria is used for home consumption, for, as
yet, little attention has been paid to improving it by
refining.
The soap factories are at Nāblus and Haifa-some thirty
in the former and some two or three in the latter town. Those
at Nāblus appear to be mostly small native concerns and
consist at most of from one to five boilers or soap-pans. At
492 SAMARIA (INCLUDING CARMEL)
the factories of Haifa more modern methods of production
have been introduced. The largest, owned by a Russian
Jewish Company, was producing in 1911 on an average about
200 tons of soap per annum, and the factory has since
been enlarged and its capacity doubled. In 1913 there
was also a factory under American direction, and a smaller
factory capable of producing 50 tons yearly, but the latter
appears to have been closed. The normal yearly output of
the soap-works of Nāblus is 500–1,000 tons according to the
olive crop, and of those of Haifa, 300 tons. Vegeta ble fats
other than olive-oil now partly enter into the manufacture of
native soaps.
At Nāblus there are a few presses for the extraction of oil
from sesame seed which, in Europe, is used in the manufacture
of margarine, but the bulk of the sesame crop is exported
as seed.
A small amount of cotton-ginning is done at Haifa. A large
factory for the manufacture of wine bottles was set up some
years ago at Tantūrah, but it has been closed down for some
time. There is a large steam flour-mill at Jenīn, and a small
German iron foundry at Haifa (1913). For the small industries
carried on in the Carmel area, see p. 509 f.
TRADE
Though the port of Haifa is situated in Samaria, a large
part of the trade of this district, up to within recent years,
tended to gravitate to Jaffa, finding a ready outlet by com-
paratively good roads centring on that port and favoured also
by the superior and more regular shipping facilities of Jaffa.
But, during the years just anterior to the outbreak of war,
the commercial development of Haifa was steady and con-
tinuous; the construction of the Haifa-Der'a railway, opened
for traffic in 1906, made Haifa the natural port of the Hejaz
railway, and the town immediately showed signs of attracting
shipping as well as interior produce from Arabia and. Damascus,
in consequence of which it gradually grew in importance at
the expence of ‘Akka and, to a certain extent, even of Beirut.
TRADE
493
Up to some twenty-five years ago, ‘Akka was the port to
which almost all the grain from the Haurān, intended for
export to Europe and the Syrian coast, was directed and from
which it was shipped. On the completion of the Damascus-
Beirut railway (1896), the grain trade was diverted for a time
to Beirut; but, since the construction of the Haifa-Der'a
railway, Haifa has received and shipped, to the prejudice of
Beirut, much of the Haurān grain, and Damascus and Northern
Arabia now obtain a considerable proportion of their supplies
through this port.
The railways constructed still more recently in Southern
Syria—the broad-gauge Rafah-Ludd-Haifa and the narrow-
gauge Tūl Keram-Afūleh lines—will doubtless still further
modify the trade movement of this region, and will unques-
tionably affect the distribution of the trade of southern Syria,
as between the ports of Jaffa, Haifa, and Beirut. In addition,
schemes for new harbour works both for Jaffa and Haifa have
been under consideration for some years, and concessions are
reported to have been granted just before the outbreak of
war ; the extent to which these projects are realized in the
future will have its distinct bearing on the proportion of trade
which will eventually fall to each of the two ports in question.
The extent of the trade of Haifa is broadly shown in Chap.
VIII, p. 304 f. The principal articles of export in approximate
order of value are : wheat, beans and lentils, sesame, barley,
dhura, olive-oil, wine, and eggs. The wheat, derived mainly
though not wholly from the Haurān, averaged 60,000 quarters
annually during the period 1907–13. Sesame is a more local
product, the Plain of Esdraelon and the district of Haifa
producing the larger yield and the best quality of this seed in
Syria : an average harvest allows of some 9,000-14,000 tons
being exported (in normaltimes) to Marseilles, Genoa, Hamburg,
and Trieste. The wine exported from Haifa is produced
almost exclusively at the Jewish and German colonies of
Carmel and amounts annually to some thousands of hecto-
litres. The soaps of Nāblus find their outlet, to Egypt and
the Levant, at Jaffa. The principal articles of import at Haifa
494
SAMARIA (INCLUDING CARMEL)
and their proportions correspond in the main to those of other
ports of Syria ; but coal and briquettes form an exceptional
item, and, previous to the war, averaged 20,000–35,000 tons
annually, imported mainly for the Railway Administration.
Of the total trade of Haifa, export and import, about one-
third is carried on, normally, with France, one-fifth with the
United Kingdom, and one-eighth with Egypt. During the
period 1909–13 about 530 steam vessels dealing with an
annual aggregate of three-quarters of a million tons of goods
entered and cleared the port annually, of which 140 were
British, 115 Russian, 106 Austrian, 45 Turkish,1 34 Italian,
and 28 French. During the same period, 670 sailing vessels
dealing with about 11,000 tons of cargo cleared annually.
Haifa is about two days distant by steamer from Port Said
and about six hours from Jaffa and Beirut.
A small local coasting trade is carried on at Tantūrah,
‘Athlīt, Qaisārīyeh, and Mīnet Abu Zabūra, small coastal
villages south of Haifa. Of these, Tantūrah, the most impor-
tant, exports a quantity of wine ; as much as 1,000 barrels
have been shipped in one day in a steamer anchored off the
port, and a number of local sailing craft call here at the end
of summer. Considerable quantities of melons are shipped at
Minet Abu Zabūra. Steamers occasionally call in summer at
Qaisālīyeh, for melons, wheat, and barley from the plains of
Sharon.
The chief inland market centres of Samaria are Nāblus,
Beisān, and Jenīn. The first town and the most important of
the three was (1918) the terminus of a branch of the Tūl
Keram-Afūleh railway. It is the meeting place of several
trunk roads and carries on a considerable trade with the
country to the east of the Jordan. Beisān, situated as it is on
the Haifa-Der'a railway, a centre of many good roads, and
lying midway between the most prosperous regions of Samaria
and Galilee on the one hand and Central ‘Ajlūn on the other,
seems marked out as the main mercantile centre of the middle
1 The Italian and Turkish share in the shipping movement was below the
normal amount, as the Turko-Italian War fell in this period, 1909–13.
Y CUL
TRADE
V
495
Jordan valley. The town has increased rapidly in recent
years and is chiefly a grain market. Jenīn, situated in a rich
well-watered agricultural district, is an important station on
the Tūl Keram-Afūleh railway. Tūl Keram itself, the
junction station of the 'Afūleh line with the Rafah-Ludd-
· Haifa broad-gauge railway, is likely also to develop into
a business centre of comparative importance.
INHABITANTS
Population. It is difficult to arrive at any precise estimate
of the actual present population of Samaria. The sources,
from which the figures given in the tables below are taken,
are : Cuinet, 1896 ; the Annuaire oriental, 1914; and
Ruppin,1 1915.
The total population of the district under description-
viz. the sanjaq of Nāblus and the kaza of Haifa—is as
follows : according to Cuinet, 64,707 ; Annuaire oriental,
127,709; Ruppin, 184,378.
The distribution of the population to the several kazas
composing the district of Samaria, according to the three
sources, is as follows :
- TABLE I
Cuinet, Annuaire Ruppin,
Kazas.
1896. Oriental,
1915.
1914.
Sanjaq of Nāblus : . .
107,709
Kaza of Nāblus.
28,675
76,426
, Jenin
9,654
41,422
, Beni Sa'b or Tūl Keram . 5,671
35,901
,, Selfit or Jemmāʻīn? .
4,979
Sanjaq of 'Akka
Kaza of Haifa . . . . 15,728 20,000 30,629
Totals . . . . . .
64,707 127,709 184,378
According to Cuinet, the population of the area under de-
scription in 1896, was composed of the following categories :
1 From Syrien als Wirtschaftsgebiet. See footnote, 1). 458.
2 Selfit or Jemmā'in is now absorbed in the kaza of Nāblus.
496
SAMARIA (INCLUDING CARMEL)
2,"
Syrians
35
TABLE II
Categories.
Sanjaq of Kaza of Totals
Năblis. Haifa. Samaria.
Moslems . . . .
40,630
5,350
45,980
Christians :
Maronitos
3,000
223
3,223
United Grecks.
3,004
3,598
6,602
Orthodox »
169
450
619
1,629
1,629
Latins ..
100
100
Protestants
150
185
Jews ...
117
5,200
5,317
Samaritans
180
180
Druses
422
422
Foreigners
450
450
Totals . . . . 48,979 15,728 64,707
It may be assumed that Ruppin's figures, in Table 1,
represent the present day population more nearly than the
figures of the Annuaire oriental, for the statistics of the latter
work have not been found to bear investigation and are often
contradictory. Cuinet's figures in Table II, though they are
not very recent, serve a useful purpose in giving some general
indication of the comparative numbers in the main categories
-Moslems, Christians, Jews, &c.
The following table shows the chief centres of population
in the district of Samaria including Carmel :. figures in round
numbers.
TABLE III
Town.
Population.
Character.
1 Haifa, variously estimated , 20,000-30,000
1 Nāblus ,
. 27,000-30,000 Moslem, with 160-180
aritans
1 Tūl Keram,,
1,500-5,000
Jenin
2,000-4,500 Moslem
"
Beisān 29
2,000-3,000 Chiefly Moslom, some Jews
Selfit . .
2,000 Moslem
Qāqün
2,000 Moslem
Iqzim or Ijzim
1,500
Umm el-Fahm
1,500 Moslem and Christian
Tantūrah.
1,200 Moslem
Zimmārīn.
1,000 Mostly Jews
Tīreh
1,000 Moslem
Daliych
750 Druse, somc Moslems
600
Drusc
Umm ez-Zcināt :
600
1 Ruppin's figures, 1915, are: Haifa, 20,000; Nāblus, 30,000 ; Tūl
Koram, 5,000.
'Usufiya
INHABITANTS
497
.
· The population of Haifa is reported to be made up of
Moslems, more than one-half ; Jews, not more than 3,000 ;
Germans, possibly 800 ; Orthodox Greeks, 1,500 ; Latins,
600 ; the remainder, Maronite and United Greeks. According
to Ruppin, the population of Haifa had increased from 5,000,
in 1880, to 20,000, in 1915.
Settled people.The population of Samaria and the districts
north of it presents much racial, religious and political
variety.
In the maritime plain there is a general Arab agricultural
population in the south. In the north, however, this has
been more largely intruded upon by the Jewish colonists
than elsewhere in Palestine, except perhaps the immediate
neighbourhood of Jaffa. The large Jew settlements of Khud-
heireh and Zimmārīn, with their dependencies, own most of
the good land, leaving to the Arabs the marshy levels and
the foothills. But the prevalent malaria, affecting immigrants
more than natives, tends to thin out the Jews in certain of
the colonies and to bring the Arabs back into vacated lands.
Climatic conditions have impaired the progress of the colonists,
especially at Khudheireh, and they are less far advanced than
those of Jaffa.
In the western valleys and on the plateau of Samaria, the
population is Arab agricultural, mixed with very few Chris-
tians, even in Nāblus town which is almost as exclusively
Moslem as Hebron. The Samaritans are a fast dying group
of under 200 souls all told, keeping closely to itself, mainly
in the south-western quarter of Nāblus town.
On the eastern slopes and in the upper western Ghör are
some poor tribes, partly settled and partly tent-dwellers, but
all cultivators.
The hill belt from the sea along Carmel towards the Ghör
at Beisān is largely non-Moslem. The western part of Carmel
has a mixed urban population of native Christians, of German
colonists, of Jewish colonists, and of Druses ; Moslem Araks
only become general in the eastern half of Carmel and in
J. Fuqūé. Jenīn and Beisān are almost entirely Moslem
SYRIA
498
SAMARIA (INCLUDING CARMEL)
towns. The Druses have two large villages on Carmel.
viz. Dāliyeh and “Usufiya; see further p. 511. The Maronites
of the Samaria district number at least 3,000 and the bulk
appear to be distributed over the various villages of the sanjaq
of Nāblus.
Bedouin.—The chief of the small and almost insignificant
nomadic tribes found in Samaria are the following:
Hawārith, of two divisions : ‘Amarah, numbering some
250 souls, and Nefeiʻat, numbering some 300 souls. They range
round Mukhālid and as far north as the Nahr Iskanderūneh.
The Nefei'at are dangerous club-bearing Arabs.
‘Arab el-Ghawārneh, almost independent, have their camps
around Qaisārīyeh and in the marshes of the Nahr ez-Zerqa.
The tracks through the boggy land are known only to them
and, being so strongly posted, they are almost free from
contributions to the government. Some of them live in
reed huts, often hung with goatskins, and are treated as
pariahs by the sedentary Arabs and even by other Bedouin.
Turkmānīyeh, across southern Carmel ; they range the
district between the Belād er-Rūhah and Wādi el-Milh.
Isweitāt, originating from Belād Beshārah in northern
Galilee, are found at Khreibeh on Carmel.
Qazalni, a branch of the Ka'bīyeh from the Merj Ibn 'Āmir,
range the Carmel district about Shellāleh, W. el-Milh and
Bostān.
Semnīyān, from the Merj Ibn 'Āmir, frequent the north-
eastern slope of Carmel about J. “Aqqārah and Sheikh Ibrāq,
and, near the latter place, are also found some Bedouin of
the little tribe El-Hilf.
Sa‘eidi, also from the Merj Ibn 'Amir, camp in the neighbour-
hood of Bostān.
Masāʻid, owning some 80 tents, range the Ghör el-Fār'ah
SE. of Nāblus.
For the small tribes of the Samarian Ghör, see p. 660.
499
CARMEL
Area
A section of Samaria having peculiar physical and other
characteristics, Carmel (Kurmul) calls for separate and detailed
description. Geographically, it may be regarded as an exten-
sion, towards the north-west, of the main central range of
Southern Syria, though it is partially cut off from it by
lower hills (the Belād er-Rūhah). It is best described as
a triangular block of mountains, the apex being the promontory
on which the Carmelite monastery above Haifa stands, and the
watershed runs south-east from this point for about 12 miles to
the Mahraqah and Wādi el-Milh. It is bounded on the north-
eastern side by the plain of Esdraelon and on the west by
the Mediterranean Sea; on the south-east it is separated by
W. el-Milh from the Belād er-Rūhah, a low well-watered and
fertile but treeless plateau with no ravines but only trough-
like hollows, and on the south it terminates in a precipitous
bluff known as the Khashm, or Khushm, overlooking the
N. ez-Zerqa. The somewhat undefined south-eastern frontier
from W. el-Milh to the Khashm accords more or less nearly
with the geological frontier line which has the red earth of
Carmel on the north-west while eastward is the yellowish-
white soil of the Belād er-Rūhah.
More strictly speaking, Mount Carmel, as distinct from
the district of Carmel outlined above, does not extend so
far south as the Khashm but terminates in a line running
east and west from W. el-Milh through the low country
of Iqzim and thence along Wādi el-Maghāreh to the coastal
plain.
The Carmel area in its widest sense measures about 14 miles
along that side towards the plain of Esdraelon, about the same
length along its south-eastern border, and 21 miles on the
Mediterranean side and comprises some 100 sq. miles of
territory.
Administratively, Carmel is embraced in the kaza of Haifa
of the sanjaq of 'Akka.
Ii2
500
SAMARIA (INCLUDING CARMEL)
Physical Features
Relief.—The watershed of Carmel, forming a fine ridge and
attaining an average level of some 1,600 ft. in its middle part,
lies near its north-eastern side. The slope on this side is
therefore short and in parts precipitous and descends abruptly
to the plain of Esdraelon. On the other side the slope is
gentle. Long, parallel and gradually sloping spurs or ridges,
known as fersh (plu. ferāsli), gradually lengthening southward
and divided by deep rugged valleys, run westward out of the
watershed. The slopes at the ends of these spurs, however,
are often abrupt and in places cliffs fall to the maritime
plain, as at 'Arāq el-Masālimeh N. of Tīreh and at Wādi
el-Maghāreh, S. of the lat. of ‘Athlīt. The valleys between
the ridges are narrow, winding, and often rocky, but, near the
watershed, at Dāliyeh, “Usufiya and other spots, small level
plateaux occur. The descent from the ridge to W. el-Milh, on
the SE., is also very abrupt. The district as a whole therefore
forms an almost detached block of elevated ground, diversified
by wild gorges, small level or undulating plateaux covered
with brushwood, and protruding rocky summits, and is
surrounded by plains. The maritime plain on the western
side is long and narrow, measuring from 1-2 miles at its
southern and widest part and not more than 200-300 yds. at
the foot of the Carmel headland in the north. Considerable
sections of the plain are marshy and unhealthy, especially
south of ‘Athlīt and Tantūrah.
The main ridge of Carmel, its most prominent physical
feature, extends for some 14 miles from the headland on
which the Carmelite monastery stands, and consists of an undu-
lating crest forming a succession of low peaks (ra's, plu. ru’ūs)
or dome-like summits. It rises from an elevation of 470 ft.
above sea-level at the monastery to an extreme elevation of
1,808 ft. at a point about 12 miles to the south-east, whence
it falls rapidly into W. el-Milh and an elevation of about
480 ft. at Jelamet el-Mansürah. The chief summits of the
ridge taken in order from the north-west are Jebel es-Sitt
CARMEL
501
and important, the sea a
(alt. 951 ft.), Ras Abu’n-Nada (1,571 ft.), Ras el-Juneidīyeh,
the middle point (1,720 ft.), Ras el-Jibb, Qamū'at ed-Durziyeh
(1,808 ft.), 'Usufiya (1,758 ft.), Umm es-Senāsil (1,670 ft.),
and Mahraqah (1,686 ft.).
The principal wādis of the north-eastern slope of the ridge
are : W. Rushmiya, leading directly to the sea a little E. of
Haifa; W. et-Tabl with an important branch W. 'Aqqārah ;
W. esh-Shomarīyeh; and W. el-Milh, with an important
tributary W. ‘Arāq en-Nātif. All of these valleys, with the
exception of the Rushmiya, lead down to the basin of the
Nahr el-Muqatta'.
The main valleys of the western slope, naming from N.
to S. are: W. et-Tatar and W. el-Ghamīq, both having their
heads near Jebel es-Sitt (Carmelheim); W. 'Ain es-Seyyāh,
with a branch W. Kefr es-Sāmir; W. ‘Amr, with branch
W. Rīshi. These wādis are insignificant in size, but not
unimportant as ways of communication across the ridge
between the western coastal plain and Haifa. The succeeding
and larger valleys southward are : W. 'Abdallah, having its
heads near the summit Ras Wādi ‘Abdallah; W. el-Masrāreh,
known at its mouth as El-Mellāhah and east of the village of
Tīreh as W. 'Ain et-Tīreh, formed of a great number of small
branches taking their rise on the ridge between Ras Abu
en-Nada and El-Juneidīyeh, chief tributary W. Bir Fadl ;
W. Falāh (see below); W. el-Maghāreh; W. Henu, known
in its upper course as W. el-Matābin; and W. el-Fureidīs. Of
all the foregoing, W. Falāh is by far the most important as
well as the most intricate wādi system of Mt. Carmel. Its basin
extends 8-9 miles from E. to W. and from 3–4 miles from
N. to S. The upper sections of the main valley are known
successively as the Merj ez-Zerāʻal, an open fertile stretch, the
Bāb el-Hawa, a very narrow gorge, and Miqtaleh, open plateau
country. W. Falāh embraces an extraordinary number of
ramified valleys which have their heads in the main ridge
between Ras el-Jibb and Umm es-Senāsil and, after a very
tortuous course, it enters the sea by a well-marked estuary
known as Moyet-Dustrei below Khirbet ed-Dustrei. Its
502
SAMARIA (INCLUDING CARMEL)
most important feeder is W. Bostān, rising at Dāliyeh and
joining the main valley from the south, just before it emerges
on to the coastal plain. W. Falāh is the only valley of
Mt. Carmel which carries perennial water, but this only in
parts, viz. from Ras en-Neba' to just below Shellāleh for
a distance of about a mile, and from K. ed-Dustrei to the
sea. The bed of the wādi is much overgrown with oleanders
in certain sections. For further details of the important
W. el-Fureidīs, see N. ed-Dufleh, p. 481. The N. ez-Zerqa (see
p. 481), the main upper course of which is known as W.
es-Sindiyāneh, forms the extreme southern limit of Carmel
area.
Geology
Mt. Carmel consists chiefly of limestone strata of various
depths and hardness. The surface of most of the high
land is a soft, porous chalk (senonian). Beneath this come
strata of limestone of various degrees of hardness, from
the cenomanian down to the hard crystalline limestone of
the Necomian period. Almost everywhere in the limestone
are veins of flint, called suwān by the natives. In the district
S. of Iqzim and again around Zimmārīn are isolated outcrops
of cretaceous basalt. The many caves or grottoes that are
formed in the rocky sides of the mountains are hung with
stalactites; natural cavities in these often hold water
impregnated with carbonate of soda.
The upper and softer limestones are known locally as
hajar sultāni and hajar meleki, and are both suitable and
much used for building purposes, while the harder strata
are known as hajar yābis. In the neighbourhood of Tīreh
and in the middle course of W. Falāh (Merj ez-Zerāah) is to
be found a porous yellow or reddish formation, known locally
as trāb el-merāmil, of which the Druses of Dāliyeh make
earthenware.
Much of the soil of Carmel is of a reddish colour due to the
presence of iron, a characteristic which stands out in strong
contrast to the white colour of the soft chalky soil of the
CARMEL
503
Belād er-Rūhah over the south-eastern border. The red soil
appears to be very rich, as the remarkably luxuriant tree and
shrub growth, especially on the slopes, indicates, while on the
ridges and uplands, covered as they are only by a thin layer
of chalk, vegetation is much more sparse and trees, with the
exception of a few stunted pines straggling along the water-
shed, are absent.
Water-supply
Carmel is badly off for water compared with some of the
districts around. The sources of supply are surface springs
(not so common in Carmel as elsewhere), deep wells, and
cisterns cut in the limestone. The latter, known as jurn
(or ruhrah, if of large size), are sometimes bell-shaped and
hold up the rain-water of the early part of the year for a
good time. Water sometimes flows out also from subter-
ranean pools (nezzāzeh), but only after rain.
The finest springs are : ‘Ain es-Seyyāh, in the wādi of the
same name below Ed-Deir; 'Ain 'Usufiya, in W. esh-
Shõmarīyeh, the main source of supply of the village of
“Usufiya; “Ain Qutf ez-Zuhūr, near Tīreh; “Ain Umm
esh-Shuqaf, about į rnile W. of Dāliyeh ; 'Ain en-Neba',
in the middle course of W. Falāh; strong springs in the
middle course of W. es-Sindiyāneh ; and 'Ain ez-Zerqa in
W. Bostān, a very fine spring situated east of the village
of 'Ain Haudh. Good springs are also frequent at the foot
of the north-eastern slope of the Carmel ridge, at the edge of
the Merj Ibn 'Amir but these belong more properly to the
Muqatta' basin (Galilee).
Along the coastal plain and in the lower ground the water-
supply is almost entirely from wells or water-holes, many
of which are of considerable depth. Among the most fre-
quented wells are : Bir et-Tantūrah, a deep modern shaft
with very good water, about 1 mile S. of Tantūrah ; Bir
‘Ain et-Tīreh, a well, fed by the spring ‘Ain Qutf ez-Zuhūr,
on the E. side of the town of Tīreh; the well of Iqzim, on
the west side of the village, of ancient construction, reached
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SAMARIA (INCLUDING CARMEL)
by steps and yielding very good water; Bir Qalʼat el-Malik,
south of Kefr Lām, a deep shaft reached by 45 steps, one of
the most renowned wells in the whole district ; Bir el-Maqla',
a well of excellent fresh water, at the edge of the shore, just
S. of ‘Athlīt; and Bir Fādil, in the wādi of the same name,
west of Shellāleh, with excellent water, reached by steps.
On the north-eastern side of the ridge are: 'Ain Rushmiya
at Khirbet Rushmiya, a well partly hewn and partly walled,
the water reached by steps; and Bir el-Mahraqah, 1 mile
below Mahraqah, an ancient stone-lined well reached by steps
and much resorted to by goatherds.
Zimmārīn is supplied with water from the plain by powerful
pumping plant.
Many of the cisterns of Carmel are sadly out of repair.
For the greater part of the year nearly all the ravines are
dry ; their channels only contain water in winter and then
heavy rainfall is liable to fill them to a dangerous extent.
Climate
The atmospheric conditions on Mt. Carmel naturally differ
very greatly from those prevailing on the narrow strip of
coastland W. and N. of it. The temperature on the
mountain, even in August, rarely exceeds 82° Fahr., except
on days when the sirocco blows, when it may reach 95° at the
most; on the narrow coastal plains, in summer, the heat is
often most oppressive. In winter the temperature sometimes
falls below zero, while it hardly ever does so at Haifa. The
sea-breezes bring much moisture to this exposed promontory,
and the higher the altitude the more noticeable it is.
The average yearly rainfall at Carmelheim, the German
colony on Mt. Carmel, altitude 951 ft.above sea-level, at which
place systematic records were kept during the three years 1903–
5, proved to be 24.7 in., as compared with 26 in. at Jerusalem
and 18in. at Jaffa in the same period. The average monthly
rainfall in inches during this period was approximately as
follows : January, 5•2 ; February, 3.5; March, 2.5; April, -5;
May, -2; June to September, nil; October, 2.0; November, 4.0;
CARMEL
505
and December, 6-8. The heaviest rainfall in any one year
of this period was 10.3 in. in December 1905.
The abnormally heavy dewfall of Mt. Carmel has been
noted by many travellers, and on some nights, especially in
the fall of the year, it is so great that it actually runs along
the gutters of the roofs of houses. The effect of this extra-
ordinary moisture at night is to be seen in the continuance
of vegetation throughout the year—plants thrive here that
elsewhere would require artificial irrigation and, further,
owing to the constant recurrence of the heavy dew, the soft
limestone rapidly disintegrates and the soil is constantly
replenished. Pasturage is obtainable on Carmel throughout
the year, thus making the district a specially suitable region
for stock-farming.
As to winds, the westerly (gharbi) is the most prevalent,
but it blows most frequently in summer; the south wind (qibli)
is rare. In late autumn the south-east wind is common, not
infrequently bringing rain and, because of its coincidence with
sowing-time, it is called the zerrāʻi. The east wind (sharqīyeh),
or sirocco, known locally as the sammīyeh or 'poison wind',
is not infrequent in winter, but it is more common and the
most insupportable in early summer and in autumn.
Natural Products
Minerals.—Good building stone is plentiful, either limestone,
or hajar ramleh from the petrified sand dunes along the
coast. The most worked quarries at the present time are
those east of Haifa in W. Rushmiya, from which are obtained
most of the stone for building construction in Haifa as well
as for the construction of the railways in the locality. There
are other notable quarries at Maqāti' ‘Athlīt, on the slopes
of Fersh Iskander, and on the northern slopes of Mt. Carmel
below the monastery. At Iqzim there is an open iron mine,
now abandoned, but the ground all round is rich in iron-ore,
Salt is obtained by evaporation from shallow pans made on
the shore, notably at El-Malhah about 2 miles south of
‘Athlīt, at Beit el-Milh an islet just S. of the same place,
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SAMARIA (INCLUDING CARMEL)
and at Mellāhah 2 miles N. of it. The fellahin make small
pans in the interior, to which they carry the sea-water and
obtain salt in this way.
Flora.-Speaking generally of the natural vegetation of
Carmel, the rugged fringe of the ridge and the deep valleys
between soft rocky grey cliffs that penetrate it are covered
thickly with a luxuriant growth of shrubs, trees, and plants ;
higher up, where the bare fractured limestone rock appears
and there is an almost total lack of cultivable earth, large
areas are covered only with a thorny herbage, and have the
character of more or less stony wilderness. The rest is a
surface of thick plant growth, where the hundreds of varieties
of delicate wild flowers of spring give way in summer to
more aromatic growth and thorny plants with woody stalks,
which, after surviving the hot months, make way in turn
for the flora of the rainy season. The ruling colour of the
vegetation of Carmel is an undecided green inclining to
a yellowish grey or, more seldom, to blue.
Carmel has lost for the most part the rich natural forest
growth for which it appears to have been formerly reputed ;
but even so the valleys are generally better wooded than the
rest of Samaria. Except for groups of trees in a few places,
mostly either on private property or protected by sacred
tradition, and isolated trees here and there, the upland
region is now comparatively bare and open. Oliphant says :
'Formerly—and even within the memory of man--the lower
ground round Carmel and the valleys penetrating its outer
edge were full of fine tree-growth; the uplands were probably
never covered with forests. If ever Carmel was ' a land of
forests ’, most of the timber trees have now disappeared
and what remain are being yearly further depleted. The
increasing demand for fuel and charcoal for Haifa and other
centres and for numerous lime-kilns daily involves fresh
sacrifices ; goats prevent renewal by eating up all tree-
seedlings. Decades of neglect have completed the work of
deforestation.
Among the trees and shrubs the evergreen-oak or ilex
CARMEL
507
is the most commonly met with, and the deciduous oak much
more rarely. The Aleppo pine, introduced from Lebanon and
bearing cones with edible kernels, thrives well on Carmel ridge,
where it has been extensively planted in the neighbourhood
of Carmelheim. The so-called Carmel pine, (Pinus Pinea, L.)
which is usually pruned to an umbrella-like top on a naked
trunk and which was once very common, has given place to the
Aleppo pine, but a few specimens straggle along the summit
of the main ridge and there form a feature of the landscape.
The terebinth is fairly general, and the strawberry-tree or
arbutus less common. The storax, a very showy tree in the
season of flower, is common in the mountain thickets. It bears
a. berry used as a bait in fishing ; fish eagerly devour it and
die and they are then collected for the market. The hawthorn
grows everywhere, as also the thorny burnet; the latter,
a dry species of bush the branches of which end in sharp
spikes, is exceedingly common and is extensively used as
fuel in the lime-kilns. The sumach shrub, the fruit, bark,
and leaves of which are of commercial value and used in
tanning, is found, though it is not very common.
Fauna.-For the fauna in general, see Samaria, p. 486 f.
Of species more peculiar to Carmel, the panther, or hunting
leopard, has its haunts in the impenetrable caves in the hills,
and is met with in the remote gorges in the middle course of
W. Falāh, and is the most dangerous. There is also the
panther-cat, of reddish grey colour, and the smaller but
equally ferocious wild-cat. The thickets in the gorges of
Carmel afford fine cover for game, of which many kinds,
including the gazelle and hare, abound. The fallow deer and
roebuck have been met with, both being commonly called
waʻl by the natives.
Industries
Agriculture.-That Carmel was once more extensively
cultivated than is now the case is shown by the traces of
garden- and terrace-walls in places which to-day are practically
barren; and by the very numerous ancient rock wine- and
508
SAMARIA (INCLUDING CARMEL)
oil-presses scattered about the district. The bulk of highland
Carmel is now, however, wild and untilled. Cultivation is
confined to certain parts of the narrow maritime plain,
notably that part of it west of Haifa ; to valley bottoms, in
some of which the soil is exceptionally fertile ; and, in the
higher parts, to the neighbourhood of peopled centres, notably
Carmelheim, Dāliyeh, Zimmārīn, 'Usufiya, Umm ez-Zeināt,
and Iqzim. Cereals are largely grown, chiefly wheat and
barley and, to a less extent, dhura, but practically all the crop
is consumed locally. Sesame, grown in the plain country,
is a product having considerable commercial importance in
Carmel.
The wheat and barley are sown on Carmel at the beginning
of the rainy season, the latter being harvested at about
Whitsuntide and the former three weeks later. Dhura and
sesame are sown in early spring, and both are gathered in
August. There are extensive fields of onions, and water-
melons are grown on a large scale, both crops thriving best
in the light sandy soils of low-lying tracts. Leguminous
plants, including the pea, various kinds of bean, lentil, lupine,
and chick-pea, thrive particularly well in Carmel and, of the
remaining vegetables, the cucumber, egg-plant, and tomato
receive special attention.
Fruit culture is a reviving industry in Carmel, notably
vine culture, formerly an important staple, but which had
fallen off here, as in other parts of Southern Syria, owing to
the Moslem prohibition of wine. The culture of the grape
and the production of wine has, however, always been carried
on by the Carmelite monastery, and the industry has been
taken up in recent years by the German colonists of Haifa and
Carmelheim and the Jewish colonists of Zimmārīn, the produce
being considerable; see further, I.D. 1203. Olive-trees often
attain a great size in Carmel, and the most extensive groves
are at 'Usufiya and Dāliyeh. Olives grow well also in the
plain round Tīreh towards the foot of the mountains. Almond-
trees were formerly more widely grown than at present, and
were once so numerous in the valley of Tīreh that this village
CARMEL
509
was known as Tīret el-Löz. The carob is a very common
tree on the slopes of Carmel, notably on that part below the
monastery. The tree is here extensively and carefully
cultivated for its pod (the locust bean), which has considerable
commercial value. The mulberry and fig-tree flourish in
sheltered spots in the plain. The apple, pear, quince, apricot
and peach are cultivated in the gardens of the villages, and
the medlar has been recently introduced ; but the lemon and
citron are rare and the orange-tree is not planted. Only
a few isolated palm-trees are found on the high ground; the
dates of these are very inferior in quality, and the tree is
therefore not so extensively cultivated as in the maritime
plain farther south.
Stock-rearing.-Cuinet (1898) gives the following distri-
bution of stock for the Carmel district : oxen and cows,
2,100; buffaloes, 60; horses, 300 ; donkeys and mules, 500 ;
sheep, 700; goats, 28,000 ; camels, 69. There are no pigs
in Carmel. Sheep, generally the white broad-tailed breed,
are pastured almost entirely in the lowland plains, as the
herbage of the hills is unsuitable and the thorny growth
which is so prevalent there is ruinous to their wool. Goats, the
black long-bearded, on the contrary, are kept in very large
flocks on the high ground : they are found in such numbers,
in comparison with the area, as to be almost a menace to the
survival of certain kinds of vegetation. The mule is much
valued on Carmel both as a mount and as a pack animal.
Fowls are largely kept; but turkeys are few and there are
no ducks and geese. Silkworms are reared to a small extent
at Yājūr, at the foot of the northern slope. Bees are kept
in many villages, the hives being of clay and about 17 metres
high.
Other Industries.—Outside of Haifa the local industries of
Carmel are few and insignificant. There are steam flour-
mills at Tīreh and Jeba', but no windmills, and only one
water-mill, in W. Shellāleh, now disused ; there are winch-
mills worked by mules (tahūnet baghl) at Dāliyeh and 'Usufiya.
Lime-burning is extensively carried on, the stones of ruins as
510
SAMARIA (INCLUDING CARMEL)
well as quarries being used for this purpose. Much charcoal
is (or was) produced in the wooded valleys of the fringe of
Carmel ; most of it finds its way to Haifa for use and export.
The oil-pressing industry is carried on mostly at Haifa (see
p. 491f.), but there are also small presses in various scattered
localities, in caves or in the cellars of houses. The making
of earthenware pots for domestic purposes is a Druse
industry carried on mainly at Dāliyeh. Mats are made by
women at Tīreh and other small villages in or near the plains.
The material used is halfa grass and various kinds of rushes
found in the swamps round ‘Athlīt; the mats are woven
with a shuttle, and not plaited as is usually the case else-
where.
Inhabitants
Population.—According to Von Mülinen, the total popula-
tion of the various town and village communities of the
Carmel area, excluding the town of Haifa, in 1905 (when
a more or less reliable official census seems to have been
taken), was 10,893. Of this number, 8,374 represents the
native population of Mt. Carmel, 1,193 that of the coastal
plain, and 1,326 that of the Khashm.
The main populous centres of Carmel, excluding Haifa and
the German Carmel territory around Carmelheim, are the
following:
Beled esh-Sheikh, at the foot of the slope of Carmel, about
4 miles SE. of Haifa ; pop. 350.
Yājūr, 1 mile SE. of the above ; pop. 153.
'Usufiya, or 'Esfiya, on the Carmel ridge, almost'due S. of
Yājūr; pop., including the dependency of Jelamet el-'Asāfni,
595.
Dāliyeh, about 2 miles SSW. of the above; pop., including
the dependency of Jelamet el-Mansūrah, 744.
Umm ez-Zeināt, about 4 miles SSE. of Dāliyeh ; pop.
630.
Tīreh, at the western foothills, N. of Wādi Musrāreh ; pop.,
including dependent villages, 2,435.
CARMEL
511
‘Athlīt, on the coast; pop., native, probably less than 100.
'Ain Haudh, pop. 283, Mezār, pop. 79, Jeba', pop. 406,
‘Ain Ghazāl, pop. 737, and Fureidīs, pop. 297, form a chain
of villages on the western slopes, between W. Falāh and
W. el-Fureidīs. ,
Iqzim, or Ijzım, on the plateau of Carmel, E. of the above
villages; pop. 1,519 and next to Tīreh the most populous centre,
El-Khashm, the prominent upland lying between Wādi
el-Fureidīs and the Nahr ez-Zerqa, on which are situated
Zimmārīn and other Jewish colonies and a few native villages;
total pop., 1,326.
The very great number of ruined sites to be found on almost
every hill-top of Carmel, built mostly of solid material though
but few of them cover any great extent of ground, bear witness
to a population which was formerly much denser than at the
present time. The innumerable ancient olive oil- and wine-
presses to be found in places which are now wilderness seem
also to show that both the hills and valleys must formerly
have been more extensively cultivated than is the case now.
Settled communities.—The Druse settlements on Mt. Carmel
are Dāliyeh and 'Usufiya, with their respective dependencies
of Jelamet el-Mansūrah and Jelamet el-Asāfni at the north-
eastern foot of the ridge, and they are the most southerly
outposts of the Druse communities of Galilee. The Druses
formerly also occupied El-Khreibeh, Shellāleh and Bostān, but
abandoned these villages during the Egyptian occupation of
1831-40. They came to Carmel about 280 years ago, and
Dāliyeh is the most southern village in Syria occupied by them.
Their spiritual head is the Sheikh of Jūlis (Galilee); They
are most industrious tillers of the soil, but there is a marked
difference between the two villages, the people of Dāliyeh
being reported of a far superior class to those of 'Usufiya.
Native Christians are to be found, outside of Haifa, only
at 'Usufiya where some 150, or about one-fourth of the total
population, share this village with the Druses. They are of
the Greek Church, and their lchūri, or pastor, is appointed
by the Uniate Archbishop of “Akka. In civil matters the
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SAMARIA (INCLUDING CARMEL)
community elects its own mukhtār, or head, who is recognized
by the kaimmakam of Haifa. They own their proportion of
land round 'Usufiya and also at the dependent settlement of
Jelamet el-'Asāfni, and they have their own school for boys
and girls.
Persians. On the slopes of Mt. Carmel, just above the
German colony of Haifa, there is a small community of the
Bāb sect, but it is of little importance either numerically or
politically.
Europeans. With the exception of the monks of the
Carmelite monastery, who are mostly recruited from Spain
and are few in number and under French protection, Germans
form the chief element of the settled foreign population of
Carmel. They are mostly Swabians of the Temple Com-
munity, who came from Würtemberg and first settled at
Haifa in 1868, and have since increased in numbers to
probably about 800. They have gradually extended their
territory over that section of the ridge of Carmel known as
Jebel es-Sitt (Carmelheim) and along the maritime plain
towards the headland; they also own tracts of land at
Neuhardthof and Tīreh. They are agriculturists and have
done much by their perseverance and industry to increase
the general prosperity of Haifa; see also Chap. V, p. 192.
Jews of European origin have settled mostly in the Khashm
section of Carmel, where they have established prosperous
colonies ; see I. D. 1203. Of native Jews there are but few
in the villages outside of Haifa.
Villages. The villages of Carmel are usually built in well-
chosen and healthy sites-either on a height near open level
ground, as Dāliyeh, or on a rise at the foot of the moun-
tains. The houses are mostly constructed of unhewn lime-
stone or, as at Tīreh, of the hajar ramleh, hardened sandstone
.of the dunes, and are sometimes clay plastered; but some
of the poorer houses are of mud. The usual native house is
flat-roofed and one-storeyed. The huts of the very poor are
often built in groups round a common yard and consist
generally of one room. At Iqzim the well-known Mahdi
CARMEL
513
family occupy exceptionally large fortress-like houses, and at
Tīreh parts of the former Crusaders' Castle have been trans-
formed for habitation. The mosques of Carmel are com-
paratively small and usually have no minaret, but withal
are here designated as jāmia' and not masjid. In a village
where there is no mosque, the manzil or alighting-place for
strangers, which every village of any size has, serves as a
mosque. .
For raising water the nāšūrah is common as in other parts
of Palestine, but it is here called hannāneh ; the shelläf moy,
similar to the shaddūf of Egypt, is also employed though,
according to Post, it is not found elsewhere in Syria.
Sacred places of Carmel.-The chief places of pilgrimage
of Mt. Carmel are two, viz. (a) El-Khudhr or Khadhr (Elijah's
Cave), and (b) the Shejeret el-Arba'in. The former is a cave
at the foot of the headland below the Carmelite monastery,
to which it formerly belonged but is now a waqf. It is reached
by a rough step path from the Haifa-Jaffa road, or by a path
down from the Carmelite monastery, and is visited by both
Christians and Mohammedans. The Shejeret el-Arba'in, or
trees of the forty martyrs, is a group of fine old evergreen
oaks lying a little east of Khreibeh on the ridge road. In
the shade of the trees is a mihrāb or prayer-niche, consisting
of a semicircle of rough stones about 1 metre high. The
trees are held in special veneration both by Mohammedans and
Druses, but are not a place of pilgrimage for native Christians.
Other groups of venerated trees are to be found at Bir Fādil
in the wādi of the same name, and at Es-Sitt Khadhreh, east
of Shellāleh, and there are numerous maqāms scattered over
the district. The magām of Sheikh Ibrāq, near 'Athlīt, is a
place of pilgrimage of Moslems second only in importance to
that of El-Khudhr.
Bedouin. - The nomads of Carmel number at most 300
souls, and are remnants of small branches of larger tribes
They mostly keep goats, possess but few camels and rarely
any horses. Their camping-grounds are called manzileh
1 Von Mülinen, 1905.
Kk
SYRIA
514
SAMARIA (INCLUDING CARMEL)
(plur. manāzil), to which term is usually added the name of
the occupying goat-herd, e.g. Manzilet el-Ayyād, Manzilet
el-Būbān, &c. They range the uplands in summer, but in
winter most of them withdraw to more sheltered spots such
as W. el-Milh or the Hāwi el-'Aqqārah near Yājūr. In Carmel,
the Bedouin are regarded with suspicion; there is a long-
standing feud between them and the Druses ; a few, however,
have become sedentary and merged in the peasant population.
For an indication of these various tribal remnants, see p. 498.
CHAPTER XVI
GALILEE
AREA
THE physical boundary which separates Samaria from
Galilee is well defined, running as it does along the southern
edge of the great opening across Palestine which breaks the
western range and affords clear passage from the coast to the
Jordan. This great opening consists of three divisions. To
the west lies the southern section of the coastal plain of 'Akka,
traversed by the Nahr el-Muqatta' (the ancient Kishon) in its
lower course after the stream has broken through the narrow
passage between Carmel and the foothills of south-western
Galilee. In the centre is the large inland plain of Esdraelon
which the Muqatta' drains ; and upon the east, running down
from Esdraelon to the Jordan, is the long valley of the
N. Jālūd, famous in Hebrew antiquity as the Valley of Jezreel.
Of these, the central plain lies as much across as on a line with
the other two, spreading to north and south. Thus the
southern edge of the great opening, while maintaining generally
a south-easterly direction from the coast, does not run through
out in an unbroken line. Passing at first from the foot of
Carmel along the low Samarian hills to Jenīn, it there turns
northward within the crescent ridge of Jebel Fuqū". But,
after rounding the northern horn of that mountain at Zer'in,
it resumes its south-easterly direction and reaches the Jordan
valley below the steep north-eastern slope of Fuqū' which
rises like a wall above the Valley of Jezreel.
The other boundaries of Galilee are equally well defined.
To the west the Mediterranean and to the east the Jordan
valley and its two lakes are natural frontiers. So, too, is the
northern boundary, the extraordinary and deeply eroded gorge
Kk 2
516
GALILEE
of the Qāsimīyeh, which forms the lower course of the Lītāni
River from the point where it turns at right angles westwards
towards the coast. This deep ravine runs from east to west
across the greater part of the mountain range, its cliffs rise in
places to over a thousand feet, and only at a few points can it
be crossed. It thus forms a natural division between the
mountain mass of Upper Galilee and the Lebanon, and it leaves
but a short ridge or strip of high ground between itself and the
Jordan valley. Beyond this rise is the fertile Merj 'Ayūn,
the mouth of the great valley between Lebanon and Anti-
Lebanon. The southern slopes from the high ground are
covered with basaltic lava, and we may assume that it was
this laval outflow that turned the Lītāni River out of its
natural course down the Jordan valley and forced it to cut its
way through the rugged cliffs to the sea. The northern
boundary of Galilee to the east of the Qāsimīyeh gorge, may
be carried around north of this volcanic outcrop to the Jordan
valley; and the Merj 'Ayūn, though it may be conveniently
treated as the southward prolongation of the Biqā', is some-
times regarded as within the limits of Palestine.
The district thus delimited represents an approximate area
of 1,300–1,400 square miles, having an extreme length from
north to south of 57 miles and an average breadth of about
30 miles. The southern part of the district falls within the
Turkish administrative area of the sanjaq of ‘Akka and the
northern part in the sanjaq of Beirut. The former includes
the kazas of 'Akka, Tiberias, Safed, Nazareth, and a small part
of Haifa, and the latter most of the kaza of Sūr and the kaza
of Merj “Ayūn; but it should be noted that the exterior
boundaries of these kazas do not in every part coincide with
the limits of Galilee as defined above, as, e. g., on the north,
where the kaza of Sūr extends slightly beyond the River
· Qāsimīyeh.
PHYSICAL FEATURES
A great variety of country is confined within these limits.
To the south lie Esdraelon and its contiguous valleys. To the
PHYSICAL FEATURES
517
west this level tract is continued along the coast by the plains
of ‘Akka and Tyre, separated from each other by a mountain
spur which reaches the sea at Ras en-Nāqūrah. Along the
eastern side runs the upper Jordan valley, with its abundant
water, descending below Lake Tiberias into the sub-tropical
Ghor. And within these three low-lying areas is enclosed
a region of mountain, hill, and elevated plain, the most
attractive south of the Lebanon. The mountain region is
very clearly divided into two parts : a southern, where the
hills are gentle and rounded, the plains wide and fertile, and
the natural lines of traffic easy and direct; and a northern or
upper part, where there are high plateaux, lofty mountains,
and deep narrow valleys. The dividing line runs broadly from
west to east from the plain of 'Akka along Wādi el-Halzūn to
the watershed and thence descends to Lake Tiberias. Lower
Galilee, to the south of this line, is a land of long parallel hill-
ranges all below 1,850 ft., which, with broad fertile valleys
between them, cross from the plateau above Tiberias westward
to the maritime plain. To the north of the line lies Upper
Galilee, a series of high plateaux with a double water-parting
and surrounded by ridges from 2,000-4,000 ft. in height.
These two hilly and mountainous zones rise in steps, one above
the other, from the Esdraelon plain and form the southern
roots or supports of Lebanon ; indeed, it is to her dependence
on the Lebanon that Galilee owes her water and her immense
superiority in fruitfulness to both Judaea and Samaria. In
contrasting the landscape of Galilee with that of Palestine
farther south, Ritter says : ‘In Galilee the forms of nature
are more charming than in Samaria and Judaea, although in
the north they are presented in a scale equally large. Though
the mountains are not absolutely higher, their lines are
sharper and bolder ; 'their highest portions are covered
with a denser vegetation. The lakes contribute not a little
to the charming beauty of this northern province of Pales-
tine. The valleys are not, as farther south, mere arid wādis,
but fruitful valleys, capable of being cultivated even to the
mountain top.'
518
GALILEE
In the following more detailed physical survey, the Esdrae-
lon plain, which in separating the highlands of Samaria from
those of Galilee forms such an outstanding feature, will be
treated first and then Lower and Upper Galilee in order from
south to north.
The Plain of Esdraelon and the Valley of Jezreel
The main area covered by the plain of Esdraelon, the modern
Merj ibn 'Amir, consists of a triangle, the longest side of which
extends for a distance of some twenty-four miles from the
foot of Carmel to Jenīn. The other two sides are equal, about
fifteen miles each, the northern being the base of the western
foothills of Galilee and the Nazareth Range, the eastern a line
from Iksāl south-east of Nazareth running southward to Jenīn
below the western foot of Nebi Duhi. East of this triangle
the plain sends out towards the Jordan valley three great
arms or bays, separated from each other by the ridges of Nebi
Duhi and J. Fuqū‘. A great part of the northerly bay, to
the west of Mount Tabor, and the most southerly, which
runs for about nine miles up the curved western slope of
J. Fuqū', decline towards the west and their waters drain into
the N. el-Muqatta'. The middle arm, or bay, consists of
the broad Valley of Jezreel, which extends from the watershed
between Zer'in and ‘Afūleh to the Jordan valley at Beisān.
The main area of plain has an average elevation of 200-250 ft.
above sea-level, and its drainage is carried by the Muqatta'
to the north-west, where the narrow gorge in the neighbour-
hood of Tell Qeimūn communicates with the plain of ‘Akka.
So uniform is the surface that it seems like the basin of a former
lake which has found its way to the Mediterranean and left
behind it the rich dark soil which has given this tract its
great fertility. The main disadvantage under which the plain
labours, from the point of view of full agricultural development,
is largely due to its natural facilities for drainage, and in this
respect it compares unfavourably with the Haurān, in spite of
the similarity in their soil. The decomposed red-brown lava
of the latter, mixed with volcanic ashes and sand, is seamed
PHYSICAL FEATURES
519
with great lava fragments which may be seen lying in abun-
dance on the surface ; these tend to keep in the moisture and
so prevent the surface from being dried too quickly and from
becoming cracked. The volcanic elements of the rich brown
soil of the Esdraelon plain are, on the contrary, completely
decomposed, and the water drains off without hindrance.
Consequently under the summer sun the surface of the plain,
where previously inundated, becomes full of fissures and as
hard as stone, while elsewhere the soil becomes dry and loose,
Under such conditions it can be cultivated only after its
abundant soaking in the winter. But after that soaking it
yields a good harvest, and its appearance under cultivation
in the spring, when seen from any point in the neighbouring
hills, has often been compared to a vast green lake. During
the summer months the main stream of the N. el-Muqatta',
where it traverses the plain, may merely contain pools of
water in its muddy bed, and in late spring its main northern
and western tributaries may be dry. But during and after
the rains all the watercourses from the hills and along the
plain are full and overflowing. In winter the bed of the main
stream does not suffice for the volume of water, so that
inundations occur which leave swamps behind. For this
reason there are no settlements in the plain itself, and the
villages to-day, as in antiquity, are built on the higher ground
around it.
The break across Palestine which the plain of Esdraelon
affords is in reality a break into the plain of Sharon and not
into that of 'Akka. Indeed the roads from ‘Akka to the
interior of the country, whether making for the Jordan above
or below Lake Tiberias, travelled in antiquity, as they do
now, through the long parallel valleys of Lower Galilee, north
of the plain. Caravans only enter Esdraelon from 'Akka in
order to seek a gateway to Samaria at Jenin. The main lines
of communication from Haifa to the interior skirt the northern
or southern fringe of the plain but do not actually traverse it.
The plain of Esdraelon was celebrated in antiquity for its
fertility and, before Herod the Great developed the cultivation
520
GALILEE
of the Haurān, which up to that time had been merely
pasture-land roamed over by plundering Bedouin, the plain of
Esdraelon was perhaps the.most fertile of the plains of Southern
Syria. But to-day the real granary of Syria is the Haurān,
and the plain of Esdraelon, though still important as a source
of supply, plays in comparison a secondary rôle.
The central recess to the east of the plain of Esdraelon
(see above, p. 518) is formed by the Valley of Jezreel or
N.Jālūd, lying between Nebi Duhi Range and J.Fuqū‘. It may
be regarded as an extension of Esdraelon though it is rather
a broad avenue to or from the plain than an actual part of it.
Beginning at the watershed north of Zer'in (alt. 300-400 ft.),
not far from 'Afūleh, it sinks gently in its 12 miles course to
more than 400 ft. below sea-level at Beisān, where it drops over
a high terrace to the Ghör or Jordan plain. The narrowest
part of the valley is near its head, and its average width is
about two miles. It is open throughout, gradually sloping
upwards to the foot of the hills on either side.
The Hills of Lower Galilee
These uplands present a succession of parallel ranges
divided by broad plains. The ranges, of which there are four,
run between east and west, with the crest-line in each case
curving slightly towards the north.
(a) The Jebel Duhi Range, the southernmost group, forms an
irregular quadrilateral running from NNW. to SSE. between
Wādi el-Bīreh and the Nahr Jālūd, and would be wholly con-
fined to the basin of the Jordan but for the north-western
slope of J. Duhi (Little Hermon), which is within the basin
of the Muqatta'. The length of the range is about 15 miles,
and its greatest breadth 7 miles. The block is distinctly
divided into three parts. The triangular mass of (1), J. Duhi,
. of volcanic origin, occupies the westerly extremity and rises
at Nebi Duhi to 1,690 ft. ; a plateau, intersected by a chain
of winding wādis (Dābu, Yebla, and 'Eshsheh), embraces the
remainder. Of this plateau, the northern part, (2), is a slightly
winding range terminating on the east in the prominent summit
PHYSICAL FEATURES
521
of Kaukab el-Hawa (alt. 975 ft.); the southern part, (3), falls
in parallel terraces to the plain of Jezreel. The Kaukab is
crowned by the vast remains of a Crusader castle, and the
fall of about 1,890 ft. from the eastern wall of the fortress to
the Ghor at its foot is very precipitous, the edge of the plain
below being within the horizontal distance of a mile from the
overhanging summit. The soil of the Duhi plateau, and
especially of the Kaukab section, is of a rich crumbling vol-
canic nature, very fertile, with an abundance of springs.
(6) The Nazareth Range begins much farther west than
the foregoing, and its southern base is marked by the northern
edge of the Esdraelon plain, beyond which, eastward, it is
followed by W. esh-Sherrār and W. el-Bīreh. The range
forms the water-parting between wādis Malik and Fejjās
on the north and the N. el-Muqatta' and W. el-Bīreh on
the south. The main crest of the range describes an arc
running first north-east and then bearing south-east and finally
south to terminate in the Qalʼah plateau (alt. 1,179 ft.), at
the junction of W. el-Bīreh with the Ghör; it has gentle slopes -
on the north and falls gradually towards the west. The
highest points of the range are Nebi Sa'in (1,602 ft.) and J.
es-Sīh (1,838 ft.). Like J. Duhi, this range also has a triple
division. The western section embraces the picturesque and
quadrangular block of upland covered at one time with oak
forest that lies between the Muqatta' and W. el-Malik. The
water-parting passes over this block between its south-western
and north-eastern corners, and the highest summit probably
lies about half a mile north-west of Qusqus (alt. 575 ft.), but
its altitude is at present undetermined. The central division,
separated from the western by a saddle or depression that
connects W. el-Malik where it bends to the west with the recess
which the plain of Esdraelon makes northward towards the
plain of Buttauf, is the main part of the range and extends
eastward to W. el-Madi, tributary of the W. el-Bireh. From
this central mass the ground falls on all sides, and it is here
that the Nazareth Range presents its most complex features
and consists broadly of a number of spurs radiating in various
The work of uplan Muqatta a
522
GALILEE
directions. One of these spurs is J. et-Tõr or Mount Tabor
(alt. 1,843 ft.), east of Nazareth, which is abruptly projected
southward into the plain of Esdraelon for more than 2 miles.
Immediately behind Nazareth, which stands on the southern
slope, the hills rise from 1,144 ft. to 1,602 ft. at Nebi Sa'in.
Around Nazareth the hills are white and bare, but farther
westward they become covered with scrub. The eastern
division of the Nazareth Range consists of a series of fertile
plateaux in which volcanic elements are largely mixed and
extends between wādis Fejjās and Bīreh to terminate in the
Ghör. This part probably nowhere has an absolute elevation
exceeding 900 ft., while the plateau of Shaʻārah, the name by
which a large section of it is known, has a mean elevation of
600 ft. The range drops to W. Fejjās and the Ghôr by steep
escarpments with rocky cliffs and precipices of basalt to
300 ft. below sea-level at the former and 640 ft. at the latter.
(c) The Tõrān Range, a high limestone ridge, commences
at W. Rummāneh (W. el-Malik), considerably short of the
western limits of the Nazareth Range, and it extends eastward
to and along the western shore of Lake Tiberias, and to the
course of the Jordan as far as the descent of W. Fejjās to the
Ghor. The southern base is defined by W. Rummāneh, the
plain of Tõr'ān, and the plain of Sahel el-Ahma. The range
describes a bold curve parallel with the Nazareth Range and
culminates in a single ridge throughout, with steep escarpments
towards the plain of Buttauf and Lake Tiberias and with rocky
cliffs towards Mejdel, Tiberias, and the Fejjās gorge. The
central part of the ridge expands into a broad plateau, around
Nimrīn and Hattīn; the culminating points are J. Tõr'an
(1,774 ft.), J. Nimrīn (1,110 ft.), and Qarn Hattīn (1,038 ft.).
To the heights of these summits, the depression of Lake
Tiberias (-682 ft.), should be added in order to realize their
actual elevation above the Ghör on the east.
(d) The Shāghūr Range, a confused mass, is the most
northerly of the hills of Lower Galilee, and extends from the
lower course of the N. Muqatta' to Lake Tiberias. Its southern
base is defined by. W. el-Malik, continued eastward by W.
PHYSICAL FEATURES
523
el-Khalladīyeh to the plain of Buttauf and thence along that
great plain to W. Sa'd and the deep rocky gorge by which
W. el-Hamām reaches the plain of Gennesaret (El-Ghuweir)
and Lake Tiberias. The central part of this upland gives its
name to the district of Esh-Shāghūr; the western is the
district of Shefa ‘Amr. The summit of the upland consists of
a long plateau running roughly east and west between two
parallel ranges. The highest altitudes of the range on the
north, naming from west to east are Ras Tumreh (alt. 1,150 ft.),
J. Khanzīreh (alt. 1,320 ft.), and J. el-Bellāneh (alt. 1,150 ft.);
of the range on the south, J. Deidebeh (alt. 1,781 ft.), Ras
Krūmān (alt.,-1,817 ft.), and Ras Hazweh (alt. 1,781 ft.). On
the long plateau, between the two ranges, is found the fertile
plains of ‘Arrābeh and Sellāmeh, the latter 'covered with
olive-groves'.
Two great basins share the drainage of the Mediterranean
watershed of Lower Galilee, viz. the Nahr Na‘mein and the
Nahr Muqatta'; seven main wādis, tributaries of the Jordan,
drain the eastern slopes, viz.wādis ‘Amūd, Rabadīyeh, Hamām,
Fejjās, Bīreh, “Eshsheh, and Jālūd.
The Mountains of Upper Galilee.
Upper or Northern Galilee may be described broadly as a
quadrangular plateau with a rim of culminating ranges on
all four sides, and the interior traversed by mountain ridges.
It reaches its greatest breadth and altitude in the south. The
line of division between this great plateau (25 miles in length,
with an average breadth of 15 miles), and the hills of Lower
Galilee is indicated on p. 517.
The Southern Range commences a few miles to the east of
‘Akka and runs almost due east over a length of nearly
25 niles. Its chief elevations naming from the west are Qarn
Hennāwi (1,872 ft.), Nebi Heidar (3,440 ft.), J. el-'Arūs, the
culminating point of the range (3,520 ft.), the mountain mass
of Safed the highest town to the west of Jordan, and J.
Kanān (2,761 ft.). From the last-named summit the range
descends to the gorge of the Jordan between Jisr Banāt Ya'qūb
A
524
GALILEE
y nort. pelata 2
(2,9511
and Lake Tiberias, in which section the river falls from
43 ft. to 682 ft. below sea-level. It is to be noted that W.
et-Tawāhīn intersects this range west of Safed, but this inden-
tation does not really interrupt the continuity of the general
elevation. The southern slope is long and deep, especially in
the east where the range falls down to W. ‘Amūd; the northern
slope towards the interior plateau is much shorter and more
shelving
The Eastern Range. The mountain range outlined above is
continued almost at right angles along the eastern face of
the highland as far as the northern extremity of Galilee.
Striking away northward from J. Kan'ān its course is marked
by the altitudes of Delāta (2,740 ft.), J. el-Ghābiyeh, Khirbet
el-Menāreh (2,806 ft.), J. Hünīn (2,951 ft.), and Nebi ‘Aweideh
(2,814 ft.), beyond which the ridge is prolonged along the
western side of the Merj ‘Ayūn. The range is intersected
between Delāta and J. el Ghābiyeh by the remarkable rocky
chasm of the upper reach of W. Hindāj and north of this wādi
it forms a secondary watershed of Upper Galilee. The main
water-parting (see below, p. 526) passes somewhat to the west
over J. el-Jermaq, and runs in a sinuous line west of W. Selū-
qiyeh, affluent of the River Qāsimīyeh. The slope by which
the Eastern Range as a whole descends to the Upper Jordan
valley is rapid and somewhat precipitous, especially in the
section overlooking the Hūleh plain. In its northern section
the western flank of the range falls deeply, first into W.
Selūqiyeh and then into W. ‘Aizaqāneh, the parallel affluent
of the Qāsimīyeh. Along the length of the eastern chain
runs an important high road from Safed to Merj ‘Ayūn,
through ‘Alma, Meis and Hūnīn.
The Western Range strikes away from the Southern Range
between the summits of Qarn Hennāwi and Nebi Heidar. The
· line of summits which marks its course northward is as follows :
a short spur dominated by Kisra (2,520 ft.), Khirbet Jubb
Ruheij (2,320 ft.), Khirbet ed-Dabsheh (2,050 ft.) and Maʻliya
(1,800 ft.). Just north of the last named, the range is inter-
sected by the rocky gorge of Wādi el-Qarn, and 2 miles farther
PHYSICAL FEATURES
525
north the line of heights is taken up by Tell Belāt (2,030 ft.)
and Khirbet Belāt (2,467 ft.). From Kh. Belāt the range passes
across W. el 'Ezzīyeh to Ras Bedendi (2,215 ft.), Ras Umm
Qabr (2,341 ft.), and, crossing W. el-Hubeishiyeh, bears NE.
to Kh. el-Yādhūn (2,612 ft.), J. Jumleh (2,625 ft.), and Kh.
Selem (2,219 ft.). The slope of the range westward is com-
paratively gentle, the southern part falling down to the plain
of 'Akka and the northern to the plain of Tyre. From Kh.
el-Belāt two noteworthy spurs project westward, broadening as
they descend to the coast. The southern spur passes down under
the names of El-Menāreh, Tell el-Kishk and J. el-Mushaqqah,
and finally reaches the sea at the notable headland of Ras
en-Nāqūrah (the hewn cape) and Ladder of Tyre, where the
roadway is cut in the face of the cliff at an elevation of 225 ft.,
the whole spur being sometimes known as J. el-Mushaqqah.
The northern spur terminates at the sea in a line of white cliffs
at Ras el-Abyadh, or the "white cape'. This double spur
separates the plain of 'Akka from that of Tyre.
The Northern Range, the shortest of the four under descrip-
tion, springs from the Western Range at Khirbet Selem and runs
almost due east and parallel with the River Qāsimīyeh, to join
the Eastern Range at J. Hūnīn. It has summits rising to
2,300 ft. The range is intersected at about midway by W. Se-
lūqiyeh ; its slope on the south is short while the northern
is longer and steeper.
The interior of the plateau enclosed by the four ranges just
described may now be examined. This central region, the
lowest parts of which are higher than the summit of J. et-Tõr
in Lower Galilee, is traversed by subsidiary ranges or ridges
springing in the main from culminating points of the surround-
ing ranges and running in various directions. There are two
main ridges. From J. el-Arūs in the Southern Range, one
ridge runs NW., crossing the interior plateau obliquely to
Kh. Belāt and has wādis Qarn and Kerkereh on the SW.
and Tawāhīn (W. 'Amūd) and Hindāj on the NE. It
is traced through J. el-Jermaq (3,934 ft.), notable as the
highest point in Galilee, and J. ‘Adāther (3,300 ft.), and may
526
GALILEE
be called the Jermaq Range from its culminating point. To
the NE. of this range lies the great bulk of the central
‘Alma as well as the more westerly fertile plains of Meirān
and Yārūn, forming fine tracts of cultivated land with plenty
of pasture, woodlands, and orchards. The plateau to the
south-west of the Jermaq Range consists of the two main
upper valleys of W. el-Qarn between which lies El-Buqei",
here a well-cultivated plain. The chain of heights forming the
second main interior ridge runs from J. el-Ghābiyeh in the
eastern range to Kh. el-Yādhūn in the western range. It
rises above 3,000 ft. at J. Meirān, and divides wādis Hindāj
and 'Ezzīyeh from those of Selūqiyeh and Hubeishiyeh and may
be called the Meirān Ridge. A third but shorter ridge runs off
NE. from Kh. el-Yādhūn to Tibnin, W. el-Ma', and beyond.
The wādis of Galilee may be classified as follows: (a) those
of the western slope falling into the Mediterranean Sea;
(b) of the eastern slope into the Jordan valley; (c) those
which lead north into the Qāsimīyeh. The watershed of
the district as a whole is intricate and not easy to trace, but,
broadly speaking, the main water-parting may be outlined
as running (from S. to N.), through Zer'in, ‘Afūleh, Iksāl.
(on the western portion of the Nazareth Range), ‘Ain Māhil,
Shejereh, Lūbiyeh, J. Nimrīn, Shāghūr Range, J. el-'Arūs,
J. el-Jermaq, Yārūn, and then in a very sinuous line along the
central plateau to the west of W. Selūqiyeh.
(a) Wadi-basins of the western slope. The Muqatta' basin
receives the drainage of that part of the watershed of Galilee
between Zer'in and Ras Hazweh (N. of the Buttauf plain),
and on the north is contiguous with the Na‘mein basin. On
the south it is contiguous with the Mefjir, Zerqa, and Dufleh
basins of Samaria (see pp. 479 ff.), and here the watershed
follows the crests of J. Fuqū', Belād er-Rūhah and Carmel.
The basin embraces the whole of the plain of Esdraelon and
the southern part of the plain of ‘Akka. The main branch of
PHYSICAL FEATURES
527
the Muqattaʻis Wādi el-Malik, a broad and gently sloping valley
forming a communication between the plains of ‘Akka and
Buttauf. It has its head near Tell Bedeiwīyeh (alt. 450 ft.),
and has a total length of 10 miles to its junction with the main
channel near Harbaj. The Muqatta' is the most extensive of
all the wādi-basins of Galilee.
The Naʻmein basin, of much smaller area than the foregoing,
lies to the north, and its eastern water-parting extends from
Nebi Heidar to Ras Hazweh. The greatest width of the basin
is about 10 miles from N. to' S., and its length 19 miles.
The principal channel is W. el-Halzūn, known higher up as W.
Sha'ib, and this latter receives two main head-waters which
come respectively from Nebi Heidar and Ras Hazweh. Wādi
el-Halzūn is noteworthy as forming part of the natural line
of division between Upper and Lower Galilee. North of
it is W. el-Wazīyeh, important because it is traversed by the
principal road from 'Akka to Safed and the passage of the
Jordan at Jisr Banāt Ya'qūb; and on the south is W. ‘Abellīn,
which falls into the swamps of N. Naʻmein as also does W. el-
Halzūn. The Na‘mein basin forms the north-western part
of Lower Galilee.
The Nahr Mefshūkh is a minor basin with its outlet 6 miles
north of ‘Akka, but it is extremely fruitful and picturesque.
It has several branches which unite near El-Kābri, where
there is a great fountain which supplies 'Akka with water and
irrigates a tract of land of considerable extent.
Wādi el-Qarn has its head-waters in the mountains of the
greatest height in Galilee, viz., the summits of ‘Adāther,
Jermaq, and ‘Arūs, and the basin here comes in contact with
three great wādis of the Jordan slope, viz., the Hindāj, 'Amūd,
and Rabadīyeh. The wādi carries a stream and, in descending
to the maritime plain, it contracts to a narrow gorge dominated
by the extensive ruins of Qalʼat el-Qurein which controls the
mountain road which passes between the coast and the interior.
The upper basin is drained by two main branches, which rise
respectively near J. el-Jermaq and Beit Jenn and unite at
Kh. Qarhātha; the latter arm drains the Buqei' plain.
528
GALILEE
W. Kerkereh is a small wādi running parallel with the Qarn
and entering the sea just south of Ras en-Nāqūrah.
Wādi el-Ezzīyeh takes its rise on the main watershed of
Galilee just E. of J. ‘Adāther at a considerable altitude, and
for about half its course its direction is NNW., and for the
remainder WNW. Descending by a narrow gorge it crosses
the plain of Tyre and enters the sea about 5 miles S. of Tyre.
Wādi el-Hubeishiyeh. The wādi, so named from the sea to
the village of Jilu, falls into the Mediterranean about 11 miles
N. of Tyre. From Jīlu upwards and beyond its confluence
with W. el-Ma', the main channel is called W. el-Ashūr; this
latter is prolonged southwards beyond Deir 'Āmis so as to
make it the recipient of the Ma', which is considered as the
main headstream of the Hubeishiyeh basin. The W. el-Ma'
descends from the east through a very deep winding gorge
which leads up to the village of Safed el-Battīkh (alt. 2,200 ft.);
it has its most remote source just S. of Tibnīn. On its
northern bank the Hubeishiyeh receives the Hamrānīyeh,
its main affluent, which, for the greater part of its course
runs parallel with the River Qāsimīyeh.
(6) Wādi-basins of the eastern slope. Of these, wādis Bīreh
and Fejjäs join the Middle Jordan ; wādis Hamām, Raba-
dīyeh and 'Amūd fall into Lake Tiberias ; and W. el-Hindāj
into the Upper Jordan between Lakes Hūleh and Tiberias.
Wādi el-Bīreh. The principal channel of this basin rises on
the northern side of J. et-Tor and another branch has its
source just east of Nazareth. In its middle course the main
channel is known as W. esh-Sherrār, and still higher up as
W. el-Madi. The wādi passes from the hills into the Ghör by
a fine gorge, which has the noted summit of Kaukab el-Hawa,
the star in the air,' on its southern side.
Wādi Fejjās drains the Sahel el-Ahma, and, after a steep
south-easterly course, falls into the Jordan just below its
issue from Lake Tiberias.
Wādi el-Hamām and W. er-Rabadīyeh, two comparatively
minor wādis, on descending the hills through gorges, cross the
plain of Ghuweir and fall into Lake Tiberias, just north of the
P
PHYSICAL FEATURES
529
town of Mejdel. The Hamām takes its rise near the village
of Hattīn.
Wādi “Amūd, the principal wādi falling directly into Lake
Tiberias, takes its rise in the neighbourhood of J. el-Jermaq, and
the basin contains the noted town of Safed situated on a height
on its left bank. It has mainly a south-south-easterly course,
and, after crossing the Ghuweir plain, enters the lake at Tell
el-Henūd. Its middle and upper courses, composed of gorges of
striking depth, are known as W. et-Tawāhin and W. Meirān
respectively. Safed is approached from the south by a small
but remarkably picturesque valley, with a N. to S. course, which
falls into W. ‘Amūd on the left bank, some 6 miles from its
mouth. .
Wādi el-Hindāj, known in its upper reaches as W. Fārah and
W. ‘Auba, is the principal wādi leading into Lake Hūleh. It has
its head-waters near those of W. el-Qarn, rising from J. el-
Jermaq. The wādi, after making a great semicircular curve
to the north, descends the mountains by an extraordinarily
rocky and precipitous chasm ; on reaching the plain, the
stream bears suddenly to the eastward and so crosses the
Ardh el-Kheit, a small plain, to Lake Hūleh.
(c) Wādis running north into the Qāsimīyeh. Of these the
principal is W. el-Hajeir, with its much longer tributary,
W. Selūqiyeh. The latter rises at Mārūn er-Ras, and, running
N. between the main and secondary watersheds of Upper
Galilee, joins the Hajeir in a deep gorge on the east of Burj
el-Alawi. W. el-Hajeir itself rises just NE. of Tibnīn and
falls into the Qāsimīyeh near the bridge, Jisr el-Qa“qaſiyeh.
The length of its basin N. and S. exceeds 14 miles.
E. of Wādi el-Hajeir, the Qāsimīyeh, in bending sharply to
| the west, receives W. ‘Aizaqāneh, which rises near Hūnīn and
has a due northerly course of about 6 miles. The other
tributary wādis of the Qāsimīyeh are short and unimportant,
.-
-
.-.--
.
..
Rivers.
The Nahr el-Muqatta' (River Kishon), is the most im-
portant river in Palestine after the Jordan. It drains the
L1
SYRIA
530
GALILEE
Esdraelon plain and runs into the Bay of 'Akka just E. of Haifa.
The two main feeders of the river, W. el-Muweili and W. es-
Sitt, coming from north-east and south-east respectively,
join near Ludd, in the middle of the Esdraelon plain. The
spring-head of the former is near Kh. el-Mezr'ah, west of
J. et-Tõr, and its length from the sea is 23 miles; the latter
feeder has its most remote source in the springs of Jelbūn on
the western slope of J. Fuqā', about 35 miles from its mouth,
and the springs of Lejjūn, which also feed this affluent, are 19
miles distant from the mouth. The Lejjūn stream is sometimes
regarded as the head of the Muqatta'; but the real source is
the springs of Mujahīyeh near Kh. el-Mezr‘ah, and the total
fall of the river from these springs to the sea is about 280 ft.
· The Muqatta' passes from the plain of Esdraelon to that of
‘Akka through a narrow neck or gorge, some 3 or 4 miles in
length, immediately NW. of Tell el-Qassīs, under the cliffs of
Carmel, and is here an extremely dangerous river from the
boggy nature of the bed. From this point it gradually works
away NW., and is fed by numerous fine springs from the foot
of the mountains on the left bank, and by others from the low
hills on the right bank; most of these springs are perennial,
and especially strong are those ‘Ayūn es-Saʻādi and “Ayūn el-
Ward or el-Bass, flowing from among the rocks at the foot of
Mount Carmel. West of the village of Hārithīyeh, below the
main ford, the river is full of water to the coast, even in
autumn, and it flows through a marshy plain between banks
10–15 ft. high, an impa.ssa ble but sluggish stream having a
fall of only 80 ft. in the last half-mile of its course.
Some 5 or 6 miles from its mouth the Muqatta' receives, on
the left bank, its most important tributary, W. el-Malik, which
comes down a broad and gently sloping valley from the plain
of Buttauf and beyond. This stream is fed mainly by springs
near Khalladīyeh, to which lower down a fine supply is added
from the springs of Ras el-Ain. Reaching the plain, the
stream becomes sluggish and marshy, and in summer, in the
lower part, the water lies only in pools and is not continuous,
resembling the Muqatta' in this respect. The springs of
1
PHYSICAL FEATURES
531
Harbaj are the last along its course before the Malik joins the
main stream. Lower down another tributary, the Fūwārah,
comes in on the right from the marshes and springs to the
SE. of Jidru. The tributaries of the Muqatta' on the left
bank below the Lejjūn are numerous but short, and of these
mention may be made of W. el-Milh, which divides Carmel
from the Belād er-Rūhah and falls into the main stream near
Tell el-Qassīs.
The mouth of the Muqatta' is its most curious feature and
is constantly shifting. The river is here some 20-30 yds.
wide, flowing sluggishly between low banks in very flat
uncultivated and sandy ground. The prevailing winds blow
from SW. and the dunes are gradually heaping up and advanc-
ing on this side, so that the river is always forming new mouths
farther north. The lagoons and marshes now existing behind
the dunes on the left bank are perhaps the results of the
former course. The river breaks through the sand and flows
to the sea when the wind is from the east; but, even in wet
years, a bar is formed when the wind is in the west, blowing
on the shore. Palm trees flourish all along the dunes and
round the lagoons at the mouth of the Muqatta'.
The Nahr Naśmein is a marshy stream which collects the
drainage of the watershed from W. el-Halzūn on the north to
W. 'Abellin on the south, and it is also fed by the marshy
springs of 'Ayūn el-Bass, NE. of Jidru. It flows northward
through swampy ground for about 5 miles. Close to the shore,
about a mile south of ‘Akka, the course is double, a loop three-
quarters of a mile long having been cut across, which perhaps
shows the original mouth to have been farther N. The river
is here about equal in volume of water to the Muqatta', but
the current is more rapid, and the ford at the mouth deeper.
The stream cuts through sand-dunes and near the mouth is
surrounded by palms like the Muqatta'. The swampy ground
extends along both banks of the whole course of the stream
inside the sand dunes.
The Nahr Jālūd is the most important left-bank tributary
of the Jordan and is fed by several large springs. At its head
L12
532
GALILEE
are ‘Ain Jālūd, 'Ain el-Meyyiteh, and 'Ain Tabaʻūn, all strong
springs rising near the village of Zer'in. The water of 'Ain
Jālūd is somewhat sulphurous and muddy; that of 'Ain
Taba‘ūn is of a reddish colour. Lower down, the river is
augmented by water from many other springs, the chief of
which is 'Ain el-`Asi on the right bank, one of the finest springs
of Palestine coming out from under a rocky precipice on the
eastern face of J. Fuqū', where it forms a pool 20 ft. deep,
100 yds. long, and 20 yds. wide. The head of the Jālūd basin
lies between J. Duhi and J. Fuqū', and the river waters the
Valley of Jezreel as well as the town and a large part of the
plain of Beisān. It is a rapid stream in parts and descends
about 960 ft. in a length of 12 miles to join the Jordan. Three
bridges span the river near Beisān: under the middle one,
Jisr el-Khān, of 39-ft. span, there is a waterfall about 17 ft.
high and two waterfalls lower down with a drop of 20 ft.
East of Beisān the river passes through a narrow gorge, and
from this point it flows between steep banks to the Jordan ;
the gorge is spanned by a bridge with a central arch of 25 ft.
The tributary wādis of the Jālūd are all short and unimportant,
The southern edge of the river is undistinguishable among
a network of irrigation channels and neglected swamps which
extend from Beisān for some 5 or 6 miles southward to
W. Shūbāsh (see Chap. xv, p. 474).
Plains.
These comprise the maritime plains of ‘Akka and Tyre, and
the interior plains or basins of Escraelon, ‘Arrābeh, Buttauf,
Tõr'ān, Rāmeh, Ghuweir, Ahma, and Merj 'Ayūn. The
plain of Esdraelon has already been described on p. 518 f.
The Plain of 'Akka extends for about 20 miles, from Mount
Carmel on the south to Ras en-Nāqūrah (see p. 525) on the
north, and is enclosed on the east by the hill ranges of Lower
Galilee. From Carmel to the town of ‘Akka the southern part
of the plain is divided between the basins of the N. el-Muqatta'
and N. Naʻmein, both of these rivers having extensive swamps
near the coast. This section is a noted pasture ground and,
PHYSICAL FEATURES
533
1
in parts, is cultivated with barley and vegetables; along
W. el-Halzūn it is as much as 8 miles wide. The northern
continuation of the plain from ‘Akka to Ras en-Nāqūrah,
a length of 12 miles, is about 4 miles wide and is intersected
by Wādis Kerkereh, Mefshūkh, and Qarn. The whole of this
section is fertile and well-watered, and has extensive gardens
and orchards producing a variety of vegetables and fruits ;
but its general aspect is that of a rich but neglected region
where game of every kind abounds.
The Plain of Tyre extends for some 13 miles along the coast
from Ras el-Ahyadh to the River Qāsimīyeh and beyond ; it is
generally about a mile broad, this width being exceeded only
opposite the town of Tyre. It is traversed by the two main
wādis of 'Ezzīyeh and Hubeishiyeh. The plain is described.
by one writer as 'not very fertile, or its cultivation is limited';
an Austrian Consular Report says that it is very fertile '.
Here and there are large gardens for vegetables and fruits,
besides patches of barley. The plain of Akka is separated
from that of Tyre for a distance of 6 miles by a spur from the
mountains of Upper Galilee which extends westward quite
to the sea and ends in lofty white cliffs.
The Sahel el-Arrábeh is a small plain which occupies the
south-eastern continuation of the basin of N. Na‘mein. It is
3/4 miles in length and gradually expands to a width of
2 miles ; its altitude above the sea probably does not exceed
700 ft.
The Sahel el-Buttauf, due E. of the southern part of the
plain of ‘Akka, is separated from it by the hills of Shefa ‘Amr
and lies between the steep ridges of the Shāghūr and Tōʻrān
Ranges. This plain, together with the smaller one of Tõr'ān
--which lies at a higher elevation about one mile distant on
the south-occupies the north-eastern recess of the Muqatta'
basin ; both plains are drained by wādis which are connected
with the N. Muqatta' by wādis Khalladīyeh and Malik.
The plain of Buttauf measures 9 miles by 2 miles ; its
altitude is 500-700 ft. above the sea, and it is surrounded by
hills which rise to 1,700 ft. It is one of the most fertile tracts
534
GALILEE
of Galilee : a great march which dries up in summer covers
a considerable extent of its eastern part and sometimes
becomes a lagoon, there being no outlet on this side ; the
western portion consists of rich basaltic loamy soil, extremely
fertile and cultivated mostly with wheat, maize, millet, and
lentils.
· The Plain of Tõrān, 700 ft. above sea-level, is about 5 miles
in length, but seldom exceeds 1 mile in width. On account of
its fertility it is sometimes called 'the golden plain'.
· The Plain of Rāmeh separates in part the hills of Lower
Galilee from the mountains of Upper Galilee (see p. 517). The
further separation is defined by a succession of wādis which
connect the plain with that of ‘Akka on the W. and with the
Jordan Valley on the E., and which form with the plain
a continuous passage for the high road between “Akka, Safed,
Lake Tiberias, and Damascus. The plain which drains partly
into the Mediterranean and partly into Lake Tiberias is 6-7
miles in length and generally about a mile broad, with an
extreme altitude of 1,200 ft. It is very fertile and was at one
time full of fine old olive trees; the district round is in fact
specially noted for the cultivation of olives.
El-Ghuweir, or the plain of Gennesaret, forming, strictly
speaking, a part of the Ghör rather than of Galilee, extends
for 3 miles along the western shore of Lake Tiberias, between
a rocky promontory and the hill of 'Oreimeh, near the
fishing village of Tābghah on the N. and the lofty cliffs of
W. el-Hamām on the S. It recedes in a gradual curve from
the shore at both ends until it becomes a mile and a half in
breadth. It is crossed by wādis 'Amūd, Rabadīyeh, and
Hamām, and is watered by the streams of these, of which
that of Rabadīyeh is much the largest ; there is also a stream
from 'Ain Madawwereh, a strong spring of clear water which
rises in the plain between the two latter wādis. The banks
of all these brooks are fringed with a profusion of oleanders
and lotus trees. El-Ghuweir is an alluvial plain, a kind of
delta, formed by the united deposits of the streams of the
wādis which open into it and bring down an enormous amount
PHYSICAL FEATURES
535
I.
of sediment of a peculiarly rich quality, being the production
of both basaltic and limestone rocks. The plain is in con-
sequence famed for its fertility. The town of Mejdel is situated
at its southern extremity.
The Sahel el-Ahma, an elevated tract, is situated between
Lake Tiberias and W. Fejjās, and slopes gradually down to the
latter on its western side. It is covered with basaltic débris
forming a soil of exceptional fertility and has an abundant
supply of water.
The Merj “Ayūn lies on the north-east borders of Galilee
and is treated geographically in Chap. XII, p. 373.
COASTLINE
The Bay of ‘Akka (Acre) extends NE. from the pro-
montory of Carmel (Ras el-Kerūm) to 'Akka, a distance
of about 73 miles in direct line or a length of shore of
13 miles, receding south-eastwards for 3 miles opposite the
mouth of the Muqatta'. The general nature of the shore is
similar right round the bay, viz. a hard sand bottom with
a broad open beach of fine sand, banked by dunes a mile
broad in places, behind which is the plain of ‘Akka. The
beach shelves very gently, the water being not more than
12 ft. deep at 100 yds. from the shore; there is a good deal of
surf even in fine weather. The N. el-Muqatta' and N. Na‘mein
empty into the bay-the former about 4 miles east of Ras
el-Kerūm and the latter one mile short of ‘Akka--and both
these rivers have a sand-bar at the mouth and are fordable
by keeping well out to sea, where the depth of water varies
from 21-3 ft. “Akka, at the northern extremity of the
bay, stands on a low promontory projecting about a mile into
the sea. .
From 'Akka to Ras en-Nāqūrah, 101 miles, the coast
trends slightly east of north and consists of an unbroken
line of sandy beaches separated by small rocky points ; inland
lies the northern part of the plain of 'Akka. Ras en-Nāqūrah,
sometimes known as the Ladder of Tyre, is a bold promontory
with a round tower on the summit, and is the southern
536
GALILEE
termination of J. Mushaqqah (see p. 525), which here drops
abruptly to the plain of 'Akka and the sea. The 'ras ’ is
261 ft. high and rises gradually, 3 miles eastward, to a round-
topped hill 1,070 ft. in elevation.
From Ras en-Nāqūrah to Ras el-Abyadh, direction NNE., ..
the distance is 51 miles and between these points the moun-
tains of Upper Galilee extend quite, or near, to the sea and end
in lofty white cliffs. Ras el-Abyadh itself, as the name
implies, is a strikingly bold headland of white rock forming the
northern end of the cliffs. From this point to Sūr, 6 miles, the
coast forms a shallow bay, the shore of which consists in most
places of hard sand. The uniformity of this bay is broken
only at one point, near the middle, where W. 'Ezzīyeh projects
seaward. Sūr (Tyre) is situated on what was formerly a small
islet but is now connected with the mainland by a sandy
isthmus, the peninsula jutting out about 1} mile beyond the
general line of the coast. Several low islets surrounded by
rocks and shoal water extend about a mile northward from
the town. With the exception of Beirut, Sūr is one of the best
anchorages on the Syrian coast. Northward to the River
Qāsimīyeh, the character of the coast is similar to the stretch
south of Sūr; the Qāsimīyeh has a bar of sand across its
mouth in summer.
GEOLOGY
The mountain mass of Galilee is made up of stratified
limestone (senonian and cenomanian) layers of varying
density and thickness. The region of Nazareth is senonian ;
but Upper Galilee, north of Safed, is mainly cenomanian.
Almost without exception these formations weather rapidly
under rain and frost, and speedily disintegrate, while caves,
produced by the wearing away of soft underlying layers of
... limestone, are exceedingly common. At some spots near
J. el-Jermaq are deep natural well-like holes in the rock of
great depth, similar to the pot-holes found in England and
other parts of Europe. Fossils are scarce, but bands of flints
and spheroidal nodules of white quartz, varying in size from
GEOLOGY
537
that of a walnut to a football, are very common, especially
all about the central plateau.
Overlying the limestone there are many patches of trap-
rock and basalt. All these “laval outflows' are on the eastern
side of the main watershed. The most extensive area is that
centring round the double volcanic peak known as the Horns
of Hattīn, see p. 522. From here the lava has flowed out on
all sides ; it caps the limestone rocks overhanging the western
side of Lake Tiberias and spreads south-east down the wide
valley of Sahel el-Ahma, while northward it is spread out on
the fertile plateau of Hattīn. In the district immediately to the
north of this there is another great deposit, probably an entirely
independent outflow, through which the ‘Amūd and Raba-
dīyeh streams have cut their way. Safed, though its hills
are entirely of soft chalky limestone, is encircled with trap-
rock. To the NW. and N. lie the great volcanic plateaux of
Jish and 'Alma, each with a rain-filled crater-like pool. To
the E. a great outflow occupies the Ghör between Lake Hūleh
and Lake Tiberias, while northward there are terraces of black
lava through which limestone hills project in places. This
region eastward to Jaulān, where there are also numerous
extinct volcanoes, has been a centre of severe earthquakes,
as is suggested by the overthrow of many ancient remains.
Another striking feature in the geology of Galilee is the
great number of rich alluvial plains-Esdraelon, “Akka,
Buttauf, Tõr‘ān, Ghuweir, Hūleh, and Meis. The alluvial
deposits of these are often of great depth and extraordinary
productiveness. Outcrops of basaltic rock of considerable
extent occur here and there in the plain of Esdraelon,
notably north-west of ‘Afūleh between Ludd and Maʻlūl,
on both banks of the river Muqatta'.
YT
WATER-SUPPLY
The water-supply of Lower Galilee is rich, especially in the
lower ground—the plain of Esdraelon, valley of Jezreel, and
southern part of the plain of 'Akka—which is watered by the
538
GALILEE
0
-
Muqatta', Naʻmein and Jālūd rivers. The main sources of
these rivers are discussed on pp. 529 ff. But even in the hills
good springs are plentiful : the southern slopes of the Nazareth
hills abound in springs of good water; there are copious
springs at many of the villages and towns, e.g., at Nazareth,
Seffūriyeh, Reineh, Hattīn, Ferrādīyeh, &c. The water-
supply of the hill district north of W. el-Malik is derived almost
entirely from wells and cisterns near the villages, the only
springs, and those not very large, being 'Ayūn el-Kaukab to
the south-east of the village of that name. Some few villages
in the lower lands have only open ponds which act as rain
reservoirs, the water of which is unsafe for drinking purposes.
· The higher mountain plateaux of Upper Galilee as a whole
are comparatively deficient in springs. Even where springs
are present water is scanty, and here many of the villages are
entirely dependent on artificial rain-filled pools. The large
villages of Rumeish, Hūnīn, Teir Shihah, Samhāt, ‘Alma and
many others rely solely on such pools for their water for
domestic use and for their cattle. The large village of Bint
Umm Jubeil has a pool so considerable that even in September
people can bathe in it waist-deep in water.
Most of the deep wādis of Upper Galilee carry streams fed
by springs of a more or less permanent character, as follows.
On the western slope, the N. Mefshākh derives its water mainly
from very large springs at El-Kābri from which “Akka gets
its supply by an aqueduct. W. Qarn carries a stream strong
enough to turn several mills which commences at the very
copious spring of Ras en-Neba“; where this stream enters
the plain of ‘Akka at Khirbet ‘Abdeh it is 20 yds. in width
and has a very strong current. The perennial stream in W.
' Ezzīyeh is derived mainly from the spring En-Neba 'which
gives a plentiful supply of water and W. Hubeishiyeh also
· carries a perennial stream. On the eastern slopes, the stream
in the lower course of W. el-Bīreh probably runs throughout
the year, while in W. el-Madi, one of its upper feeders, there is
a good stream which commences at Khān et-Tujjār and is fed
by 'Ain el-Madi and 'Ain el-Jīzān. W. Fejjās derives its water
WATER-SUPPLY
539
from the Sahel el-Ahma, the main springs of which are those
of 'Ayūn el-Basās. W. el-Hamām has a broad perennial
stream fed largely by the strong spring of 'Ain es-Sarār.
W. er-Rabadīyeh carries a fine perennial stream from “ Ain
er-Rabadīyeh, 4 miles from its outlet; this stream serves
in large part to irrigate the Ghuweir plain and to turn
several mills. W. Sellāmeh, an upper reach of the Rabadīyeh,
carries a small perennial stream for a short distance. In the
Ghuweir plain itself between the course of the Hamām and
Ra badīyeh rises the noted spring of 'Ain Madawwereh,
temp. 73° Fahr., from which a perennial stream, ordinarily
about 3 ft. deep and swarming with fish, runs through a thicket
of tangled brushwood to the lake. W. ‘Amūd carries a stream
which, although liable to considerable fluctuation, is perennial
and often abundant. W. et-Tawāhīn, the middle course of the
‘Amūd, carries a stream which takes its rise near Meirān and
is augmented by numerous springs lower down till it becomes
a stream of considerable size with a rapid fall all the way.
In the north-east corner of the Ghuweir plain is the copious
warm spring of 'Ain et-Tīneh, temp. 82° Fahr., of brackish
water. Safed, situated in the ‘Amūd basin, has many springs
in its neighbourhood, some of which are very good ones.
W. el-Waqqās derives a stream from 'Ayūn Waqqās, but in
summer very little of its water reaches Lake Hūleh. The
stream of W. el-Hindāj is dry in summer, but a permanent
stream runs in W. Fārah, one of its upper reaches, fed by the
springs of Jish, 'Ain el-Balāt, and Neba' 'Auba. For the
supply of water from W. Bareighīt and the N. Hāsbāni, see
description of the Jordan, p. 648 f.; and for the N. Qāsimīyeh,
see pp. 402 ff.; W. el-Hajeir, the principal southern affluent
of the latter river, carries a strong stream rising at 'Ain
el-Khān.
In the coastal plains fresh water can be obtained by digging
holes along the sea-shore. At Ras el-Ain, near the coast
3 miles S. of Tyre, there are very fine springs which supply
an extensive area with water ; the water-supply of ancient
Tyre came from here and some of the reservoirs and part of
Milan.
540
GALILEE
the aqueduct remain and the present town is still supplied
from this source. “Ain es-Sitt is a good perennial spring
about half a mile east of ‘Akka.
CLIMATE
The general climatic conditions of Galilee differ but little
from those of Judaea and Samaria and there is in this district
also the same marked contrast between the atmospheric
conditions in the lowlands and in the highlands. The rainfall
of Galilee as a whole is somewhat higher than in the south
of Palestine ; it increases also from the coast to the ridge and
diminishes eastward.
Records of temperature and rainfall have been taken at
Nazareth situated in the hill zone and Tiberias in the Ghör,
and the following table serves to show the somewhat marked
contrast in the climate of the two localities :
Temperature (Fahr.). Rainfall.
Altitude Mean Yearly Mean No. of
in feet. yearly. range. yearly. rainy
days.
Nazareth .
1,608 65•3° 28° 2 7 63
Tiberias . . --682 72.5° 32° 20 5 4
The coastal belt between Haifa and ‘Akka is very marshy
and damp and the population is decimated by malaria ; on
the other hand the climate of the plateau is dry and
invigorating.
Dew falls copiously at night over the district in all the late
summer months : such-dew occurs all over Palestine but
nowhere in such plenty as in the highlands of Galilee. One
writer describes it as 'the product of the clouds which are
blown often from the north, from Hermon, and settle on
the highlands after sunset' (see also p. 31). The cloud
may be seen overhead as the evening closes in and, in the
early morning, the mist lies thick over the ground and fills
all the deeper valleys. How heavy is the dew may be
judged from the fact that a recent traveller, when traversing
the central ridge of Galilee northward towards Hermon in
CLIMATE
541
the month of September, found it inadvisable on any night
to sit without a mackintosh outside the tent after sunset,
and every morning the tent canvas was soaked with water,
the moisture dripping audibly off the edge. The comparative
lack of water for agriculture in Upper Galilee is largely
compensated for by these “dew clouds ?.
The following particulars concerning the climate of Safed
(alt. 2,750 ft.), are given by a doctor long resident there.1
The shade temperature, at the hottest part of the day in
summer, occasionally rises to 100° Fahr. ; but, except when
the sirocco prevails, the nights are cool. The daily range of
temperature is sometimes very considerable : a temperature
of 100° at mid-day has been known to be followed by 58° at
midnight. During December and January there are occasional
frosts and sometimes a heavy fall of snow which, however,
does not lie as a rule for more than a day or two. No records
of rainfall have been kept at Safed, but it probably averages
rather more than that of Jerusalem. Given proper sanitary
conditions, Safed, by virtue of its situation, might become
a health resort for the whole of the northern part of Palestine.'
Capt. W. Ormesby Gore (1917) gives the annual rainfall
near Safed as 31.5 in.
NATURAL PRODUCTS
Minerals.--Galilee, as far as is known, has few mineral
resources calling for special mention. With the exception
of building stone of various kinds, Galilee is even less rich
in minerals than the two districts of Palestine previously
described. Bitumen is found around ‘Aidīb in W. el-Hajeir
and a few other places, and there are quarries of yellowish
marble in the kaza of Safed.
Flora.-The most common trees and shrubs are the dwarf-
oak of several kinds, terebinth, carob or locust tree, wild
olive and fig, nettle tree, and arbutus, all capable of de-
veloping to a large size ; the hawthorn, storax, bay-laurel,
1 Capt, Anderson, R.A.M.C.
542
GALILEE
myrtle, caper, sumach, and lentisk. The watercourses in
many parts are adorned by great masses of oleanders, willows,
planes, and, occasionally, white poplars. The sycomore
fig, once said to have been a characteristic product of Lower
Galilee, is now scarce in these parts. Groves of sacred tere-
binths occur in many places and the thorny acacia, when
covering a holy tomb, often attains noble proportions. The
north-west part of Galilee is (or was) an especially richly-
wooded district and the valleys here are frequently clothed
from base to summit with brushwood. The Shāghūr range of
hills and also those E. of Rāmeh are covered with scrub
growth now replacing what was only a few years ago a
forest of fine trees. On the north-east corner of Galilee, in
the Hūleh basin and Merj 'Ayūn, are large clumps of white
poplars, the growing of which, as timber, is a profitable
industry. The area from the foothills of the plain of 'Akka
to Nazareth, also the NW., NE., and E. slopes of J. et-Tor,
were wooded, but it is said that the Turks cut down
practically all the trees during the war. Immense tracts in
the marshes of Hūleh are covered with a dense growth of
papyrus.
Fauna.-Besides the animals and birds common to other
districts, the following call for special remark. A few fallow
deer are to be found in the wooded region north-west of
J. et-Tör. The hunting leopard or cheetah is scarce, but
it is said still to haunt the mountains of Upper Galilee and the
neighbourhood of J. et-Tõr. The striped hyena is common and
the tawny fox ranges the wooded districts of Galilee and the
country beyond the Qāsimīyeh. The weasel is very common
round about J. et-Tör. The common otter, according to
Tristram, appears to be confined to the shores of Lake Tiberias
where it finds abundant food. The grey Syrian bear has become
very rare in Palestine : Tristram only once saw it in Galilee
in a ravine near the Ghuweir plain ; it is, however, said to be
occasionally found in J. el-Jermaq. Various kinds of bat
are more common in Galilee than in other districts ; they are
extremely numerous in the caves of the wādis opening on
NATURAL PRODUCTS
543
Lake Tiberias and the plain of ‘Akka as, e.g., in W. el-Qarn.
Wild duck and snipe are found in great numbers in the
marshes of the Muqatta' and Na'mein Rivers. The pelican
is particularly conspicuous around Lake Hūleh.
Fish are plentiful in Lakes Tiberias and Hūleh and in
certain parts of the Upper Jordan ; see further, p. 549 f.
AGRICULTURE
The greater natural fertility of Galilee as a whole, as com-
pared with Judaea, may be ascribed to :
(1) Its comparatively excellent water-supply ; even where
springs are scanty the dew is very heavy.
(2) The gentler slope of the hills and wider plains.
(3) The deep rich soil in which is mixed, in many parts,
the detritus of volcanic rock.
(4) The fact that over much of the hills the natural growth
of brushwood has been left. In Judaea, where every foot of
soil had to be utilized, this natural growth has in many places
been entirely destroyed to allow of the hills being terraced --
for cultivation ; but, when the terraces fell from neglect, the
earth was gradually washed down the hill-side to the valley
below.
Speaking generally of the fertility and natural growth of
Galilee, Dr. George Adam Smith writes as follows : Take
Lower and Upper Galilee, with their more temperate climate
(than the Ghõr). They are almost as well wooded as our
own land. Tabor is covered with bush, and on its northern
side with large, loose groves of forest trees. The road
which goes up from the Bay of Carmel to Nazareth winds,
as among English glades, with open woods of oak and an
abundance of flowers and grass. Often, indeed, as about
Nazareth, the limestone breaks out not less bare and dusty than
in Judaea itself, but over the most of Lower Galilee there
is a profusion of bush, with scattered forest trees-holly-oak,
maple, sycomore, bay-tree, myrtle, arbutus, sumac, and
others—and in the valleys olive orchards and stretches of
fat cornland. Except for some trees like the sycomore,
544
GALILEE
Upper Galilee is quite as rich. It is an undulating tableland,
arable, and everywhere tilled, with swelling hills in view all
round, covered with shrubs and trees. Above Tyre there
is a great plateau, sloping westwards. It is all cultivated
and thronged with villages. To the south of W. el-Ma' the
country is more rugged, and cultivation is now pursued only'
in patches; yet even here are vines and olives. Even on the
high water-parting between Hūleh and the Mediterranean,
the fields are fertile, while the ridges are covered with forests
of small oaks.'
Products. The whole of Lower Galilee is of exceptional
fertility. The plains are splendid arable lands growing
mainly cereals, sesame, and vegetables ; those of Maghār
and Rāmeh are noted for their great groves of olives, a product
for which Galilee was always celebrated. Vines are not
to-day widely cultivated except around Rāmeh and, to some
extent, Nazareth.
The products of the mountain region of Upper Galilee are
many-chiefly wheat, barley, dhura, lentils, cucumbers,
pumpkins, and melons. Olives are plentiful as far north as
Kefr Birʻim, but north of this, on the central plateau, they
are very scanty; there the people either purchase olive-oil,
or use oil which they produce themselves in considerable
quantities from sesame. Figs are cultivated everywhere.
Mulberries, walnuts, apricots, pears, and other fruits flourish
in favourable spots. Oranges, lemons, and citrons are grown
in the deeper warmer valleys, notably round Safed. Vines
flourish also in this district, and many acres of vineyards
are now yielding well in several of the Jewish colonies, especi-
ally at Rosh Pinnāh (Jā‘ūneh), and 'Ain ez-Zeitün, near Safed.
Tobacco is grown extensively, especially in the north and west,
but solely for local use.
· Agriculture by Districts.-By far the most extensive and im-
portant agricultural area of Galilee, if not also of the whole
of Western Palestine, is the Plain of Esdraelon with which
may be included the Valley of Jezreel. The chief crops here
are wheat and barley ; considerable quantities of sesame
AGRICULTURE
545
are also grown, besides beans, lentils, peas, some cotton and
castor-oil, and every kind of vegetable. It is the most
important sesame-producing locality in Palestine. The
plain, however, does not at present yield to its utmost
capacity and there is no doubt that with improved methods
of irrigation its productivity could be very considerably in-
creased. The fertility of the soil of Esdraelon has led to more
than one attempt at its exploitation. Nearly half a century
ago the northern half of the plain was bought by a Greek,
who obtained some 22 of the neighbouring villages and their
lands. But, though he continued to employ the fellahin as
labourers, no radical improvements were made in method
or implements beyond the construction of barns and farm-
buildings in some of the villages. The land and buildings
passed to his heirs who are still considerable landowners in
this district.
It is noteworthy that, before the year 1911, the plain had
not attracted Jewish colonization, but about that time
a Jewish colony was founded at El-Fūleh near the important
railway junction of ‘Afūleh on the eastern border. The
majority of Jewish colonies of Galilee have been founded
farther east in the high land W. of Lake Tiberias, extending to
the eastern foot of J. et-Tõr and, it is in this district, with its
richer and nearly black volcanic soil, that the best grain is
produced—far finer than in the plain of Esdraelon itself and
almost comparable with the nearly transparent grain of the
Haurān.
Water is abundant in Esdraelon, but it is little utilized.
With comparatively small expenditure, it is considered that
the flow of the water of the Naʻmein and Muqatta', which
at present runs largely to waste into the sea, could be regulated
and the output of the plain considerably increased by im-
proved methods of drainage and the introduction and larger
use of modern irrigation plant.
The middle arm or extension of Esdraelon eastward, the
Valley of Jezreel, is also exceedingly fertile, especially its
gradual northern slope, and produces rich crops of wheat.
Mm
SYRIA
546
GALILEE
11
It receives abundant water, particularly the eastern part,
from the N. Jālūd as well as from very numerous fine springs
rising below the northern face of J. Fuqū'.
In 1911 increased attention was paid to the possibilities
of agricultural enterprise in the Esdraelon plain and prelimin-
ary arrangements were made with some of the larger pro-
prietors to let their property for development. Hopes were
entertained of successful cotton cultivation, in view of the
abundant water-supply and of the fact that the soil of the
plain, as also of the Ghör round Beisān, was reported by
Egyptian experts to be admirably suited to the culture
of cotton. Some experiments were conducted at Jidru in
the south of the plain of 'Akka in particular, as well as at
Beisān. The trials at Jidru did not give altogether satis-
factory results ; cf. p. 489 f.
The comparative productivity for grain of the Esdraelon
plain, though good relatively to other districts of western
Palestine, is much lower than that of the Haurān. In the
Haurān a 30 fold or even a 35 fold return of wheat is not
uncommon, while 40 fold up to 50 fold are attested on reliable
evidence. Bearing this is mind, it may be said in general terms
that what in the Esdraelon plain, as in the other fertile areas
of Palestine, could be reckoned as a good harvest would pass
in the Haurān as but a poor return.
Between Haifa and 'Akka there is a belt about 6 miles
wide of very rich land, but badly in need of draining ; cultiva-
tion is patchy and the products are mainly sesame and
vegetables. “Akka, with sweeter water than Haifa, produces
vegetables in great abundance. The foothills from the plain
of 'Akka to Nazareth are of senonian soil and very poor for
agriculture, but there is grazing for sheep and goats on rank
annual grasses and certain wild leguminous plants (clovers). In
the summer the ground looks absolutely bare, but animals-
even horses-pick up the seed-pods and bulbs (wild onion
and crocus), which are prevalent in the district. Olives and
vineyards are a failure here. Around Nazareth the main
products are figs and olives, but neither are produced on
AGRICULTURE
547
a sufficient scale for export. In the Sahel el-Buttauf and
the other interior plains, cereals (wheat and millet) are
chiefly grown. East of the Buttauf to Tiberias the soil is
volcanic and is therefore either barren or grain-growing.
Much of the land west of Tiberias is in Jewish hands and
devoted chiefly to grain and almond growing, under more
modern agricultural methods. The area from the south end
of Lake Tiberias towards Beisān is canalized in a primitive
way and here a relatively large crop of early vegetables is
produced and sold at Safed, Tiberias, and even Damascus.
In the plain of Ghuweir water is very abundant. Jewish
colonists own land around Mejdel (see I. D. 1203) and German
Roman Catholic societies near Tābghah farther north. Barley
is raised and, on irrigated portions, maize, melons, marrows,
tomatoes, peppers, egg-plants, and bāmiyeh (Hibiscus esculen-
tus, L.); but a large part of the plain is still given over to
thistles and weeds; fruit-culture was once a flourishing industry.
North-west of the plain of Ghuweir, between the lake and
Safed, is an almost absolutely barren stretch of country.
Around Safed the products are barley, wheat, lentils, and dhura
and olive-trees are everywhere cultivated, the soil being rich
red loam with here and there whitish shale-like patches.
Fruits and vegetables in great variety are grown in the
district: lemons in some of the valleys (particularly in
a valley known as W. el-Leimūn an upper reach of W. ‘Amūd),
grapes, figs, apricots, peaches, almonds, and pomegranates.
The chick-pea is a very common crop around Safed. At
Rāmeh are the largest and richest olive groves of Palestine.
North of 'Akka as far as Sūr are rich plains cultivated largely by
the Arabs and considerable irrigated areas here produce, in
addition to vegetables, mulberry trees for silk production.
This is the most southerly district of silk production in Syria.
East of the plains is the rocky and rather barren region of
Belād esh-Sheqif; the country, however, is thickly populated,
largely by Metāwileh, and a certain amount of tobacco is
grown. East again, near Hüleh, we reach an important
fig-producing area ; large quantities of figs are dried and
Mm 2
548
GALILEE
LU
sold outside the district. The olive groves here are also
extensive.
For further details of the agricultural activities of the Jewish
colonies of Galilee, see I. D. 1203.
Stock-rearing.–According to Cuinet (1896), the numbers
of head of stock in Galilee were as follows : oxen and cows,
7,900 ; buffaloes, 800 ; horses, 1,400 ; donkeys and mules,
4,700 ; sheep, 92,200 ; goats, 168,000 ; camels, 550. Sheep
are most numerous in the plain districts of Sūr and Merj
‘Ayūn ; goats in the hilly districts of 'Akka, Sūr, Safed, and
Tiberias. The horse is in most common use around Tiberias
and Safed ; donkeys and mules in the Merj 'Ayūn, which is
noted for its breeds of these animals.
INDUSTRIES
Manufacturing
Next to agriculture, the fishing industry of Galilee is by far
the most noteworthy. Manufacturing industries are few and
not of great importance. At 'Akka, brass- and copper-
ware are made to a small extent. At Nazareth, which is the
centre of an agricultural area, the natives are engaged in such
handicrafts as the making of sickles, knives, ploughshares, &c.
At Safed dyeing is carried on, as also the making of shoes for
the Bedouin ; it is also a centre for the making of pack-
saddles and harness, and for the weaving of coarse goat-hair
cloth for Bedouin tents ; copper utensils are made, and Safed
is also noted for its halāweh, a sweatmeat manufactured from
sugar and ground sesame seed. The weaving of considerable
quantities of mats out of- split papyrus reeds is an industry
among the Ghawārneh Bedouin who camp in the plains of
Hūleh ; of these mats, the people construct their own houses
and dispose of great numbers as floor mats to the fellahin
of the mountains.
Olive-oil pressing. A large proportion of the olive crop goes
either to Nāblus or Haifa for treatment, but there are, in addition,
numerous small local oil-presses, notably in the kaza of Sūr.
INDUSTRIES
- 549
Flour-milling is carried on on a considerable scale at Nazareth,
where there are three mills worked by steam- or oil-engines,
and capable, together, of turning out from 400-500 sacks of
flour a day.
Fishing
Fish abound in Lake Tiberias, Lake Hūleh, and the
Upper Jordan : the lakes of Galilee have been famous for
their plentiful supplies all through history. The fishing
centres of Lake Tiberias are Tiberias on the western shore,
and Tābghah and Batīhah (“Ajlūn) on the northern shore of the
lake, but at the former place the industry is only followed
to any considerable extent during the winter and early spring
months and is not nearly so important as at the two last-
named places. The little bay of Tābghah, about 8 miles
N. of Tiberias town, during the early months of spring is
remarkable for the number of fish which positively swarm
there, attracted by the warmth of the water loaded with
vegetable débris which the copious hot springs here pour
into the lake. The water some yards out teems with larger
fish, the shallows close in-shore with small fry. From mid-
January to mid-April the fishermen make Tābghah their
head-quarters, erecting a few tents or reed-huts on the shore.
But the fishing of Batihah is by far the most important
on the whole lake. Here, close to the mouth of the Jordan,
as well as in the waters of that river, fish may be taken all
the year round though varying in kind according to season.
This rich fishing ground is near the ruin called Et-Tell which is
generally acknowledged to be the site of Bethsaida. The
fishermen who come from Tiberias make temporary reed
shelters for themselves during the fishing season. In Lake
Hūleh and in the 'Ain el-Mellāhah stream which runs into this
lake at its southern end, the fishing is carried on by Bedouin
fishermen who, during the season, occupy reed-huts on the
western shore of the lake.
The main varieties of fish taken in both lakes are three-
a fish allied to the wrass locally known as musht, catfish, and
550
GALILEE
carp. Almost all the fish are caught by means of nets, of which
there are three kinds the cast-net, draw-net, and mubatten, the
latter a compound form of net composed of various sizes of mesh
peculiar to this locality ; the old-fashioned method of poison-
ing the fish first and then collecting them is also sometimes
resorted to. The Tiberias fishermen are quite a class by
themselves and are fine stalwart men, mostly Moslems, with
a few Christians; the business is hereditary in certain
families and the nets are made and mended by the women of
their households. From Lake Tiberias the fish is carried fresh
to Safed (where there is the greatest demand), Nazareth and
other places in Galilee ; it is also dried and salted for the
Damascus and Jerusalem markets. From Lake Hūleh and 'Ain
el-Mellāhah the fresh fish is sent to Safed, Merj 'Ayūn, and
even Damascus, and salted fish to Zahleh and other places
in the Lebanon. During summer, fresh fish cannot be sent
far from the lakes : most of it from all sources goes to Safed
in this season. The average price of the best fish in Safed is
about 4d. per lb., but cat-fish, which is always cheaper, may
be purchased at one-third the price when it is plentiful.
The Government tax on all fish taken from Lake Tiberias and
the adjoining Jordan is one-fifth. Like most taxes in Palestine,
it is farmed out and the fashshār, or tax-collector, pays
£T.1,000 every three years for his right of taking one-
fifth of all fish caught. The fishing rights of Batihah are
owned by a pasha in Damascus, and a Jew of Safed paid
200 napoleons. annually for the exclusive control of all the
fishing there. The Lake Hūleh and 'Ain el-Mellāhah fishing
rights are under the jiftlik and are let annually to a Christian
for 260 napoleons.
TRADE
Nearly all the exterior trade of Galilee finds its inlet and
outlet at Haifa, q. v. Samaria, pp. 492 ff. “Akka, considered
formerly a port of some importance in relation to Syrian
trade, is now eclipsed commercially by the Samarian port
and has practically no direct foreign trade. Up to 1906
TRADE
551
the value of the trade of “Akka exceeded that of Haifa, but
since that year, marked by the opening of the Haifa-Der'a
railway, it has steadily declined. At the outbreak of war the
commerce of Akka had degenerated to a small coasting
trade carried on by sailing craft and by a small coasting
steamer that called occasionally ; the exports consisted chiefly
of locally grown grain, sesame seed, and olive-oil. Sūr,
though it has good anchorage sheltered from practically all
winds except the north, is now of very minor importance as
a port. Even for some years before the war it had but little
commerce and no regular lines of steamers called—the port
was occasionally visited by small steamers carrying on the
local coasting trade, but most of the trade was done by
small sailing craft, of which there were about thirty. The
trade of Sūr had been almost entirely directed to Beirut ;
but a small amount of locally grown cotton and tobacco,
and millstones were the chief articles exported in normal
times.
In the interior of Galilee, the only distributing centre of
any importance at all is Safed. But though the largest town
in Galilee, owing to its isolated position and lack of good com-
munication with the coast-the roads leading to it up to
quite recent times were mostly mere goat tracks—it is at
present not a great distributing centre. There was much
talk (1913–14) about making a carriage road to Safed from
Lake Tiberias, where thereis communication by a small steamer
belonging to the Haifa-Der'a railway, between Tābghah and
Semakh. With such a road the prosperity of Safed would
greatly increase. Certain sections at least of this road have
been constructed, but it is not clear from information at
present available whether complete communication has been
established. Most of the trade of Safed was at one time in
the hands of the Jews but, of recent years business, especially
among the fellahin and Bedouin, has passed into the hands
of Moslems as they can afford to give better credit. A good
deal of semen is sent out from this neighbourhood to Con-
stantinople and other places.
552
GALILEE
Most of Lower Galilee gets its supplies direct from Haifa,
and sends its products there by rail. 'Afūleh, a junction
station on the Haifa-Der'a railway, in a very central position,
is becoming an important business centre. The population of
the country districts of Galilee being denser than the rest of
Palestine, the aggregate surplus products available for export
is small as compared with Samaria and Judaea (Ormesby
Gore).
INHABITANTS
Population.—No very definite figures are available. Accord-
ing to the estimates at the time of the P. E. F. Survey (1877),
the population of Galilee was 103,000. As to this figure,
Dr. Masterman (1909) says: "These numbers may with
confidence be doubled. Allowing for young children not
included in the Government returns, the population of this
large area of 1,341 sq. miles, with its 312 towns and villages,
may with safety be estimated at about 250,000. The area
includes the whole district (kaza) of Tyre and all the coast
to Carmel. The denseness of the population by the above
estimates works out at 186 inhabitants to the sq. mile.'
Dr. Masterman's estimates were made on the basis of statistics
collected from the Safed district (comprising one city and
39 small towns and villages), in which he found that the
population had increased from 15,530 at the time of the
survey to 34,055 in 1909.
According to Cuinet (1896), the total population of the kazas
of Sūr, Merj 'Ayūn, ‘Akka, Tiberias, Safed, and Nazareth,
the exterior boundaries of which taken together are roughly
though not absolutely coincident with the area under descrip-
tion, amounted to 78,197. Ruppin, 1915 (see footnote, p. 458),
gives the population of much the same area as 176,919.
If Dr. Masterman's figures err it is possible that they do so
on the side of excess.
Cuinet gives the following categories as composing the total
population of 78,197 : Moslems, 30,383; Jews, 15,437 ;
United Greeks, 10,431 ; Orthodox Syrians, 9,176 ; Maronites,
INHABITANTS
553
4,111; Orthodox Greeks, 3,282; United Syrians, 1,600 ;
Latins, 1,446; Foreigners, 737; Druses, 653; United
Armenians, 530; Protestants, 210; Gregorian Armenians,
201. These figures are here cited as they serve to give some
general indication of the proportions of the various sects of
which the population of Galilee was composed in 1896.
Towns and Villages.Galilee is full of villages, the mean
population of which is about 500. A village of 1,500 inhabi-
tants is considered a very large one and some of the villages
have as few as 50 adult inhabitants. The largest towns in
the whole of Galilee, with the exception of Safed and possibly .
of Nazareth, contain a smaller population than 15,000. The
following are the most populous centres :
Safed. Pop. variously estimated at 20,000–25,000, of whom,
according to Trietsch,1 16,000 Moslems and 8,000 Jews.
Dr. Masterman gives : Jews, 11,000, a considerable number
of whom are foreign subjects (2,500 Austrian, 1,000 French,
600 Persian, 150 British, and 100 American); a few Christians
(some 400 Greek Catholics, a few families of Orthodox Greeks,
and a few Protestants); and some Kurds and Algerians. Capt.
Anderson, R.A.M.C., says the following is probably a correct
estimate of the chief communities : Jews, 12,000; Moslems,
8,000; Christians, 300. About three-fourths of the Jews, he
says, are ‘Yiddish speaking and come from Poland, Russia,
and Austria and the remaining fourth are of Spanish origin ;
the Christians are mostly Greek Catholics. The W. 0. Hand-
book on Northern Palestine and Southern Syria, April 9, 1918,
gives : Safed, pop. 20,000: including 7,000 Moslems, 400
Greeks, and a few Protestants ; the remainder, Jews.
Nazareth. Pop., according to Trietsch, 12,000 (1909), of
whom 7,000 Christians and 4,000 Moslems ; pop., according
to Ruppin, 20,000, of whom 10,000 Christians.
'Akka. Pop., according to Trietsch, 11,000 (1909), of whom
2,400 Christians and the rest mostly Moslems of a fanatical
disposition ; total pop., according to Ruppin, 12,000.
Sūr (Tyre). Pop. variously estimated at 6,000~8,000, of
i Levante Handbuch, Davis Trietsch, 1914.
554
GALILEE
whom, according to Trietsch, 3,200 Moslems and 2,800
Christians.
Tiberias. Pop., according to Ruppin, 8,000, and according
to Trietsch, 10,000 ; chiefly Jews.
Communities and Sects.-In Lower Galilee most of the inhabi-
tants are Moslems (Orthodox Sunnites), Christians (mostly
either Greek Orthodox or Greek Catholics), or Jews.
In Upper Galilee new elements appear. As a whole, in the
north-west districts, the Christians are Maronites and the
Moslems are Metāwileh (Shiites). Both sects agree in fanatical
intolerance of all others. The Maronite centres are Kefr
Bir'im, Rumeish, 'Ain Ibl, and Dibl. Of the Metāwileh, Bint
Umm Jubeil, north of Wādi el-Hindāj, is one of the largest
centres ; but the sect is in a majority all over the northern
area of Upper Galilee—at Tibnin, Yaſter, Harīs, Haddātha,
and Khirbet Selem among other places and in the environs
of Tyre it constitutes 70 per cent. of the population. Their vil-
lages are generally mean, huddled, and poor in comparison with
other settlements ; but they have a rich and more enlightened
class residing in Tyre and Beit Umm Jubeil. Druses are found
at Rāmeh, Beit Jenn, El-Buqei', and elsewhere. One writer
states that the Druses have fifteen settlements in Galilee ;
their spiritual head is the Sheikh 'Aqil of Jūlis. Algerians
have settlements at Ras el-Ahmar, ‘Alma, Deishūn, and Kefr
Sabt. Circassians live in a separate village of ‘Alma and at
other spots. Ansarīyeh and Turkomans are found in certain
villages on the extreme north-eastern border.
For information as to the distribution and populations of
the Jewish colonies in Galilee-districts of Safed, Tiberias,
Lake Hūleh, and Merj 'Ayūn-see I. D. 1203.
As a rule a village is peopled entirely by one sect, or at most
by two, and the several communities never intermarry.
Though the basis of separation is religious differences, there is
a considerable physical difference that enables one who knows
the people well to recognize at once to which community any
individual belongs. Taken as a whole the people of Northern
Palestine are, physically, finer than those of Southern Palestine
INHABITANTS
555
(Masterman). Their costumes also, which are very varied
and often extremely picturesque, are superior to those of the
fellahin of the south.
Bedouin. --The nomadic element in Galilee is confined
almost wholly to the coastal plains and to the eastern slopes.
There is a very large number of small tribes, including:
Ghawārneh and ‘Arāmsheh, in the western plains ; Delā’ikeh,
Waheib, Semakīyeh, Zengharīyeh, Hasanīyeh, Zubeid, Ham-
dūn, and Ghawārneh on the eastern slope and in the Ghör,
See further p. 660 for tribes of the Ghör in general.
CHAPTER XVII
HAURĀN AND JAULĀN
The eastern section of southern Syria includes all the
country east of the Central depression as far as the edge of the
Hamād, from Wādi Zābirāni and the Nahr el-‘Awaj in the N.
to a line a little below Akaba in the S. Beyond its southern
frontier lies the ill-explored and almost uninhabited region of
northern Hejaz. Its eastern border, in the region of Haurān,
includes El-Leja and Jebel ed-Drūz; southward the tract
becomes much narrower and the frontier is vague, but for
practical purposes may be taken as defined by the Hajj road
and the Hejaz railway.
Under the Turkish administration the whole was comprised
in the vilayet of Damascus, the southern portion as far as the
Nahr ez-Zerqa forming the sanjaq of Kerak, all to north of
that wādi belonging to the sanjam of Haurān.
It has been customary to divide this area into four sections :
two northern, the Haurān with the Jaulān, and the region
between N. Yarmūk and N. ez-Zerqa; two southern, the
region between N. ez-Zerqa and Seil el-Hesa, and the more
barren tract extending from the latter wādi to the Hejaz
frontier. A quadruple division is here retained, but with
one important change of boundary. It has been observed
that the high plateau of Moab, with its almost even surface,
really ends at the line of Wādi Hesbān (G. Adam Smith);
beyond this line, the physical affinities are more and moro
with the broken and wooded country farther N.; and
when the watershed running E. from J. Õsha' has been
crossed, it is plain that the southern side of the Zerqa in the
Belqa cannot properly be divorced from the northern in ‘Ajlūn.
The following modified division has therefore been adopted :
HAURĀN AND JAULAN
557
i. Haurān and Jaulān.
ii. ‘Ajlūn and Northern Belda (the region between Nahr
Yarmūk and Wādi Hesbān).
iii. Southern Belga and Ardh el-Kerak (the region between
Wādi Hesbān and Seil el-Hesa).
iv. El-Jibāl and Esh-Shera, comprising the high country
between the ‘Arabah and the Hamād.
The adjacent regions of Haurān and Jaulān stretch from
the Damascus plain southward to the Yarmūk gorge and to
the unexplored region E. of 'Ajlūn. Taken as a whole they,
along with the Damascus plain, constitute the most fertile
and productive region in Syria, the arable plains of Haurān
and the pasturage of Jaulān being famed throughout the land.
The region is part of the cultivable belt on the western verge
of the desert, through which are carried the great trunk routes
and on which are found all the great cities of the Syrian
hinterland.
Railways are here comparatively well developed, and the line
running S. through the heart of the Haurān communicates with
the ports of Beirut, Haifa and Jaffa. Since these lines have been
built, many of the villages on the plain have largely increased,
and many, previously abandoned, have been reoccupied, while
important trade centres have been established.
Throughout the Haurān, extensive ruins of ancient cities are
everywhere found, bearing testimony to á past prosperity
which could with little difficulty be revived. The mountain
group of J. ed-Drūz, particularly rich in these remains, is the
special reserve of the Druse people. Within its fastnesses this
hardy race has defended itself with some success against
Ottoman oppression, maintaining religious and, to some
extent, political independence.
In northern Jaulān, there are prosperous colonies of Circas-
sians who have increased the productiveness of that region
by reclaiming tracts of the basalt-strewn waste. The whole
of Jaulān is famed for its rich pasturage and live stock, but
agriculture, which is chiefly confined to the southern part, is
not progressive.
558
HAURĀN AND JAULĀN
The stoneless plains of Haurān dry up quickly and con-
sequently pasturage is less abundant there than in the stony
hills of Jaulān. Among the natives the two districts are
known respectively as Belād el-Qamh 'wheat country' and
Belād er-Rabi' 'grazing country'.
AREA
The western boundary is marked by the base of Hermon
southward to the Hūleh marshes ; thence by the Jordan and
Sea of Tiberias to the mouth of the Yarmūk gorge which
forms the southern limit as far eastward as Wādi Shellāleh.
Continuing southward from this latter point the western
boundary marches with the district of ‘Ajlūn enclaved in the
plateau. The eastern boundary is the desert, and includes
El-Leja and J. ed-Drūz. On the N. the district is bounded
by Wādi Zābirāni and Nahr el-Awaj separating the Haurān
from the Damascus plain. On the S. it runs out upon the
unexplored desert and the Beni Hasan country.
The length from N. to S. is about 65 miles ; the width
E. to W. varies from about 30 miles at the northern end to
90 miles in the latitude of the Yarmūk. The total area is
about 4,000 sq. miles.
The whole area was administered under the sanjaq of
Haurān except a small part in the north-west which is under
the sanjaq of Damascus.1
PHYSICAL SURVEY OF HAURĀN
The Plain.--The territory known as the plain of the Haurān
stretches from the Nahr el-Awaj southward for about 65 miles
until it merges into the unexplored desert east of Ajlūn.
Its western limit is at first the base of Hermon, then the
eastern frontiers of the districts of Jaulān and ‘Ajlūn marked
by the wadis 'Allān and Shellāleh. On the E. it is bounded
by El-Leja and J. ed-Drüz.
It is a vast treeless expanse and, except for the broken
See Chap. VI, p. 240.
PHYSICAL SURVEY OF HAURĀN
559
hill country north of El-Leja, lies at an average alt of 2,000 ft.
with a gentle fall southward. Its surface, partly flat and
· partly undulating, is marked by volcanic mounds and basalt
outcrops variously disposed, in some parts fairly frequent and
in others few and far between. In general the plain is furrowed
by widely separated wādis; those on the west towards Jaulān
are, however, more frequent and are both deep and steep.
Wide stretches of the surface are free of obstruction but much
of it is strewn with basalt boulders, in parts so thickly covered
as to make cultivation impossible and movement exceedingly
difficult. Everywhere the soil is rich and capable of raising
fine wheat crops, clearance of the stony tracts only being
required to make the whole region cultivable. The prevailing
formation is granulous dolerite and a brownish red or blackish
green slag, blistered and porous. The dolerite consists of
thin slabs of crystal of greyish white labradorite with small
grains of olivine and augite. The soil consists of soft decom-
posed laya. W. el-Ajam, which carries the N Zābirāni and
N. el-Awaj, marks the boundary between the calcareous
formation of the plain to the N. and the basaltic formation
of Haurān. At Aufāneh, on the base of Hermon NE. of
El-Quneiterah, limestone is seen and to the S. the whole
country is basaltic.
The whole plain is dotted with ancient villages built of
basalt, the larger ones being usually surrounded by walls
and distinguished by numerous towers. Large rock-cut
cisterns, vaulted reservoirs and artificial pools, all ancient,
are used for storing rain water and afford supplies throughout
the year to many settlements otherwise waterless.
Immediately S. of Nahr el-'Awaj there rises a basalt range,
J. el-Māni', running SE. to the arable plain near Bahret
el-Hijāneh; its highest summit, alt. 3,640 ft., is in part
isolated and resembles a truncated cone. Farther south and
lying roughly parallel, there is another low rugged range J.
el-Khiyāreh. Between the two ridges is an elevated rocky
plateau extending to the Hajj road and having to the S. of it a
fertile plain called Ardh el-Khiyāreh. Between J. el-Khiyāreh
560
HAURAN AND JAULĀN
and the northern border of El-Leja is a wādi and a rich plain
about 4 miles wide ; and there are several springs along the
border of El-Leja which send out a small stream to Wādi
Luwa. The plain in the vicinity of Ghabāgheb and Dīdi is
a region of conical tells.
To the W. of the Hajj road is an isolated lava tract some
5 miles in diameter; between this latter and Hermon the
country is black and uninviting, basalt boulders being strewn
over the whole surface. Similar conditions prevail southward
through the Jeidūr district, which is separated from Jaulān
by W. el-'Allān and the upper reaches of W. er-Ruqqād.
The district in western Haurān known as Jeidūr is a boulder-
strewn volcanic tract: in the north it is hilly, and in the south
it is plain. Abundant water and fine pasture have made it
famous as a stock-raising district. Where the surface begins
to rise towards Hermon, there is the conspicuous elevation Tell
el-Hārah, alt. 3,660 ft., visible throughout the Haurān and
even from the borders of the desert. It and the neighbouring
peaks belong to a class of extinct volcanoes common in this
region. Another most prominent feature lying southward
of the latter is Tell el-Jābiyeh, alt .2,320 ft., rising in a well-
watered locality from which a canal is carried to Nawa,
alt. 1,886 ft., the highest town in western Haurān and the
chief place of Jeidūr. A few miles to the south, around Tsīl,
the country is covered with volcanic mounds the summits of
which are fenced with boulders and utilized as sheep-folds by
the Bedouin who appropriate the plentiful spring pasturage.
Numerous dolmens are scattered about this region.
Eastward from W. el-'Allān which divides Jaulān from the
district of Jeidūr, the surface becomes less and less thickly
strewn with boulders finally settling into a stoneless expanse
of fine red soil. This part of the plain i's thinly populated
and a large part of it is uncultivated. Farther E. and S.
vast areas are under wheat and many of the cross-country
roads are ploughed up, during the sowing season, and do
not again come into use until after harvest.
Water is plentiful in western Haurān there being not less
PHYSICAL SURVEY OF HAURĀN
561
than 14 perennial streams besides many springs. From the
Nahr ‘Allān the country slopes westward and the streams
converge toward Kefr es-Sāmir and form affluents of the
Yarmūk. To the S. of Wādi el-Ehreir, the streams flow
separately into Wādi Tell esh-Shehālleh or W. Zeizūn. As
a rule the wādis are deep and abrupt, and the streams and
springs are bordered with willows, oleanders, and cane..
The section named En-Nuqrah lying south of El-Leja, is the
most extensively cultivated part of the whole plain. It falls
gradually westward from the base of J. ed-Drūz. All the
villages have several reservoirs which are filled either by winter
torrents or by surface rain-water drainage. Many villages
stand upon or near low tells which are the only objects to
break the monotony. The surface is, generally speaking,
fairly free of stones, but in parts, particularly in close proximity
to El-Leja, it becomes very stony. Basalt crops up often
as high as 20 ft. above the general surface sometimes
covering areas 40–50 yds. in diameter; these with the
huge intervening boulders and scattered fragments give the
country a barren and savage aspect. The Nugrah is furrowed
by a series of mostly shallow wādis running westward
from the slopes of J. ed-Drūz. The most southern of these,
W. ez-Zeidi, however, cuts deeply across the plain from
Bosrah and carries a certain amount of perennial water
which is mostly used up for irrigation, see p. 572. Almost
all the others are dry in summer. The southern part of the
plain, including the section beyond the termination of the
foothills of J. ed-Drūz, stretches in wide and low undulations
over a fertile country which however becomes desolate a few
miles south of Bosrah. It is dotted with ruins and other
marks of ancient cultivation, but there is no perennial water.
Immediately south of Bosrah there is some of the richest land
in Haurān.
· Generally, the plain is not well watered and crops depend
almost entirely upon rainfall. The most extensive grain
cultivation is in those sections where perennial water is most
scarce. Winter rains are to some extent stored and utilized
Nn
SYRIA
562
HAURĀN AND JAULĀN
by providing artificial catchments for torrents and surface
drainage, but the great possibilities of this system have not
been exploited.
El-Leja, 'the refuge', lies NE. of the plain and, seen
at a distance, from the W. it looks like a low blue plateau.
It is a 'lava sea' about 350 miles in area, roughly oval in
shape with its greater axis lying N. and S. ; its clearly
marked edges rise abruptly from the plain to a height
of 20 to 30 ft. The 'sea' sends out a multitude of sharp
and rugged promontories and everywhere on the plain below
there are thick scatters of basalt boulders, masses of fallen
rock, and elevated outcrops. The eastern side is marked by
W. Luwa, while the greater part of the southern side is bordered
by W. el-Qanawāt; both wādis are dry in summer.
In general, El-Leja is a barren tract spread around extinct
craters, which has been riven into deep chasms, conical
peaks, and confused masses of rock. Several of these peaks
rise to a considerable height the most prominent being
Tell el-Amāra, alt. 2,825 ft. The eastern and central portions
have a more uniform surface than the western, while the
outer portions are less rocky than the interior. In the vicinity
of Dāmet el-'Aliyeh it is a labyrinth of deep and inaccessible
crevasses and overhanging cliffs. A considerable number of
trees, chiefly dwarf oak and terebinth, subsist among the
rocks of the interior but very few are to be found elsewhere.
Areas of fertile soil occur in the depressions which in the
winter retain the water, and in spring and early summer
produce pasture and grain crops. Authorities differ as to
the existence of perennial water, but it seems clear that
some springs do exist. At Qirāta, Merrill reports that there
is à large fountain of excellent water which is full of fish.'
There is also a spring of excellent water west of Mesmīyeh,
and several springs along the northern border between Shaʻreh
and Mesmīyeh which send out a small stream to W. Luwa. The
numerous cisterns and open reservoirs of antiquity are still used
for rain-water storage; during dry summers the inhabitants
are often forcod out into the plain in search of water,
PHYSICAL SURVEY OF HAURĀN
563
The passes, fissures, and caverns in this black and desolate
region are so inaccessible that the Bedouin robbers by which
El-Leja has been infested for centuries, continue to find
secure refuge from the law ; in this only do they have common
cause with their Druse neighbours who have settled there in
considerable numbers. There are also several Christian
villages on the borders, the most important being Khabb
with a population of 1,200. At only a few points are the
rocky borders penetrable and, there, the tracks are hewn out
of the rock. The secrets of internal communication are
carefully guarded by the inhabitants. Tracks over and
around deep fissures or through narrow passes and confused
masses of fallen or upheaved rocks, can only be followed in
daylight with the help of local guides whose knowledge is
confined to particular localities. Numerous ruins of ancient
cities and villages are dotted about, many of which are
still in wonderfully good preservation and only a few
are partially occupied. In character they resemble the
other ancient ruins of Haurān, see p. 557. The borders of
El-Leja have a soil strongly impregnated with saline from
which saltpetre is extracted. The millstones quarried in
El-Leja chiefly at Khabb and 'Ezra are noted throughout
Syria. A Roman road running N. and S. through the heart
of El-Leja is known to have existed.
Jebel ed-Drīz or Ardh el-Bathanīyeh, sometimes nained J.
Haurān. It is a prominent and lofty mountain group, mostly
volcanic, rising from the plain to the south-east of El-Leja,
and disposed in several ridges interspersed with many isolated
higher hills some of which are extinct craters. The summit
of the main ridge is a plateau on which rise the highest peaks.
Seen from the west, the loftiest peaks of the ridge are Tell
Abu-Tumeis, alt. 5,090 ft., and Tell Abu-Quleib, alt. 5,780 ft.,
which rise from the northern and southern ends respectively.
The ridge maintains an almost uniform altitude between these
two peaks and the northern and southern slopes of the
mountain fall from their outer bases ; south of Quleib a lower
ridge projects southward. To the E. there is another series of
Nn2
564
HAURĀN AND JAULAN
broken heights among which is Tell el-Jeineh, alt. 6,080 ft.,
the highest peak of the mountain ; it is obscured from the
W. by the most prominent peak, Tell el-Quleib, which has
an extinct crater on its southern side.
Between El-Leja and the northern base there is an arable
plain some 3 miles wide. The northern slopes of the mountain
are easy, the soil is rich, and the surface is diversified only by
little naked conical tells. Several lofty isolated peaks also
occur, among which are Tell esh-Shīhān, Tell Shuhbeh, and
Tell ez-Zūb standing about 14 mile apart. Tell Shuhbeh
is one of the projecting summits of Tell Abu Tumeis and
the ruins of Shuhbeh lie between the two heights. From the
northern slopes of Tell esh-Shaqqārah, alt. 5,390 ft., with
a crater, there rises W. Luwa which, under various names,
falls westward, then northward along the base of El-Leja
to the marsh Matkh Burāq. It falls rapidly and the bed of
the winter torrent is lined with oleanders and other shrubs.
The western slopes of J. ed-Drüz are steep and are inter-
sected by numerous wādis which resemble each other so much
when they reach the plain that it is difficult to ascertain with
accuracy the course of each one. Two wādis descend from
the neighbourhood of Qanawāt. One of these, from the ravine
at Deir es-Sumeid, sweeps to the north after leaving the
inountain and follows the base of El-Leja under the name of
W. Qanawāt, finally breaking south-westward to W. el-Ehreir.
The other takes a parallel course and joins the other wādi
farther to the south. Both wādis are dry in summer. Close
N. of Suweida is the wādi of that name, where several others
meet near where it is crossed by a well-built bridge ; there
are several mills near by. The region S. of Qanawāt to
El-Kufr is abundantly supplied with springs, and the Druses
sell the water at high prices to the Moslem villagers in the plain.
On the southern extremity of the range there is an almost
isolated hill on which stands Salkhad, alt. 4,280 ft. North-
ward of this, the ridge is broad with gently sloping sides and
gradually increases in elevation to the base of Tell el-Quleib,
and at intervals there are several high conical peaks. Down
PHYSICAL SURVEY OF HAURĀN
565
the middle, from the base of Quleib, there runs a shallow wādi
l] to 2 miles wide and, on the extremity of the eastern ridge
thus formed, stands the castle of Salkhad. Here the flanks
and summits show signs of ancient cultivation in the numerous
fenced fields which can be everywhere traced. The gentle
slopes were at one time thickly planted with vines and the
steep declivities still retain their ancient terraces. In the
thirteenth century the vineyards of Salkhad and the gardens
of Bosrah were famous.
The foothills to S. and SW. roll with gradually diminishing
abruptness to settle into a gently undulating surface. Here
and there conical tells and craters rise conspicuously and
nowhere is there any considerable area of level plain. The
courses of numerous wādis, almost all of which are dry in
summer, find their way tortuously from the higher slopes.
From the south-western base of the mountain commences
W. ez-Zeidi which cuts westward through the plain. The
upper waters of this wādi rise SE. of Zāleh at a spring Ras
el-Bedr and flow westward in a wādi of that name, carrying
perennial water as far as Bosrah.
On the eastern flank of J. ed-Drūz near Zāleh, there is
a copious spring which makes that place much frequented
by Arabs; the stream loses itself in the plain eastward. The
eastern base falls to a fine arable tract dotted with tells and
ruined cities and desolate villages; there are no springs, but
water can be found at 3 to 4 ft. under the surface. This arable
belt stretches a short distance towards the Syrian desert. There
are many excellent pastures on the eastern slopes, which support
large flocks chiefly of goats. On these slopes and at the foot
of the mountain there are upwards of 200 villages, mostly
deserted, situated at distances of 11 to 2 miles apart.
The central and southern sections of the range possess
features of great beauty : graceful wooded slopes, wild glens,
bold precipices, and picturesque vales are seen on every hand.
The whole of the loftier portion is clothed with forests of ever-
green oaks. The northern and eastern slopes are destitute
of trees. Alongside of naked tells and extensive outcrops
566
HAURĀN AND JAULĀN
of basalt, there are large areas of extremely fertile soil
which produce excellent wheat. The cultivable area could
be largely increased by clearing away the dense scatters of
boulders which encumber the ground: in fact practically the
whole mountain is capable of cultivation.
Like the rest of the Haurān, J. ed-Drūz was, in antiquity,
thickly populated ; remains of extensive fortified cities and
villages still exist in great numbers and in wonderfully good
preservation. A great many of these are now partially
occupied by the Druses who chose the mountain as their chief
refuge after 1860 and who, to-day, are comparatively pros-
perous. Porter in 1855 counted over 100 sites on the mountain
only a very few of which were at that time partially occupied.
Buildings are entirely of basalt, the walls being 5-8 ft.
thick. „Roofs and ceilings are of huge basalt slabs ; doors
and windows are also of the same material hung on pivot
hinges. At Kufr there are city gates of basalt 9 ft. high and
1 ft. thick. Some cities have from 200 to 500 houses still
perfect, and there are numerous massive square sepulchral
towers besides remains of temples and public buildings, The
' lay out' follows the usual Roman plan of paved streets
between the city gates, traversing the main axes of rectangular
sites. Paved roads, many remains of which still exist, con-
nected these cities. Standing on plain, slope, and summit,
the empty ruins, moss-grown and covered with luxuriant
creepers, rise amongst dense foliage as lasting testimony
to a past civilization. Perennial water, in general, is
scarce, although certain parts are well watered. Supplies in
ancient times were mostly stored in cisterns and reservoirs
or conveyed by aqueducts parts of whose arches still span
the intervening valleys. The present population occupy
only small parts of these cities a large number of which
· are situated at levels of over 4,000 ft. where snow falls
regularly in January and February.
Porter in 1855, discussing the failure of the Turks to
enforce conscription on the Druses, writes : 'A great part
of the (Jebel) Haurān is impracticable for cavalry and artillery
PHYSICAL SURVEY OF HAURĀN
567
punted fortresses astrong and active it will be ne
while it affords every facility to skirmishers and precludes
the possibility of acting with large bodies of the line. During
winter, troops cannot live in it without good barracks, and
during summer they are enervated by heat and scarcity of
water. To subdue and retain Haurān it will be necessary
to establish several strong and active garrisons in well-
appointed fortresses and then to construct military roads
through the wildest districts; were this done, the country
would soon become the granary and garden of Syria. He
also discusses the attitude of the Druses towards conscription:
apart from an inherent objection to any form of restraint
imposed by the Turks, they plead the impossibility of providing
men for Imperial purposes, while at the same time protecting
their homes from the Bedouin hordes against whom they
wage constant warfare.
Captain Murphay, Service Gazette, 1911, writes : ‘In the .
expedition against the Druses in 1910, the Turks concentrated
at Der'a a force of 21,000 men of all arms. The Druses
concentrated only about 2,000 men and were defeated after
a weak defence, the chief feature of which was a partially
successful raid on the line of communications at Der'a, fighting
having been on a line El-Kufr—Qanawāt—Shuhbah. The
Turks are reported to have left an army of occupation of
4,000 mounted men with head-quarters at Bosrah; they also
“announced their intention of rebuilding the barracks at
Suweida and repairing the roads in Haurān which are ex-
tremely bad ”.
PHYSICAL SURVEY OF JAULAN
This district forms part of a great plateau which is known
as Haurān in the broadest sense of that word. Lying over
against the northern section of the Jordan valley, El-Ghör,
it covers an area of about 560 sq. miles. The boundaries
are clearly defined by the slopes of Hermon on the N.; the
Jordan and Lake of Galilee on the W.; Nahr el-'Allān with
the upper reaches of Nahr er-Ruqqād on the E.; and the
gorge of Yarmūk on the S.
568
HAURĀN AND JAULĀN
withered with 11.The nohain of vo
The whole of the Jaulān is an immense volcanic field consisting
of irregular heaps of amorphous lava and disintegrated scoriae
with mounds of globular basalt. The slopes of the Ghör are
covered with rugged blocks of lava which decompose and roll
into the valley. The northern part reaches an alt. of 3,625 ft.
independently of the chain of volcanic peaks, called J. Heish
by early writers but now unknown by that name. These peaks,
rising to heights of over 4,200 ft., lie in a general direction S.
by E. from Tell el-Ahmar on the north to Tell el-Faras on
the south, and cover an area of about 20 miles by 2 miles.
The general elevation of the plateau decreases steadily south-
ward to its lowest point overlooking the Yarmūk where the alt.
is 974 ft. The surface rises quickly toward the NE. in a series
of terrace-like ascents (as a consequence of the lava streams),
from an average level of 1,640 ft. up to 3,000 ft. at the
watershed between Tell Abu 'n-Nada and Tell Hāmi Qurseh.
The western face of the plateau falls abruptly to the Ghör at
a level of 682 ft. below the Mediterranean, so that the total
fall from the watershed is 3,682 ft. From this watershed,
the sides of which produce many small watercourses, several
very deep and narrow wādis fall towards the NE. shore of L.
Tiberias; as they descend to the lower levels they take courses
almost parallel to the Jordan. In winter they flood the
marshy and fever-stricken plain, El-Batihah, but in summer
they are more or less dried up. Apart from W. es-Semak,
all the wādis of consequence form part of the great basin
of the N. Yarmūk which drains the greater part of Haurān
and Jaulān, see p. 570 f. These wādis are invariably deep and
steep and the limestone strata of their lower sections show
the great depth of the overlying lava flow. The Yarmük
in fact roughly marks the southern boundary of the basaltic
country which in the neighbouring district of ‘Ajlūn gives
way to limestone.
W. es-Semak drains the northern slopes of the plateau known
as Ez-Zāwiyeh el-Gharbīyeh, and debouches near the middle
of the eastern shore of L. Tiberias; next to the Yarmūk
it is one of the most important physical features of Jaulān.
PHYSICAL SURVEY OF JAULĀN
569
Schumacher, “The Jaulān’, 1889, writes of this wādi: “It is of
priceless significance for a plan of railway and carriage roads.
No other valley of the upper Jordan land is suitable for this in
an equal degree, for all the others are either narrow or have
a too precipitous crossing up the plateau. The wādi with a
width of 11 to 2 miles, runs up from the shore for about 4 miles
before it divides into two arms. The upper slopes of the
main wādi, which has a gradual fall, are basaltic and only quite
the lowest strata are of chalk. A small stream cuts through
the bed of soft chalk. The upper branch wādis are precipi-
tous and rocky: On the southern slopes of the main wādi
there is water in abundance and the soil is very productive ;
bramble and other scrub and a few oaks are found here and
there, and many ancient ruins bear testimony to the past
prosperity of this locality.
Jaulān is divided into three districts: the northern and most
extensive is known as Esh-Shaʻreh ; the other two on the
S. lying to right and left of the Nahr er-Ruqqād are named
Ez-Zāwiyeh el-Gharbīyeh and Ez-Zāwiyeh esh-Sharqīyeh
respectively. The first mentioned and the upper part of the
second are altogether rough and wild, covered with masses
of lava poured from countless craters. The surface is so
burdened with boulders that it is of little use agriculturally
but it bears good pasture, grass growing so luxuriantly in
spring that tracks and boulders are completely obliterated.
The region, moreover, possesses numerous perennial springs
around which there are always green fringes. In summer the
aspect is dismal and monotonous, but vegetation, protected by
the boulders from the sun's rays, is never entirely burnt up.
Movement is almost impossible except by daylight on the
winding and difficult tracks which seek a way through the
boulders, or by the narrow wagon tracks which run between all
Circassian villages. Quneiterah, alt. 3,300 ft., a flourishing
Circassian town and the chief place of Jaulān, lies to the N.
on the spur or backbone of Shaʻreh on which are high volcanic
peaks. In this neighbourhood considerable areas of ground
have been cleared for cultivation; indeed this applies to all
570
HAURĀN AND JAULĀN
localities occupied by Circassians, but the labour required is
too great for extensive agriculture.
The southern section including the lower part of Ez-Zā-
wiyeh el-Gharbīyeh and all Ez-Zāwiyeh esh-Sharqīyeh is free
of stones; extinct craters become less plentiful and in general
the country is smoother and much more cultivated ; the soil
is rich and brown similar to that throughout the Haurān, and
is capable of producing similar crops.
The extensive oak forests which at one time covered a great
part of the Jaulān plateau have now disappeared and only
small woods and isolated groups of trees remain.
Nahr Yarmūk.--Although this name is often given to the
whole wādi, it belongs more strictly to the northern tributary,
W. el-Ehreir (or 'Irāq), the name Sherī'et el-Menādhireh more
correctly describing the stream for the 25 miles or so between
the mouth of W. el-Ehreir and the Jordan (crowfly, 19 m.).
The three chief branches of the wide Yarmūk drainage-basin
come in close together, W. el-Ehreir from NNE., W. Zeizūn
from E., and W. Shellāleh from S; the confluence is com-
manded by the hill Tell el-Jamīd, with remains of massive
basalt walling on its oblong top, rising some 200 ft. immediately
west of Maqārim station on the l. bank of the Sherī'eh : the
area at the top is about 415 yds. by a maximum of 250 yds.
at the NE. end. The Yarmūk system extends E. to W.
between 60 and 70 miles as the crow flies, its upper branches
having a like range from N. to S. With such a catchment-
basin, the Sherī'eh is especially liable to sudden floods, caused
by rains at a distance. Thus in May 1913, after unusual storms
in the western Hamād south of Haurān, the track crossing
the bridge at Maqārim at a height of 10 ft. above the stream,
which at this point is normally some 70 yds. wide at this
season, was submerged in a few hours, and all the lower ground
flooded. At its head the Sheri'eh is 180 ft. above Mediterra-
nean level, while at its confluence with Jordan it is 835 ft.
below, so that the total fall in about 25 miles is a round
thousand feet. The water flows at great speed down the
narrow valley, sometimes hardly leaving space for a track
PHYSICAL SURVEY OF JAULAN :
571
to pass under the basaltic precipices on either side. Where,
however, the banks are less abrupt, especially when the valley
widens, as at the mouth of W. ez-Zeyyātīn, and near Kuwey-
yeh, 4-5 miles lower, there is room for cultivation ; here the
Menādhireh Arabs grow barley and wheat on the slopes, and
have gardens of lemons, pomegranates, vines, and olives.
Other favourable spots farther down stream are cultivated
by the fellahin from El-Kefarāt on the S. side of the river.
There are water-mills at the junction of W. Ku‘eilbeh about
3 miles from the head, and near the hot springs of El-Hammeh
about 3 miles from the outlet into the Jordan valley ; on
the northern bank there is little wood, but oaks and terebinths
are found on the “Ajlūn slopes. The Sherī'eh is fordable
without danger at its head, at several places in the neighbour-
hood of Kuweyyeh, half way down to W. er-Ruqqād, and
again at the junction of that wādi. A strong position at El-
Ehsün (El-Husūn, El-Quseir) on the S. bank, east of the mouth
of Wādi el-Ghazāleh, may be mentioned. Here is a plateau,
with ruins, on the summit of an isolated hill over 1,000 ft.
above the valley, and precipitous on all sides but the S.,
where it is connected by a narrow neck with the mountain
ridge bordering W. Samar. The following are the chief tribu-
taries of Sherī'et el-Menādhireh : W. el-Ehreir rises near
Sanamein in the northern Haurān. It runs at first almost
S., then gradually bears SSW., leaving the town of Sheikh
Miskīn on its 1. bank. It has perennial water only in its lower
course, where it receives several affluents from the N., the
last, before its confluence with the Sherī'eh being the long Nahr
el-'Allān. This affluent, which carries a permanent stream
from Jisr el-'Allān, 9 or 10 miles up its course, rises at 'Ayūn
es-Sakhr, near the foot of Tell el-Hārah. Below the bridge,
it is fed by springs and increases in volume, forming a first
cataract 1 mile N. of Beit ‘Akkār and not far below, a second
with a greater fall (about 60 ft.) into a pool which is rich in
fish. Running through a gorge, and here called W. Beit Akkār,
it falls in a third cataract. Five miles S. of the bridge, it
receives W. el-Jebeleh on the left bank, the sides being here
572
HAURĀN AND JAULĀN
thickly covered with oleanders and cane-brakes : the gorge
now widens to about 500 yds., the banks are less steep, and
the stream receives much water from lateral springs and
brooks.
Wādi Zeidi (‘Aweiret Zeizūn) rises in J. ed-Drūz, north of
Salkhad, and passing the Nuqrah of the Haurān, touches Der'a,
some distance below which it is known as W. el-Meddān; in this
section it is joined on the right bank by W. ed-Dahab from J.
ed-Drūz, a long watercourse with shallow bed and no perennial
Beyond Tell esh-Shehāb (SW. of Muzeirīb) it is joined on the
same side by W. el-Bajjeh flowing from the Bajjeh lake. It
also on the right bank, Moyet Zeizūn, the name of which it
takes until its confluence with Sherī'et el-Menādhireh. It has
two large southern tributaries : W. el-Butm, with its affluent
W. el-`Aqib, rising on the spurs of J. Haurān, runs for about
45 miles in a broad rocky bed with shallow banks, and comes
in about 12 miles above Der'a; W. Shõmar, said to rise on the
W. foot of J. ez-Zumleh near the Hajj road, runs for a long
distance parallel with W. esh-Shellāleh, cuts through the
plain of Nakū" near Remteh and deepens its bed to more
than 30 ft. near its mouth, about 1 mile W. of Tell esh-
Shehāb: both are 'winter wādis ', without perennial streams.
Throughout its upper course, where it traverses the lava,
W. Zeidi does not cut deep into the plain. . At Umm el-
Meyādīn, where it enters the limestone formation, it abrades
the foot-hills of J. ez-Zumleh, forming steep banks on the S.
side; only near Tell esh-Shehāb does it cut itself a deep bed.
It has no perennial brook, but there are springs about Bosrah,
and again at Der'a, where there are six, two, 'Ain el-Mesāri
and 'Ain et-Tawileh, yielding good drinking water, the others.
brackish.
Wādi esh-Shellāleh, in its middle and lower course the boun-
dary between 'Ajlūn and the Haurān, rises far to S., its upper
branches descending from the water-shed of Jebel Ajlūn
west of Sūf, and from a point north of Jerash; until it reaches
PHYSICAL SURVEY OF JAULĀN
573
the neighbourhood of Remteh, it is known as W. Warrān.
After leaving the ‘Ajlūn hills, its valley is shallow and earthy
as far as the Husn-Remteh road, and down this part of its
valley the Circassians of Jerash drive their carts (see p. 607).
But where it is crossed by the Irbid road, its channel is 70
or 50 ft. below the level of the surrounding country ; about
5 miles farther down, at Mughāyir, it has sunk to 170
200 ft. ; while about 3 miles lower, at Shejeret esh-Shabūl,
the stream runs between banks over 400 ft. high, beyond this
point falling in cataracts. At Daneibeh, 2 miles from the
mouth, the sides rise to about 1,000 ft., the gorge being rather
more than 1 mile broad, and in winter impassable through
the rapid growth of torrents in the multitudinous ravines.
In its upper course the wādi usually carries no great volume of
water after winter and spring, and is dry by May or June ;
but after the great storm in May 1913 it was the principal
channel by which the flood waters were brought down (see
above, p. 570). The chief affluents of W. esh-Shellāleh join
it from the west. On its upper course, the largest is W. ed-
Dahabīb, rising under J. Ajlūn, without perennial water.
W. er-Rāhūb rises a little E. of Beit er-Ras, receives a brook
after 41 miles near Rāhūb, where there are gardens and
mills, and comes in west of Turrah. Wādi 'Ain el-Khureibeh,
with a broad, well-cultivated valley rising near the ruins of
Khureibeh, has permanent water from the spring of the same
name about half-way down its course. Lower down, it is
called W. 'Ain el-Ghazāleh' from another spring ; it now falls
in a cataract 100 ft. high, and after supplying seven mills,
descends between high banks to its confluence opposite
Daneibeh which stands high on the rocky E. bank of Wādi
Shellāleh, and is approached by a winding track.
The following southern tributaries join the left bank of the
Sherī'eh from the high ground of El-Kefarāt, the northern
district of the Belqa embraced by the river bend :
Wādi el-Ku'eilbeh, rising east of 'Ain Turāb, 9 miles to the
S., has a permanent brook from Tell Ābil, about 2 miles down
in which distance it falls 1,600–1,700 ft. Its slopes are partly
574
HAURĀN AND JAULĀN
wooded on its lower course, and it enters the Sherīčeh 3-4
miles below the mouth of W. el-Ehreir.
Wādi el-Aqrabeh rises on the Kefarāt watershed opposite
'Ain et-Turāb. It follows a NW. and W. course of about
10 miles, making numerous bends, and falling some 2,000 ft.
its bed for rather more than a mile. From Rafīd it forms
course it is known first as W. “Ulleigeh then as W. Qaleit.
The lower course is perennial from Kefr Lahiyeh, 3–4 miles
above its mouth. The bed of this wādi is rocky and full of
caves ; above Sahem, the gorge is said to be 1,000 ft. deep.
W. Sha‘īb, its chief affluent, rises E. of Samar, and comes in
S. of Sahem after a course of 4–5 miles, only the lower part
of which has perennial water. There is wooded country about
its upper valley and cultivation on its slopes; in the bottom
runs down its bed.
Wādi Samar, rising as W. 'Ain et-Turāb by the spring of that
name, flows NW. for 11 miles, known successively by the local
names of W. el Masabb, W. el-Hamra, Nahr Shaqq el-Bāred
and W. 'Ain el-Ghazāleh, under which latter name it enters
the Sherī'eh near ‘Arāq el-Heitalīyeh. It carries a perennial
brook throughout; the banks and valley slopes are steep,
but not craggy, and are partly cultivated, partly overgrown
with terebinths and storax trees.
On the right (N.) bank, the Sherī'eh receives W. ez-Zeyyātīn,
with a perennial stream, 51 miles below the junction of W.
Ehreir. But the chief tributary on this side is the Nahr er-
Ruqqad, which rises at the foot of Mt. Hermon, but for a long
distance is an unimportant watercourse. It has a perennial
stream from Jisr er-Ruqqād, 3-4 miles NW. of Jisr el-'Allān,
where the road from Bāb et-Tumm to Nawa and Damascus
crosses. But shortly below the bridge it falls over a perpen-
dicular cliff about 80 ft. high, and thence continues in
cascades over basaltic rocks in a deep narrow gorge
30–100 yds. wide until it is joined on the left bank by the
PHYSICAL SURVEY OF JAULĀN
575
Zeizūn brook. The stream is here 6–7 yds. broad in late
summer, but perhaps nearly twenty times the breadth
when the snows melt on Hermon : in its whole course the
N. er-Ruqqād falls more than 2,000 ft. Opposite-the mouth
of W. ‘Ain el-Ghazāleh, the Sheri'eh is joined by the short,
but perennial, W. Mas“ūd.
CLIMATE AND HYGIENE
The conformation of the region comprising Haurān and
Jaulān presents differences of elevation and aspect which
result in very considerable climatic variation a part altogether
from the influence of the western mountain chains and the
eastern desert. The bare and open plain of Haurān lies at an
average alt. of 2,000 ft., some 3,000 ft. lower than the main
ridge of J. ed-Drūz whose several aspects with their frequently
wooded spurs and valleys add other elements of climatic
importance. Jaulān again falls from about 3,600 ft. in
north to about 1,000 ft. in south, while its western slopes
and valleys sink to the Ghör, 682 ft. below sea-level, and are
affected by the climatic conditions of that great rift (see
p. 657 f.).
The following notes are applicable to Haurān in general,
and to part of Jaulān in particular, but there is no available
information as to the many local variations.
The climate of the Haurān plain is considered to be ex-
tremely healthy. During spring and summer it is, in certain
areas, subject to morning mists, the moisture from which
is of much value ; during the heat of the day, it is swept by
fresh breezes, and nights are cool. In winter the winds are
cold and biting. During July and August, the hottest months
of the year, the maximum temperature is about 104° Fahr.,
and in January, the coldest month, frosts are common.
On the Jaulān plateau somewhat similar characteristics pre-
vail ; during the greater part of the day there are fresh winds
and, especially in the north, very heavy dews fall which keep
the mornings pleasantly cool. Immediately after sunset the
temperature quickly falls. The influence of the Ghör is only
576
HAURĀN AND JAULÃN
perceptible on the slopes and lower parts of the valley. It is
only on the marshy Batīhah on the north shore of L. Tiberias,
in the Hūleh marshes, and in the upper parts of the Yarmūk
gorge that malignant fevers are prevalent.
In August and September 1884, the temperature on the high
plateau of southern Jaulān at 5.30 a.m. averaged 59° Fahr.
and it rose during the day to an average of 77º and maximum
of 88° Fahr. On May 26 and 27 slight rain fell. In northern
Jaulān during September the temperature on the plain at
5.30 a.m. averaged 56° and rose to 74° during the day.
In general it is hotter in June and July than in August and
September. Dew falls abundantly throughout the whole
summer. Except in very mild years, snow falls in the region
of Fiq, Dabbūseh, Kefr Hārib, &c., but it lies only for a few
hours. In north Jaulān, however, in the neighbourhood of
Quneiterah and Jõret el-Hawa, snow lies to the depth of
several feet for weeks, and compels the Bedouin to seek the
sheltered wādis. In general the limit down to which snow
regularly falls and remains, is the line Quneiterah-Jormīyeh
to the southern bridge over the Ruqqād and then over the
'Allān. North of this line intense cold prevails during certain
parts of the winter. With a strong east wind, southern and
central Jaulān were found to be bitterly cold in December
1884, whereas from Ist to 4th January 1883 it was mild and
agreeably fresh.
Tell Abu'n-Nada ‘hill of the father of dew', one of the
northern chain of peaks, is a great dew and rain distributing
centre. A thick fog rises from its crater and envelopes
Quneiterah and its neighbourhood in a deep fertilizing
mantle which disappears with the rising sun. The country
from Quneiterah westward to Mansūrah is named Jõret
el-Hawa "lowland of the wind' and during winter this gap
· is swept by a cutting north-west wind which brings with it
a heavy snowfall; it is the most windy tract in northern
Jaulān. .
In J. ed-Drūz the climate of the higher altitudes is healthy,
and the heat of summer is tempered by cool breezes. In
CLIMATE AND HYGIENE
577
winter severe cold is experienced, frost and snow being
common, the latter sometimes lying to a considerable depth for
weeks. In the valleys and lower altitudes, the summer is hot
and enervating.
eticalls but femina Hockel an
INDUSTRIES AND TRADE
Agriculture.—The soil of Haurān is extremely fertile
throughout and produces the finest wheat in Syria. Those
areas which are stoneless and easily tilled are usually chosen
for cultivation, and practically no effort has been made to
reclaim the boulder strewn but fertile tracts which only
produce spring pasture for Bedouin flocks. For the most
part, the crops are dependent upon rainfall and there are
only minor areas where perennial water is available for
irrigation or where rain water catchments have been adapted
to that purpose. In such irrigated portions, the season's
crops are frequently repeated but, in general, there is only
one crop per season.
Western Haurān and northern Jaulān are, on the whole,
fairly well watered; the ground, which here is stony, is
almost entirely uncultivated, but produces spring pasture so
luxuriantly as to hide the boulders and even the ancient
ruins scattered everywhere. In the Nuqrah where the finest
wheat crops are raised, there is extensive cultivation and
northward along the course of the railway lines to Damascus
the soil is also widely cultivated. Elsewhere, however,
the plain istilled only around the widely scattered
villages, the remainder being left to the Bedouin. The
fellah in these parts usually confines his energy to an
area which can be worked by one pair of oxen, known as
a feddān (see p. 324) and moves no further from his village
than he can help. Agriculture here, as elsewhere in Syria,
has been very seriously affected by the unscrupulous opera-
tions of rich merchants who practise a system of usury
to which the fellahin have fallen victims. Since railways
were built there has been a very great increase in the land
brought under cultivation; many of the villages which
(0)
SYRIA
578
HAURAN AND JAULAN
Plaid.
previously were deserted have been reoccupied and the popu-
lation of many others has been nearly doubled. Difficulties
of transport previously crippled the industry, and in years
of heavy crops much grain was allowed to go to waste.
The Circassians of northern Jaulān having their centre at
· Quneiterah, show greater enterprise than the fellahin, and
have reclaimed considerable areas of that stony district.
They have also established wagon tracks for communication
over Jaulān and 'Ajlūn. This part of Jaulān, however,
remains in the main what it has always been, a grazing
country. The hay stacks seen in every Circassian village
are a feature of the locality. The southern part of Jaulān is
stoneless and adaptable to cultivation, the soil being of the
same rich quality as that of the Haurān plain.
In J. ed-Drūz there are fine valleys of rich lava soil on
which cereals of a high quality are raised. Throughout the
mountain, especially on the southern slopes, numerous stone
fenced fields, now largely fallow, bear testimony to the
former agricultural value of the country. On these slopes
vines were at one time extensively cultivated. The mountain
is well watered in some parts, but in general, perennial water
is scarce. The eastern slopes and the plain at the base bear
fine pasture much frequented by the Bedouin.
The comparatively small areas of El-Leja which are under
cultivation, produce small quantities of wheat and barley and
some pasture. To the east of El-Leja there are partly culti-
vated arable tracts, but most of the land is under pasture.
The chief crops of Haurān are wheat, barley, maize and
dhura, the quality of the first-mentioned being famed through-
out Syria and even in Europe, to which a large quantity is
exported. The agricultural possibilities of the region are great
and, under an enlightened government, the industry could be
greatly extended.
The administrative area of the sanjaq of Haurān as given
by Cuinet is considerably greater than the area of Haurān
and Jaulān as here assumed, but the annual yield of the sanjaq
from agriculture is probably only a little greater.
INDUSTRIES AND TRADE
579
Silk
.
The following table from Cuinet's estimates gives the
approximate average annual crop values for the sanjam :
Wheat
• £1,149,000
Barley
680,000
Maize and dhura. .
646,000
· Aniseed and sesame .
262,000
Water melons and fruit
260,000
Raisins .
180,000
Vegetables.
80,000
40,000
Various beans and peas
28,000
Lucerne .
20,000
Tobacco .
5,700
Hemp, sumach and cotton .
9,300
Olives and olive oil, honey and wax, wool and various products 12,600
Total . . . . . . . . . . . . 3,372,600
Live Stock
The amount of live stock raised in the whole sanjaq is
probably considerably greater than that raised in the area
treated above.
Cuinet gives the following figures for the sanjaq:
Cattle
. 1,400,000
Buffaloes . .
50,000
Horses
2,100
Donkeys .
10,000
Mules
8,000
Camels
2,100
Sheep and goats.
1,050,000
Total .
. . 2,522,200
7
ABITANTS
.
.
40,000
The inhabitants of the Haurān sanjaq are all either agri-
culturists or stock raisers.
The following are Cuinet's estimate in round numbers :
Moslems .
Christians . . . . . . . .
o
. ..
. 41,000
Druses
. 55,000
Total . . . . .
. . . . 136,000
This estimate probably includes the sedentary Bedouin
but does not appear to include nomads, of whom there are
large numbers.
002
CHAPTER XVIII
‘AJLŪN AND NORTHERN BELQA
AREA.
‘AJLŪN is bounded on the N. by the Nahr Yarmūk, on the S. by
the Nahr ez-Zerqa, on the W. by the Jordan Valley, and on the E.
by the Haurān and the Hamād. It is divided into a number
of districts largely determined by the physical configuration
of the country. On the west side of the main watershed, from
south to north, the following tracts succeed each other. El-
Meʻrād and J. ‘Ajlūn are both wooded, rising to the culminating
point of the whole region NW. of Sūf, and extending north to
W. el-Yābis. El-Kūrah, between that wādi and W. et-Tayyi-
beh, is at first similar in character, but at its northern edge
there begins a series of narrow interfluvial plateaux, continued
in the next district of El-Wustīyeh to end in rolling country
sloping to W. el-'Arāb. The succeeding district, Es-Sīru,
is little more than a high ridge formning part of the watershed
between W. el-'Arāb and Sheri'et el-Menādhireh. Farthest
to the north is El-Kefarāt, a wooded tract in the bend of the
Sherī'ah. On the east side of the watershed lie the following
districts. The first on the south is Beni Hasan, called after
the tribe of that name, including the tract known as Es-Suweit,
It runs N. about as far as J. ‘Ajlūn, but also has an easterly
slope towards the Hamād, into which the district merges
through decreasing hills and ridges, chiefly bare, but with
single trees (terebinths) scattered here and there. Beni
‘Obeid, to the north, also named from an Arab tribe, con-
tinues the long gradual slope down towards Yarmūk;
moderate hills pass into flatter country of an open character.
On the W. this district marches with El-Kūrah, on the E., its
border is, roughly, a line running NW. from the region of the
AREA
581
Khaneizīr in Beni Hasan to W. esh-Shellāleh, which is regarded
as the frontier of the Haurān. North of Beni 'Obeid, is Beni
Juhma, marching on the W. with El-Wustīyeh and Es-Sīru.
This is a district sloping east and north to W. esh-Shellāleh,
and west to W. el-Ghafr. It consists for the most part of open
country; the soil of the plain, El-Biqā', on its eastern side
almost equals that of the Haurān in fertility,
TTT
PHYSICAL FEATURES
‘Ajlūn, beginning on the N. bank of the Nahr ez-Zerqa, is a
region more deeply furrowed by wādis and more thickly wooded
than the Belqa. Its southern slope, immediately above the r.
bank, rises in its western half to a maximum of some 3,000 ft.
in 3-4 miles. The best approach from the Belqa is farther
E., where the comparatively long valley of W. Jerash offers
easy gradients; on this valley the roads from Salt and
‘Ammān converge.
Relief
The main watershed of the country, beginning W. above
the Ghör NE. of Tell Deir ‘Alla, runs at first E., rising
steadily from Muntār ‘Omeri (1,007 ft.) to Nijdi (3,542 ft.)
and Qal'at Elyās, N. of the village of Birma, which is approxi-
mately the same height. Here it bends N., still increasing in
height, till it attains its maximum with El-Menārah (4,040 ft.),
41 m. NW. of Jerash, at an altitude very nearly corresponding
with that of J. Osha'. It now begins to decrease, gradually
falling over the 17 miles north to Irbid. In five miles Ras
el-Imnīf shows a loss of only 150 ft., Rās Harāqla beyond it,
of 300 ft. At the cross-roads near Qasr Rāksa some
13 miles away, the loss is still only 600 ft. ; but from here
the fall to Irbid is 700 ft. in five miles. From Irbid the crest
continues N. with little change of height for a further five
miles, then bends W. to Ibdar and Umm Keis, near which
place it ends with a steep drop of 1,650 ft. in a few miles to the
Ghör. The main watershed thus encloses within two recurved
arms almost all “Ajlūn, the predominant slope of which is
582
AJLŪN AND NORTHERN BELQA
1
woosimum distating to betet
westward, formed by a succession of parallel ridges and ravines
issuing through gorges into the Jordan valley. In the southern
half of the district the ridges between the chief watercourses
are high, narrow, and covered with trees and rocks, with space
for larger villages only along the more open valleys. In the
northern half, the ridges broaden to narrow plains, such as
those on which Tibneh and Et-Tayyibeh stand, and there are
fewer trees. But though fertile, these plains are restricted by
deep confining wādis, and scope for cultivation is necessarily
reduced. N. of the Ibdar-Umm Keis line there is a short
northern slope to the Sherī'et el-Menādhireh (Lower Yarmūk),
the fall amounting to between 2,000 and 1,700 ft. in a
maximum distance of about 7 miles (crowfly) down the
wooded tract of El-Kefarāt (see p. 598 f.), which is crossed
by tributaries running north-west.
East of the main watershed there are two principal slopes.
One falls approximately south to N. ez-Zerqa, the other north
to N. Yarmūk, both from an easterly continuation of J. Ajlūn
which runs by J. Qafqafa and Tell Abu 'Ayāth (3,427 ft.)
towards Rihāb, about 3 m. W. of the Hejaz Railway. On the
first, the gradients are not steep except just above the bed
of the Zerqa; the Valley of Wādi ed-Deir (Wadi Jerash) affords
easy entrance into 'Ajlūn, nor are the gradients difficult
in the less frequented Beni Hasan country farther east. The
second slope, drained by W. Warrān (Upper W. esh-Shellāleh),
the chief southern tributary of Yarmūk, falls about 3,000 ft. in
a distance of some twenty-five miles, at first amid undulating
hills, then through flatter and more open country.
The Northern Belqa, of which the boundaries have been
defined above (p. 557), has two main slopes, one facing SW.
to the Jordan Valley from a line curving between Hesbān and
J. Ösha', the other N. from a straighter line running eastward
from Ösha' through Kām Yājāz to the l. bank of the upper
N. ez-Zerqa ; these two slopes enclose a triangular upland
with its apex to NW., forming the heart of the whole region.
There are two subsidiary slopes, one draining S. and SE. from
the base of the upland by upper watercourses of the Zerqa
PHYSICAL FEATURES
583
Mā'in and the Wāleh-Mõjib systems, the other directly W. to
the Ghör between the lower slopes of Osha' and the mouth of
N. ez-Zerqa.
The district as a whole is distinguished from that to the S.
of it not only by the greater extent of its broken country but
by a progressive increase in the number of its trees. The
south-western slope is wooded only along its upper part;
lower down, except here and there in perennial wādis, there
are few trees ; it has been remarked that any one provided
with a small-scale map could find the way from the Jordan
to Mādeba without a guide. The scenery here has reminded
more than one traveller of our own continent rather than
of Asia. The oaks and rapid streams of many upper valleys
have recalled the hill country of Central Europe ; W. Hesbān,
with its green sides, abutting rocks and fallen boulders sug-
gested to Tristram a Scottish glen or Cumbrian dale. The
northern slope is the more consistently wooded, and is de-
scribed as park-like over a great part of its extent; but it
appears to have no forest. Here also travellers are reminded
of European scenery; the hills and hollows are dotted with
trees, single or in groups, with intervening glades cultivated
for barley, or left under grass. The slope is commanded from
the S. by several high points, of which the best known and
most accessible is J. Osha' (3,595 ft.), easily ascended in about
an hour from Salt, and affording wide views northwards.
To SE. of it rise successively Khirbet el-Foq‘ān (3,248 ft.)
and Kõm Yājűz (3,051 ft.). The line of hills commonly known
as J. Jel'ād extends for 7 m. NE. from J. Ösha'; it is
thought, however, that this name should be restricted to the
part on which stand the ruins of Khirbet Jelʻād, a site not
where the maps place it, near the Salt-Allān road, but
five or six miles farther E. on a western affluent of W. er-
Rumeimīn, ten miles NE. of Salt. Below this line of hills
the ground falls northward in four terraces. Under ‘Allān,
between that place and J. Meisareh, is a fertile plain, El-Ardh,
with rich pasture ; under Suweileh, towards the middle of the
watershed, the depressed alluvial plain, El-Buqei-, extending
VID
584
‘AJLŪN AND NORTHERN BELQA
some & m. from SW. to NE., with a breadth of about 6 m.,
is probably the bed of a former lake draining into W. er-Rum-
mān. The rich soil of El-Buqei' forms fine meadow land
round the springs and ruins of Khirbet el-Bāsha ; the plain
may be compared with a smaller depression called Hem el-
Belqa, some miles farther to SE., between W. el-Hammām
and ‘Ammān. Of the eastern part of the slope, N. of Yājūz,
little is known in detail. Where it has been crossed, between
Yājūz and N. ez-Zerqa north of ‘Alūk, it appears to re-
semble the country north-east of J. Öshaʻ, with glades, valleys,
and hills covered with scattered trees, and with excellent
pasture in many places. Towards the eastern bend of N.
ez-Zerqa the trees disappear and the country becomes bare,
forming a transition to the border of the Hamād. The short
south-eastern slope is bare and waterless, and without much
importance to the district as a whole. The western slope
is formed of spurs from J. Jel'ād and J. Ösha', diminishing
in height northwards to the low range or ridge, Dhahr el-
Meisareh, which drops rapidly towards the lower Zerqa between
Tulūl ed-Dahab and Deir ‘Alla. Between the higher hills and
the Ghör, along the southern part of this slope, intervenes an
irregular line of lower hills, El-Hamra'iyeh, extending to
a point rather N. of the Nāblus-Salt road, and cut by
numerous watercourses. The triangular upland between
the above slopes is not a level plain, but is interspersed
with irregular hills. It is fertile, cultivated for cereals both
by the Belqāwīyeh Arabs (see below) and by the inhabitants
of the villages round its borders, and has always possessed
importance as lying on the main line of approach from Judaea
to the Haurān via ‘Ammān: the high road between Salt
and the latter place crosses it from west to east. The altitude
of the heights commanding it increases from S. to N. On
the south rise Umm es-Semmāk (3,179 ft.) and Khirbet Sār
(3,190 ft.); on the north Jubeihet el-Kebīreh (3,468 ft.) and
Khirbet Khuldeh (3,586 ft.), the height of which is within
a few feet of that of J. Ösha'.
1
PHYSICAL FEATURES
585
Watercourses in ‘Ajlūn
W. Rājib, rising about 3 m. due west of Sūf, near the culmi-
nating point of the country, is separated from N. ez-Zerqa
by the southern part of the main watershed, the course of
which it follows on the northern side, descending first alınost
S., then turning WSW., to flow down to Jordan. It carries
water almost from its head, and is the most copious stream
between Zerqa and Yarmūk, though much diversion for pur-
poses of irrigation reduces the volume in its lower reaches.
It is known successively as W. el-Khadhr, W. Hammūr, W.
‘Arabūn, and W. Rājib, and like all the western ‘Ajlūn water-
courses runs mostly in a deep narrow valley, partially wooded,
and rich in waterside growths ; it is most open, and has most
cultivable ground, near the village of Rājib. On the l.
(southern) bank, where the watershed is generally near, its
affluents are short and of no importance, the only tributary
of any length on this side being W. es-Sūq (W. Shām), which
comes in from the E., rising south of Sākib ; it has no perennial
brook. Along its lower course the water-parting dividing
it from W. Kefrinji to N. abuts close upon the bed, but recedes
above the village of Rājib, and leaves space for an affluent
with extensive branches, rising near the. head of the main
stream and S. of El-Bedīyeh : the lowest branch on the l. bank,
W. Sarabīs, alone carries a permanent stream, having springs
in its valley. An irrigation-channel more than a mile long
runs along the north bank from Rājib westwards.
W. Kefrinji is important as having on its banks the three
large villages of Kefrinji, ‘Ajlūn, and ‘Ain Janna its upper
middle valley forming the heart of higher 'Ajlūn, a beautiful
and healthy region, still finely wooded. Rising on the main
watershed west of Sūf close to the north of W. Rājib, and flowing
in a general SW. direction, it has apparently fewer local names
than other watercourses of its length, and is generally known
as W. Kefrinji or W. 'Ajlūn. It begins to carry water about
4 m. from its head, just above the village of 'Ain Janna, and
is swollen at 'Ajlūn by a brook from its northern tributary,
586
‘AJLŪN AND NORTHERN BELQA
W. 'Ain et-Teis. Below 'Ajlūn, its volume is increased by
the perennial W. ed-Deir, joining it on the S., near the
village of 'Anjara. Its other tributaries bring it little
water except in winter. The longest on the northern slope
rises N. of ‘Ajlūn, passes N. of Qalʼat er-Rabūd, and then bears
S., joining the main stream, as W. el-Emzeirīb (Muzeirīb), a
little below Kefrinji. Two long southern tributaries, rising S.
of this village, run some miles in a westerly direction, joining
W. Kefrinji before it narrows for its passage through the hills
into the Jordan Valley. At the outlet of W. Rājib into the
Ghõr there are the remains of an arched aqueduct; a channel
diverted from the l. bank in the hills turns two mills before
its issue S. of Faqāris.
W. el-Yābis, of which the chief upper branches rise on the
watershed N. of Sūf, in the neighbourhood of Ras el-Imnīf,flows
almost W., entering Jordan about 9 m. N. of the mouth of
Wādi Kefrinji, the upper branches of which are quite close to
its own. Its basin is widest S. of its upper and middle course,
where it ramifies through three long tributaries, W. el-Miqwas,
W. Bā‘ūn, W. 'Abd el-'Azīz, each with numerous local names;
but these bring it little water except in winter. Farther W.
its valley narrows, the stretch of hills between its lower course
and that of W. Kefrinji draining direct to Jordan from a
water-parting which runs N.-S. The chief wādis of this
subsidiary catchment-area are W. Sūfara and W. Seleikhāt
(El-'Asi), between which lies the village of El-Khirbeh, and to
the north, W. el-Libbeh, none of them carrying perennial
water for any distance. W. el-Yābis has a perennial streani
from 'Ain el-Beidha about lj m. above the village of ‘Arjān.
On the r. (N.) bank, W. el-'Ain and W. Murabba' come down
between the villages of Jedeideh and Kefr Abil, but neither
has a permanent stream. In its lower part W. el-Yābis runs
in a deep gorge with sides which are often precipitous and of
great height.
W. Siqlāb begins on the main watershed not far N. of W. el-
Yābis. As in the case of that wādi, the catchment-basin is
widest in the SE., the upper branches spreading across some
PHYSICAL FEATURES
587
ten miles of country, while the lower course is constricted
into a single narrow valley. The most important upper
branch, extending farthest SE., is successively known by the
following local names : W. Rashdan, En-Nasab, 'As'as,
Damak, and Seneisil, below which the main valley is W.
Hammām and, finally, Siqlāb. A northern branch, running
almost parallel and joining at W. Hammām, is first W. el-
Hamra, then W. Abu Shawal, and W. Tibneh, the important
village of that name lying between it and W. Damak to the
south. W. Shārūt (El-Mezār) and ‘Ainbeh (El-Ahseini) are
eastern, and W. Hallān ed-Dīk, El-Ayūn (Izmāl, Fadl), and
‘Amūd north-eastern tributaries of W. Tibneh. W. Siqlāb
has a continuous stream of perennial water only in the last
six miles or so of its course ; but there is a brook about a mile
in length flowing from Ayūn el-Hammām just below the con-
fluence of W. Seneisil and Tibneh, and reinforced half-way by
other springs, 'Ayūn el-Jurn.
As in the case of W. el-Yābis, the region S. of the lower
course of W. Siqlāb drains independently to the Jordan
Valley. The more important wādis of this slope are El-Jisr
(Sartabeh), rising NE. of Kefr Abil, Jirm el-Mõz (Et-Tīneh), on
which is Fahl, Seil el-Hammeh, with hot springs, and W. Abu
Zeyyād (El-Makhrūqeh), all perennial in their lower courses.
W. et-Tayyibeh rises a little further N. on the main water-
shed than W. Siqlāb. It is peculiar in having no tributaries
of any length, its valley being closely confined on either side
by those of other systems from its head to its outlet into the
Jordan valley, on the S. by W. Siqlāb, on the N. by W. el-
Hasa (Qusseib, En-Nuheir, El-Bir), draining directly to Jordan,
and by W. Shomar, a tributary of W. el-'Arāb. W. et-
Tayyibeh has the following local names from E. to W.:
Hiyār, Habaqeh, Jurūn, Seheil, Semmū', Tayyibeh. Near
the village of Semmū', on the S. side of its middle course,
the wādi bed is 500 ft. below the surrounding plateau ;
the village of Tayyibeh is also high on the plateau above
the N. bank a little farther to W. Though the wādi is
torrential in winter, at other seasons it has perennial water
588
‘AJLŪN AND NORTHERN BELQA
only in the last five or six miles of its course, where it winds
out into the Jordan Valley.
W. el-'Arāb has a very fertile valley, and is the most con-
siderable wādi between Yarmūk and Zerqa. Its upper
branches rise on the main watershed west of Irbid, a short
distance north of the head of W. et-Tayyibeh. Its two great
tributaries are W. Zahar (with two branches, W. Shomar,
and W. Ibsarr), and W. el-Ghafr, which, rising near the same
point, runs first to Irbid, then past Sõm, receiving on the
r. bank W. el-Haddad and W. Barūqah, more than a mile
above the point where a perennial stream first begins, and
the valley properly bears the name of El-'Arāb.
The first spring rises at an altitude of 619 ft. above the
Mediterranean, and in its ten-mile course W. el 'Arāb proper,
flowing with a rapid stream between rocky limestone sides,
drops close upon 1,500 ft., the altitude at the bridge near
Shūneh being - 689 ft., and at the confluence with
Jordan, 200 ft. lower : for part of its course the stream thus
flows below the Mediterranean level. The brook produced
by the springs above the confluence of W. Zahar has been
estimated to yield 261 cubic feet a second of good clear water,
and below the confluence double the amount, until the outlet
into the Ghör is reached, when the quantity diminishes. The
valley is at first deep and narrow, with banks rising on
the north side for 800-900 ft. to Umm Keis, several brooks here
descending the slopes ; it gradually widens towards the Ghör,
green meadows now bordering the stream, which is described as
full of fish; flour mills succeed each other along the lower course.
W. Zahar has perennial water in its last two miles, and is here fed
by many springs yielding excellent water. Its stream at the
point where the Darb el-Eqfül (Qfül) crosses has been estimated
in June as 14 ft. wide and about 1 ft. deep; the brook is rapid,
turning a number of water mills and forming pools or ponds full
of fish.
Watercourses in the Belga
· W. Kefrein (W. Jurf Abu ez-Zīghān) is formed by the con-
fluence of W. Nā‘ūr and W. es-Sīr. The former rises under
PHYSICAL FEATURES
589
Semmāk on the plateau 6-1 m. N. of Hesbān, and becomes
perennial below Khirbet Nā‘ūr, where are a spring and
waterfall. Below this point its banks are high and often
wooded, while its brook is swollen by additional springs.
About three miles farther down it receives on the r. W. esh-
Shita, with a brook in its lower course : here it is sometimes
known as W. Bahhāth. After another 2 m. it is joined
on the same side by W. es-Sīr. This tributary, beginning not
far E. of the village of Fuheis, has perennial water from 'Ain
es-Sīr, below which it runs in a wooded valley for 5 m.
to ‘Arāq el-Emīr ; between this point and its junction with
W. Nā‘ūr it descends rapidly and forms numerous cascades.
Below the confluence the joint streams are known as W.
Kefrein, which runs in a general SW. direction for 8 m. to
Tell el-Kefrein on the edge of the Jordan Valley, above
which a long irrigation-canal runs off to NW.; from here
the stream is known as W. Jurf Abu ez-Zīghān. From Tell
el-Kefrein it runs SW. across the Ghõr es-Seisebān and joins
W. Hesbān in 3–4 miles.
W. Nimrin (W. Sha‘īb), the valley of which is followed by
the road from Jericho to Salt, rises near Salt and runs first
in a southerly direction through an open valley with rich garden
cultivation, having from the beginning a perennial stream
soon enlarged by several springs. After about 4 miles, it bears
SW. and then SSW., the banks rising more steeply and to a
greater height; they are not wooded, but the brook is lined
with large oleanders, willows, and canes. *About 7 m. from
its south-westerly bend, it bears almost W. and in another
mile enters the Ghor at Tell Nimrîn, to be known for the rest
of its course as Wādi Nimrīn. The chief affluents of W. Sha'īb
come from the NE., from the border of the upland plateau
between Salt and Semmāk. Two only need be mentioned.
W. el-Azraq, crossed about 3 m. SE. of Salt on the way to
Fuheis, has a permanent brook between high rocky banks,
partly wooded, and turning several water mills. W. Jeri'ah
rises a mile or so E. of W. Shaʻīb about 5 m. above their point
of junction; it runs more or less parallel, on the far side
590
‘AJLŪN AND NORTHERN BELQA
of an intervening local watershed, having several springs along
its course, then bears round a spur towards Tell Nimrīn.
It is not wooded, and has no perennial stream; the road from
the Jordan to 'Ammān via ‘Arāq el-Emīr follows part of its
lower course. Few of the wādis reaching the Ghör farther
north are accurately known. W. Heseiniyāt, up which runs
a frequented alternative track to Salt, comes in about 3 m.
north of W. Sha‘ib. This wādi has no perennial brook, and
less vegetation than W. Sha‘īb; there is only one spring,
'Ain et-Tīneh, with a limited supply of water. Between W.
Heseiniyāt and N. ez-Zerqa the following watercourses issue
in the Ghõr at intervals of a mile or so: Wādis 'Ausej,
Meidān, Milh, Ratam, Abyadh (in a deep ravine cut through
white hills), Sidreh (crossed by the Jisr ed-Dāmieh-Salt road
and T.L.), Ibtein Ghazāl, and Qaneyyeh. It does not appear
that any of them have perennial brooks.
One great wādi, with its affluents, drains the whole northern
slope of the Belqa.
Nahr ez-Zerga, the upper branches of which, W. ‘Ammān and
W. el-Hammām, rise about the high point Jubeihet el-Kebireh
S. of Suweileh, makes a great easterly bend in its middle
course, returning upon itself, and at last flowing W. to the
Jordan : Jubeihet el-Kebīreh is barely 20 miles as the crow
flies from the confluence, but the wādi itself, without counting
the windings, covers three times this distance. W. ‘Ammān
first carries a perennial stream a mile or two above ‘Ammān,
though the water is discontinuous in dry weather for a few
miles below the town. Running now NNE., it is joined on the
1. about 6 m. from ‘Ammān by W. el-Hammām, which has
taken a more direct route, carrying a brook from 'Ain Yājūz,
6-7 miles up its course. The joint streams now begin the
great bend round to the fords below Jerash, and are known
finally as N. ez-Zerqa from Qalʼat ez-Zerqa onwards. From
the fords the course is SW. and W. for 15-16 m. to the
outlet into the Ghör near Deir 'Alla. Beyond the outlet
a course of 6-7 miles to SSW. is followed by a short final
bend to NNW., when the Jordan is reached. The Nahr ez-
PHYSICAL FEATURES
591
Zerqa can hardly be classed as a river, though it may be so
described after heavy rains, when it runs rapidly and in great
volume : at such times it cannot be forded in its middle or
lower course. At most seasons it is a brook flowing over
a stony bed, and having, when seen from a distance, the grey
blue colour to which it owes its name. The valley is fertile
throughout, and is followed by a good track almost all the
way. Except in its narrowest parts there are fields and small
cultivated plains along its course, with numerous orchards
and gardens irrigated froin ancient channels; these are most
numerous above the fords to Jerash, and extend E. towards
Qalʼat ez-Zerqa. Much wheat is grown here, ground by mills
beside the stream ; the largest are found near the crossing of
the eastern road from 'Ammān, between the main Jerash
fords and Meshra' en-Nasrānīyeh, and near Tulūl ed-Dahab;
along this great wādi the traveller is hardly ever out of sight
of flocks and herds, or of tillage. From ‘Ammān, down to
the westward bend near 'Ain el-Jirm, the hills on both sides
are low and bare. The valley continues open and wide
down to a point below the Jerash fords, but the sides,
especially on the r. bank, now rise more steeply ; in the
lower part of this section trees are found upon the slopes.
Below the Jerash fords the valley contracts, and remains
narrow, for the next dozen miles to Tulūl ed-Dahab, four
miles from the outlet into the Ghör ; the width is now
sometimes as little as 100 yds., and the rock-formation being
chiefly sandstone, there are frequent landslips. But even
in these twelve miles, there are cultivated bottom-lands
at intervals, and a frequented track runs along the stream.
Between the outlet into the Ghör and the mouth, the banks
are lined with trees, shrubs and vegetation, and at the con-
fluence with Jordan the stream runs out through dense thickets.
At this point N. ez-Zerqa is some 30 ft. across, less than a
quarter of the breadth of Jordan, though it has the more
rapid stream. In winter all the ground about the confluence
is flooded, forming a lake known as Watā‘at el-Khatālīn.
At ‘Ammân and Qalʼat, ez-Zerqa the wādi is now crossed by
592
'AJLŪN AND NORTHERN BELQA
bridges. The number of secondary fords is large, but the
chief are at the points where the tracks from the Belqa to
Ajlūn cross the stream. The most frequented are those on
the main road from Salt to Jerash. Here in summer and
autumn the brook may be 25 to 30 ft. across and 2 ft. deep;
in the early part of the year it would be both wider and
deeper, and after heavy rains swells to a rapid river some
hundreds of yards broad (Schumacher). The ford next in
importance is that on the alternative route from Salt, Meshra'
en-Nasrānīyeh, some miles farther down; here, as late as
May, there may be a strong stream up to horses' girths.
At the crossing of the track from ‘Ammān to Jerash via
Yājūz, above the main Jerash ford, the stream, in autumn,
has been estimated as no more than 10 ft. broad and a foot
deep (Le Strange). Still higher, the fords of the easterly
'Ammān-Jerash road via Qal'at ez-Zerqa present no
difficulty in normal weather. The telegraph line from Salt
to Irbid does not cross with any main road, but passes
2-3 m. to the E. of the Nasrānīyeh ford.
The total fall of N. ez-Zerqa between ‘Ammān and the
Jordan is some 3,500 ft. In the first 30 miles or so, to the
Jerash fords, there is a gradual slope, the difference between
the altitudes at the two places being, roughly, 1,500 ft.
Between these fords and Tulūl ed-Dahab the section in which
the stream cuts a sinuous way through the higher hills, there
is a drop of 1,350 ft. in about eighteen miles, windings included
(crowfly distance, 131 m.). In the four miles between Tulūl
ed-Dahab and Deir ‘Alla, the fall is about 300 ft. ; in the
remaining 101 miles, 430 ft.
The frequented nature of the N. ez-Zerqa valley is in one
respect a danger to health. Pilgrims regularly camp on its
banks just above Qal'at ez-Zerqa, and a quarantine station is
annually established there. Perhaps from this cause typhus
is very prevalent among the Bedouin farther down the valley.
The affluents on the l. bank below W. el-Hammām are
imperfectly known, owing to the absence of a survey of the
Northern Belqa. Two considerable watercourses, W. el-Khalleh
។
PHYSICAL FEATURES
593
and W. Abu Erjāl come in on either side of the ruins of
Bīreh, 2 m. NNW. of 'Ain el-Jirm, but their courses have not
been described. W. er-Rummān and W. er-Ruineimin, are
both crossed by the main Salt-Jerash road, but are still
imperfectly known. The former appears to rise SE. of the
depressed plain of El-Buqei', which is said to drain into it
(see above, p. 584), and follows a NNW. course, joining N. ez-
Zerqa about half-way between the Nasrānīyeh crossing and
the main-route fords S. of Jerash: it is thus a distinct
tributary, and not, as once supposed, an affluent of W. er-
Rumeimīn. In the bed, N. of the Turkoman village of
Rummān, is a brook flowing from a spring ; probably the
wādi has perennial water from this point. W. er-Rumeimīn
rises as W. Abu-Quttein on the E. of J. Õsha', running NE.
through a wooded and partly cultivated valley to a point
a little N. of the village of Rumeimin; several springs are
found in or near its bed. At Rumeimin it receives on the
r. bank W. es-Selīhah, with a perennial brook and waterfall;
on the l. bank, W. Jel'ād (W. Tāleb), running from the hills
past Khirbet Jel'ād, and having a spring bearing its name.
It now descends NNW.-N., reaching N. ez-Zerqa close to the
E. of the Nasrānīyeh ford.
The affluents on the r. bank of the upper N. ez-Zerqa are
no better known. Two watercourses, W. Rafī'ah and Qattār,
rise near Ras el-Marqab, 4 in. E. of ‘Ammān, and run parallel
with W. ‘Ammān, joining near the northerly bend to Qal'at
ez-Zerqa. The largest tributary on this side, W. edh-Dheleil,
comes in from the E., just above 'Ain el-Jirni (see p. 598). It
has been crossed about 8 miles farther up its course, where
it was found to have a broad valley with evergreen oaks and
bushes; Beni Hasan Arabs have stated that it rises near Salkhad
in Jebel Haurān (Robinson Lees). Though W. edh-Dheleil
carries no perennial water above the last mile of its course
(from "Ain Ehseyyeh), the marks of debris upon its banks
shows that at times it flows with a stream estimated, near the
confluence, at 50 to 70 yds. wide and 3 to 6 ft. deep. A Roman
road runs up the r. bank, perhaps continuing to Salkhad.
Рp
SYRIA
594
‘AJLŪN AND NORTHERN BELQA
or
About 5 m. below W. edh-Dheleil, W. Kharasān comes in
from NNE. It rises some 10 m. to NNE., near Khaneizīr in
the Beni-Hasan country, as W. el-Ain, and has perennial water
only in sections, one of half-a-mile, below “Ayūn ed-Deber, 3 m.
above its mouth, the other extending over the last mile of its
course.
W. Qaneyyeh enters from N. onlym. west of W. Khara-
sān, near the ford of the eastern ‘Ammān-Jerash road. It
rises on the high ground near J. Qafqafa, having several
upper branches, the chief being known as W. el-Mitwi ; but
perennial water first occurs in W. esh-Sheri; an affluent
coming in on the W., not far from the village of Medwar
Nõl : in this wādi are important water-holes, Bir esh-Sheri,
where the Beni Hasan bring their herds. Below this point,
the main wādi is known as W. Sahabeh, but there is still no
continuous perennial stream for some 41 m., when an affluent
comes in from N., bringing a brook from the springs of
‘Ayūn el-Keram. From here, down to N. ez-Zerqa, the wādi,
now known as W. Qaneyyeh, carries perennial water.
About 10 m. farther down stream westward, two other
northern affluents come in side by side, their mouths forming
à delta. These are, first, W. er-Riyāshi, rising NNE. of
Jerash, and having a perennial stream from a point a little
above the village of Nebi Hūd, and second, the Wādi of
Jerash, known also in its lower course as W. et-Tawāhīn and
in its upper as W. ed-Deir. This wādi rises in the central hill
region W. of Sūf, and flows first SE., but turns S. above
Jerash, in which direction it continues down to Zerqa : it
has a perennial stream the whole way from Sūf.
West of W.Jerash is a second W. et-Tawāhīn, bringing a brook
down from Teketteh village. Again a short distance to the W.,
is another perennial brook, W. el-Jidi, in the upper valley of
which are several springs. Along the steep northern slope,
between this stream and the Jordan valley, are a number of
short wādis, several containing brooks, of which only the two
following need be mentioned as means of access to the ‘Ajlūn
hills from the Belqa. W. Difla, with its branch W. Fawwārah,
ve the villagang ga perennial strea yashi, rising NNE.
PHYSICAL FEATURES
595
314 m. down-stream from W. el-Jidi, is the watercourse
followed by the westerly route from Salt to Jerash, via the
village of Birma ; it has two chief springs, 'Ain Difla and 'Ain
Fawwārah, and is perennial. About 61 m. farther down,
opposite Tulūl ed-Dahab, is the perennial W. Abu er-Ruweis,
by the side of which a track goes up to Rājib : it falls
2,820 ft. in its short length of 27 miles, and the descent of
neighbouring wādis is proportionately steep.
SPRINGS AND WELLS
'Ajlūn is in most parts rich in springs and brooks with
good drinking water. The exceptions are the east side of
the watershed, and the high plains or plateaux between
the wādis in the districts of Kūrah and Wustīyeh, W. and
SW. of Irbid, where cisterns are chiefly employed. In the
south, as above noted, several perennial brooks descend the
steep northern bank of Zerqa from Meʻrād, increasing in length
and volume eastward to W. ed-Deir (Jerash), which has a good
stream; there are copious springs in and to N. of Jerash itself.
All the main wādis of J. ‘Ajlūn have abundant water, mostly
sufficient for irrigation; the five principal villages, Rājib,
Kefrinji, 'Ajlūn, 'Ain Janna, and Sūf, have abundance from
springs and streams. In El-Kūrah the slope towards the
Ghör alone has brooks of any length (see above, p. 580);
W. 'Ain et-Tīneh (Jirm el-Möz) at Fāhil (Pella) has a
number of springs yielding unlimited supplies. In the
higher central region there are few springs or brooks other
than the short length of W. el-Hammām NW. of Tibneh,
fed by the springs 'Ayūn el-Hammām and 'Ayūn el-Jurn
(p. 587). In El-Wustīyeh perennial streams are again few :
they include W. el-'Arāb, the lower W. Zahar and neighbouring
brooks, and W. Qusseib with a head stream running from the
village of Mendah. In the lower W. el-'Arāb, the circular
hill Tell Zar'ah has a small pond on its top, in which a spring
rises. The two northern districts of Es-Sīru and El-Kefarāt
have plentiful water, streams descending on both sides of the
ridge on which Umm Keis stands. 'Ain el-Asal, by the ruins of
PP 2
596
‘AJLŪN AND NORTHERN BELQA
El-Qabu, a couple of miles E. of Umm Keis, is a fine spring with
stream flowing south. Farther E. on the same side of the
ridge, at the top of the southern slope, are 'Ain el-Qasab, 'Ain
Ra‘ān, and 'Ain Barūqah, with ‘Ain Hātim, S. of Ibdar; on
the N. side of the ridge are: a spring near a few huts at El-
Mezra' 1 m. N .of Umm Keis, 'Ain Kitāb, 'Ain es-Sahn, 'Ain
el-Kīleh, and ‘Ain Umm el-Kharaq. In the SE., 'Ain Fu'arah,
at the village of that name, on a branch of W. el-Haddād,
yields a copious supply. The remaining springs of the district
are on and about the Sherī'et el-Menādhireh. In the valley,
N. of Umm Keis, are the four hot springs of El-Hammeh
with temperatures ranging from 83° F. to 115° F.: the
largest has a basin of 60 yds. by 30 yds., and an average
depth of 6 ft. : the brooks flowing from them fertilize a long
strip of land, and there is dense growth of palms and canes
about the pools where they rise. The outflow of one spring,
Hammet esh-Sheikh, a little below the ruins, with a tempera-
ture of 115° F., works a mill; near it is another spring of rather
lower temperature, Hammet Rīh el-Ghanam. Each yields
about 35 cubic ft. per second. These springs are within easy
reach of El-Hammeh station on the Haifa-Der'a line. About
a mile E. of El-Mukheibeh is a small lake or pool, Birket el-
‘Arā'is, 130 yds. square, with marshy edges overgrown with
rushes, and clear but slightly brackish water : duck and
water-fowl are said to be found here. It lies in a depression
a little above the Sheri'eh, with hills on all sides but the N.;
it increases in size in winter, but has no apparent outlet. In
May, 1885, its temperature was 81° F., nine degrees warmer
than the air.
The ancient aqueduct known as Qanāt Far'ün (Pharaoh's
watercourse), running along the watershed past Ibdar to 'Ain
et-Turāb, at the SE. corner of El-Kefarāt, is said to be trace-
able as far as Dilli in the Haurān. It is an open channel of
masonry, almost semicircular in section, lined with concrete
and rendered in cement. In El-Kefarāt, in addition to the
streams in the Sherī'eh and its affluents (see pp. 570 ff.), the
following good springs may be mentioned : 'Ain Samar, at the
SPRINGS AND WELLS
597
village of that name, and 'Ain el-'Ulleiqeh, half-way up
W. el-'Ulleiqeh (middle W. Qaleit).
East of the main watershed, the district of Beni Hasan is
only well supplied along the N. ez-Zerqa (see p. 594). Farther
north, the water-holes and standing wells are neither reliable
nor wholesome. Such are: Bir esh-Sheri, west of Medwar Nől,
and Belaʻmah about half-way between 'Ain el-Jirm and El-
Mafraq. At 'Ayūn el-Keram, 2–3 m. S. of Medwar Nõl, there
is enough water to irrigate vegetable gardens. The three
districts N. of Beni Hasan, Beni 'Obeid and Beni Juhma,
rely almost entirely upon water stored in cisterns, the wādis
carrying water only in the rainy season.
There are few parts of the northern Belda in which drinking
water cannot be obtained within moderate distances. The
two chief exceptions are the slope to the Jordan valley between
W. Sha‘īb and N. ez-Zerqa, and the interior slope north of El-
‘Āl, draining to the south and east. Like the plateau of
Moab, the hilly upland between Salt and 'Ammān is super-
ficially poor in water ; but there is abundance round its edges,
and its north-eastern angle is enclosed by two perennial
streams. It will have been gathered from what has been said
above that the three larger wādis of the south-western slope
have brooks which run all the year; the longest, W. Kefrein,
has two affluents, which are perennial for the greater part of
their course. In the intervening country there are many
springs, chiefly along minor wādis. These are too numerous
for individual record ; special mention can be made only of
well-known and copious sources : ‘Ain Hesbān, the spring
and waterfall at Khirbet Nā‘ūr, the abundant springs in
and below Salt, and the hot spring of El-Hammām near
the l. bank of W. Kefrein, about 2 miles ESE. of Khirbet
el-Kefrein, where there is a pool of sulphurous water amid
canes and rushes, with a temperature of 98° F. .
The northern Belqa slope to N. ez-Zerqa (including, as
already stated, the part of the upland plateau N. and W. of
‘Ammān) is plentifully supplied. From 'Ain 'Ammān and 'Ain
Yājūz these watercourses derive perennial brooks; while the
598
‘AJLŪN AND NORTHERN BELQA
northern slope proper has many known running brooks and
springs, and will certainly prove richer when it has been
surveyed. N. ez-Zerqa itself has good water throughout :
springs on its course for special mention are ‘Ain Ghazāl,
3-4 miles below ‘Ammān; 'Ain ez-Zerqa, Qalʼat ez-Zerqa,
Ain el-Jirm, 4 m. to the N. of that place; and two hot
springs 'Ain el-Ehmeimeh by the main fords to Jerash, and
Tell el-Hammeh near the outlet into the Ghör. Wādis Rummān
and Rumeimīn have running brooks and springs at the villages
bearing their names ; W. Selihah, an affluent of the latter
stream, has a fine waterfall. In the meadowland on the
depressed plain El-Buqei' there is a good spring at Khirbet
el-Bāsha, while above, on the high slopes to the S., the
Circassian village of Suweileh is abundantly supplied by more
than one copious spring. On the westerly route from Salt
to Jerash there is plentiful water at the ruins of 'Allān and
Shīhān. Of conditions within the eastern bend of Zerqa less
is known : the route followed by Le Strange between 'Ammān
and Jerash would seem to be poorer in water than those
farther west; but in a country so rich in pasture there must
undoubtedly be many sources yet to be discovered.
Forests.-A great part of this area is naturally rich in
timber. Before the war, the scantiness of the population
prevented denudation from spreading very fast, except in the
neighbourhood of the Circassian settlements; otherwise,
reckless pollarding by charcoal-burners and others, and the
destruction of young trees by goats, would have laid whole
tracts of once wooded country bare. The war has led to
systematic felling in tracts near practicable roads.
In Ajlūn the wooded area is of forest density only to the west
of the main watershed, and thickest on the higher ground of
J. Ajlūn to the west of Sūf. It extends northward over
Meʻrād and J. ‘Ajlūn to beyond W. Tibneh, N. of the village of
that name; north of this region the country is comparatively
bare until the slopes of W. el-Arāb are reached. Beyond this
wādi another wooded zone bends from Umm Keis north-east-
ward through El-Kefarāt, then east towards the Haurān, finally
VO
SPRINGS AND WELLS
599
SE. up W. el-Ghafr to Sõm and beyond, so that west of the
watershed only the district of El-Wustīyeh is poor in trees,
though even here oaks are scattered upon the plateau. As in
the case of the corresponding area in the Belqa, the Jordan
slopes are generally bare.
East of the watershed there is no thick woodland. The
forest ceases before Sūf is reached, and the valley of W. ed-
Deir (upper W. Jerash) is open, with only occasional trees;
but even beyond this wādi, on the undulating ridges of the
Beni Hasan district, there are numerous terebinths, singly or in
groups. In the south-western corner of the district, along
N. ez-Zerqa, trees continue for some miles ; in the south-
eastern corner terebinths follow the valley of W. Dheleil beyond
the Hajj road and the Hejaz Railway. Beni ‘Obeid has trees
only in the NW., where it is traversed by upper branches of
wādis belonging to the western slope ; Beni Juhma is wooded
in like manner only in the adjoining tract. In the Belqa, a
wooded zone runs along the upper part of the south-western
slope from the neighbourhood of 'Ain Hesbān to that of Salt
(see above), and trees interspersed with glades are scattered
over almost the whole northern slope from the line J. Ösha--
Yājūz down to N. ez-Zerqa, the country growing barer within
the eastern bend of the wādi. The short western slopes to the
Jordan valley have no trees, though willows are found along
the stream in W. Shaʻīb, and possibly elsewhere. The chief
tree both in Belqa and ‘Ajlūn is the evergreen oak, Quercus
coccifera, which grows here to a greater size than W. of
Jordan. The pine (Pinus Halepensis) occurs on the higher
ground in Meʻrād, about Sūf, at Khirbet Mahana N. of 'Ain
Janna, and on the slopes of J. Jel'ād in the Belqa. These
two species represent, with admixture of terebinth and storax,
the original forest; among other trees may be men-
tioned the carob, the pistachio, and the hawthorn. The
oriental plane, juniper, poplar, ash, elm, and tamarisk are
not forest trees, and some of them are not indigenous. The
wild almond is frequently found, and in greater profusion
in W. el-Arāb, especially below Zahar el-`Aqabeh; walnut-
600
AJLŪN AND NORTHERN BELDA
trees are grown at 'Ain Janna. The willow flourishes along
running streams, where also oleanders grow almost to the size
of trees. Among shrubs forming undergrowth, mention may
be made of the laurustinus, cytisus, and arbutus.
CLIMATE
The climate of the Belqa and of 'Ajlūn is healthy, as both are
high, and there is little or no stagnant water; but it can be
very cold, and the Arabs say of the Belqa that it is one of the
homes of cold. The chief rainy season begins in autumn, but
there may be heavy storms in spring or even early summer.
During a spring equinox Oliphant, travelling between ‘Ammān
and Salt, experienced drenching rain and bitter cold, and
compared the weather to that of the Scottish highlands in
November. As a rule, rain does not fall between May and
October, but Schumacher in N. 'Ajlūn records heavy showers
in the second week of one June, lasting the whole day; and on
May 18, 1913, regular cloudbursts over the Hamād south of
the Haurān, and farther S. again, beyond the Hejaz Railway,
caused destructive floods in the basins of the Zerqa and
Yarmūk (see Chap. XVII, p. 570). After the rain the hail lay
on the ground for hours to the depth of 21 ft., the tempera-
ture having fallen from a sultry heat to a considerable degree
of cold. Snow falls heavily every winter in El-Kūrah and
J. 'Ajlūn; in the more northerly, but lower, region including
Es-Sīru, El-Wustīyeh, El-Kefarāt and Beni Juhma, it falls
only once in two or three years, and hardly lies more than
a couple of days. In February, 1898, snow fell heavily at
Hesbān for two days, rendering the Kerak road.very difficult.
In the first part of the year the nights and early mornings are
often frosty. In the N. of Es-Sīru the thermometer in March
has registered 4 degrees of frost. At ‘Ammān, Tristram
found ice on the water-basins in early May. In June the
nights are cool and the early mornings cold in the valley of
the middle Zerqa. In high summer it may be oppressively
hot, though as a rule a north-westerly breeze blows from about
9 a.m. until sundown. Maximum temperatures which have
CLIMATE
601
PS
been noted are: May, Zerqa valley, 98-6° F.; July, 'Ain
Janna, 96° F.; late August, W. Warrān, 107°, Tayyibeh
100.4°. The following are average temperatures in N. Ajlūn
recorded by Schumacher during a period of about three weeks
between the latter half of May and the middle of June : 6 a.m.,
66-5° F. ; 10 a.m., 86° F. ; 6 p.m., 76° F.
In autumn the nights and early mornings may be cold, and
persistent morning mists last as late as 9 a.m.; the days re-
main hot. In northern 'Ajlūn in early October, while the
thermometer at noon registered 86° F. under trees, the night
temperature was 50º. Before the winter rains a dry and
enervating E. wind may blow for a fortnight on end.
Mtume
MINERAL RESOURCES
There has been no systematic prospecting for minerals. At
Maghāret el-Wardeh, about 11 m. SSE. of Rājib, there is an
old iron mine with galleries in the hill, from which Schumacher
brought away specimens of ore in 1898 : the iron occurs in
the Cenomanian chalk. In the Senonian, a few miles E.
of Salt, are rich deposits of fish-coprolite and fish bone
forming a phosphate chalk, exploited for a time by an Italian
company, but abandoned on account of transport difficulties.
Drilling for oil was begun in 1912 by the Syrian Exploitation
Company near the railway station at Maqārim on the S. bank
of Nahr Yarmūk : here there is contact between pre-glacial
lavas and upper calcareous rocks, and it was expected that the
plane would be reached at 1,000 ft. In June, 1914, a depth of
600 ft. had been attained ; fevers prevailing in a desert region
had hindered the enterprise, which was conducted by British
mining engineers.
INDUSTRIES
Agriculture, fruit-growing, and the breeding of cattle, sheep,
and goats, are the chief occupation of the people. The staple
crops, both on the plateau, in the bottom-lands of the wādis, or in
the cleared glades of the partly-wooded slopes, are wheat, barley,
beans, and lentils, with some maize, dhura, and tobacco. The
602
‘AJLŪN AND NORTHERN BELQA
calcareous soil, though fertile, is not equal to that of the Haurān
for the growth of cereals ; if any comparison exists, it is in
the N. of the district, where patches of volcanic soil are found,
e. g. between Umm Keis and Ibdar, and E. of Kefr Jā'iz, Beit
Ras, and Irbid. With industrious cultivation, however, such as
is applied by the Circassians, average crops can be raised in most
parts of the country; the wheat of the plain between Salt
and 'Ammān is of fine quality, and is exported to Jerusalem.
The vineyards and fruit-gardens of the district are extensive
and important. The former are cultivated entirely for the
production of raisins, the chief centres being Salt and
the larger villages of central ‘Ajlūn, especially those in the
Kefrinji valley. The grape crop of Salt is estimated as worth
£T. 100,000 a year; that of 'Ajlūn, though smaller, is yet
considerable and is exchanged for Haurān wheat. Viticulture
could without doubt be much extended ; numerous remains
of terraced vineyards show that in ancient times it was
general up to the Yarmūk, in the valley of which stream a few
vines are to be seen to-day.
Fruit trees are grown for the most part along wādis where
irrigation is possible. In W. Kefrinji, at Kefrinji ‘Ajlūn and
‘Ain Janna, the gardens run for miles ; other gardens are
found at various points in Sheri'et el-Menādhireh, W. ed-Deir
at Jerash, W. Rājib, N. ez-Zerqa, and W. Sha‘īb, below Salt.
The chief trees cultivated are apricots, figs, pomegranates,
plums, and peaches. There are olive-groves round the greater
number of the villages, but the trees are mostly of great age
and receive little attention from their present owners. Oil is
made by primitive methods for local use. When the olive-crop
fails, as it does almost every second year, merchants bring oil
from Lebanon and receive raisins in exchange. Oil-cake for
cattle is made from sesame. Sumach for dye is grown by the
people of Salt. The alkali-plant, or soda plant, is burned
for lye in various parts of the district, the ashes being sent
to places west of Jordan (e. g. Nāblus), where soap is manu-
factured.
Live-stock is extensively reared in this area. Both the
INDUSTRIES
603
Belga and ‘Ajlūn are rich in grass ; the former has indeed
always been famous for its pasture, its high altitude, regular
rains, and heavy morning mists a:ssuring it sufficient inoisture;
the Circassians grow clover and other green fodder to augment
the natural supply. Cattle are kept by the people of almost
every village ; oxen are used everywhere for ploughing, and
by the. Circassians for drawing their two-wheeled carts.
Goats are ubiquitous, to the great detriment of the young
trees ; sheep are largely owned both by the fellahin and the
Belqāwīyeh Arabs. Horses, however, are seldom to be seen
except in large places like Salt and in the bigger Circassian
villages; donkeys are generally found, but are not as numerous
as might be expected. Bee-keeping is general, both among
Arabs and Circassians. Fowls are everywhere kept, but are
of small size and produce small eggs.
The wild life of the country is capable of yielding useful
supplementary resources. Boars are numerous in the cane-
brakes of various wādis. Partridges and pigeons are every-
where common, and with shot-guns parties could without .
difficulty augment their food supplies from this source. In
many perennial wādis fish are very plentiful; in W. ‘Ammān,
Oliphant found them so numerous that he could have
scooped them out with his hat’. Similar statements have
been made as to other streams, e.g. W. el-'Arāb, W. Zahar,
the pools of Nahr 'Allān, &c. According to Tristram, the
common species is Scaphiodon Capoëta ; trout are said to be
found in W. Zahar.
The suitability of the whole region for colonization was
pointed out by Oliphant some forty years ago. Under
Turkish rule there could be no satisfactory development of the
country ; but the example of the Circassians has shown what
might be done by colonists guaranteed from the exactions of
a bad government, able to protect themselves, and too
thrifty to fall into the moneylender's hands. The absence of
rain between May and October reduces the necessity for farm
buildings; threshing is done in the open ; straw is stored in
caves or ruins ; grain is kept in caves, or in pits, between
604
‘AJLŪN AND NORTHERN BELQA
two layers of tibn or chopped straw, with a mound of earth piled
above all.. With any intelligent treatment of the forests,
timber in sufficiency could without difficulty be both exploited
and preserved. Had the woods of 'Ajlūn and the Belqa been
properly maintained, a timber and charcoal trade of some local
importance might have been developed. The Circassians of
W. es-Sīr are said to have set up a saw-mill for the sale of
planks in Jerusalem, and to have carted trunks across the
Jordan; doubtless under a good administration and with
improved communications the district might have. supplied
timber on a larger scale to various towns. But the improvi-
dent treatment of the woods by the fellahin and the recent
destruction caused by the war have made great ravages
among the mature trees. Probably a long recuperative
period would be necessary before the woodlands could be
made productive.
The only important industry of 'Ajlūn and the Belqa, apart
from agriculture, is four-milling. Mills are frequent in the
larger perennial wādis, especially in N. ez-Zerqa, Sheri'et
el-Menādhireh, W. Kefrinji, W. el--Arāb and W. Zahar. A few
local industries for the supply of Arab requirements are
practised at Salt.
POPULATION
The population of the district falls into two parts, one
sedentary, the other half-nomadic ; the former is the more
numerous, though in the absence of statistics the proportion
between the two cannot be accurately stated. The larger
settled centres are Salt, 'Ammān, Jerash, El-Husn, and Irbid.
The remaining sedentary population is scattered through a
number of villages and hamlets, of which the more important
are chiefly found near the perennial streams.
Settled People. The settled inhabitants of 'Ajlūn and the
northern Belqa consists of : i. Arab fellahin, native to the
region, and ii. immigrants of different race.
i. The Arab villagers, the great majority of whom are
Mohainmedans, belong to the same stock as the Belqāwīyeh
POPULATION
605
tribes (see below), and are probably descendants of tribesmen
who adopted the agricultural life many years, perhaps cen-
turies, ago. In a few places in the northern part of the dis-
trict (Mukrabeh, Umm Keis, Deir es-Saʻneh) new-comers have
entered the country from the west of Jordan (chiefly from
Nāblus), or from the Haurān, but these form only a small
proportion of the whole. The fellahin are by nature sturdy
but also less powerful, not being so well nourished. Where
they are well fed throughout the year, they are a fine race ;
thus the townsmen of Salt are distinguished by their good
physique. But at present many fellahin are half-starved in
winter, partly through their own improvidence, partly through
lack of security, and a system of taxation which discourages
industry and accumulation. The same causes which affect
tendency of the settled Arab to increase at a greater rate than
the nomad is thus largely neutralized. No permanent effort was
made by the Ottoman Government to render village life secure.
It is true that between 1840 and 1850, on a threat of the
fellahin—the only tax-payers—to abandon villages in North
‘Ajlūn, troops were sent to exterminate the Saʻeidi of W. el-
‘Arāb; other tribes were driven out of the district, and those
which remained were reduced to a subordinate position. But
even here highway robbery continued common, and if these
northern villages were themselves safer, the roads between them
remained dangerous. Farther south, where the non-sedentary
population is more „numerous, the fellahin were despoiled in
their homes, or even expropriated, so that places which should
have been permanently inhabited were occupied or abandoned
according to the behaviour of neighbouring tribes. More
insidious enemies than the roving Arabs are the moneylenders
of Tiberias and Damascus, to whom the careless peasant falls
an easy prey.
The great majority of the settled Arab population is Moslem.
Christians are settled in Salt, Fuheis, Rumeimin, 'Ajlūn,
El-Husn, and Zahr en-Nasāra in El-Wustīyeh; their total
606
‘AJLŪN AND NORTHERN BELQA
number may be over 6,000, about three-quarters living in Salt;
the adherents of the Greek Orthodox Church, who are in a
large majority, have in the past looked to Russia as their pro-
tecting Power.
At Salt the Christians would appear to number approxi-
mately a third of the population, with a total of about
4,000 souls. Rather less than 3,000 are Greek Orthodox, Greek
Catholic, and Syrian Orthodox. Protestants number over
300; there is an English Church, with school and hospital,
and, in normal times, a resident doctor. The Latins number
about 1,000, with church, convent, and schools managed by the
Seurs de Charité. The 3,000 Greeks have two churches,
a convent, and schools. At Fuheis the population, which is
all Christian (Greeks and Latins), may amount to about 400.
At Rumeimīn the population of about 300 is again all
Christian, the Greeks and Latins being nearly on an equality.
At 'Ajlūn village there are some 250–300 Christians, almost
all of the Greek Church, though there are a few Latin families ;
each denomination has a church and school, and there is said
to be also a native Protestant preacher. At El-Husn about half
the people are Christians, their total amounting to about 600,
both Greeks and Latins having church, school, and hospice.
ii. The most important foreign element in the population is
the Circassian. It has been introduced into this district by
the Ottoman Government within the last forty years to
support Turkish interests, and both as a political and econo-
mical experiment the measure appears to have been successful.
As regards the Ottoman Empire as a whole, the movement
began after 1859, when Russia annexed the Caucasus, and the
Circassians in the conquered territory preferred emigration in
the mass to Christian rule (see also Chap. V, p. 191). But
Syria, south of the Yarmūk, received its first settlers after
the Russo-Turkish War and the Bulgarian massacres, when
Circassians were transplanted from the Balkans. The process
of colonization has continued to the present time, partly by
new importations, partly by the growth of the older villages,
which overflow into fresh hamlets.
POPULATION
607
CN
A Circassian community, of which the males are all armed
with breech-loading rifles, has nothing to fear from such
tribes as the Belqāwīyeh, who are being gradually ousted from
all lands which the intruders covet. The more formidable
Bedouin themselves are now kept at a distance ; it is said
that on the upper Zerqa the Circassians some years ago made
the drawing of water from the river a casus belli. The Turks
sought to attach the Circassian to their interest by preferential
treatment. Arabs were dispossessed to make room for him ;
upon immigration he received a gift of seed-corn and a yoke of
oxen; in normal times he was free from conscription and
taxation for á term of years. The good will of such a people,
diffused along the desert marches in growing numbers, will
necessarily be a matter of concern to any Power controlling
the Holy Land. The Circassian retains his national dress,
with Astrakan cap, and straight sword girded in front of his
body. In addition to cultivating grain and raising cattle he
keeps fowls and bees. He has the commercial instinct in a
high degree. Roofing his house with timber, and constructing
his own two-wheeled cart, he is a woodman and something of
a carpenter and smith. His exclusive and clannish sentiment,
which forbids amalgamation with the Arabs, is intensified by
the maintenance of an effective system of communications,
cart-tracks connecting almost all the Circassian settlements
in the country. Before the war, a horse-drawn vehicle passed
regularly between Jerash and 'Ammān, and between Jerash-
Muzeirīb and Quneiterah; for short distances ox-carts were
used. By this means the settlements in reality formed a con-
federation within the State ; and the solidarity of the Cir-
cassian immigrants must always present a problem to future
administrators of the lands beyond Jordan.
The Ottoman Government introduced Turkoman colonists
on the same system. The settlements of this people are less
numerous, but they share many qualities of the Circassians
and have in like manner served as a makeweight to the Arab
element. Other non-Arab inhabitants are few. There are
a few Kurds at Sahem in Kefarāt, a village belonging to a Kurd
608
'AJLÓN AND NORTHERN BELQA
from Damascus. Lastly there are negroes, scattered through
the villages, where they hold subordinate positions ; small
negro groups cultivate vegetables in the Ghör as at Tell el-
Manteh on the lower N. ez-Zerqa. A small negro tribe, the
Arāb el-'Abid, grazing its flocks on the northern slopes of
W. el-Arāb, claims a Sudanese origin.
Arab Tribes.--The unsettled population consists chiefly of the
half-nomadic Belqāwīyeh tribes. These are intermediate
between the village cultivators and the true nomads beyond
the eastern border, from whom they in their turn suffer some
of the injustice which they themselves inflict on the fellahin,
being exposed to payment of the khuwweh, mostly in grain.
They are probably all by descent Ahl esh-Shimāl, i.e. folk of
northern Arabian stock, kinsmen, more or less remote, alike of
those whom they oppress and of their own oppressors. Though
living in tents after the Bedouin manner, the Belqāwīyeh till
the soil for grain, and are thus bound, if within somewhat wide
limits, to the vicinity of their fields and pastures. The modifi-
cation of the nomadic life thus entailed has made them in
some ways worse rather than better neighbours, since they
have lost touch with the desert law without acquiring any
other code in its place. They maintain a tribal organiza-
tion and a vast network of tribal feuds in which the Govern-
ment seldom interferes, even on behalf of settlers, Circassian,
Christian or Moslem. The whole country is turbulent, crime
abounds, and justice is almost non-existent. The villagers
protect themselves as best they can, partly by force of arms,
but mostly by paying tribute to the Arab Sheikhs in the form
of unstinted hospitality and liberal propitiation by gifts in
kind. Though the disputes often lead to bloodshed, they are
usually small affairs, petty robberies taking the place of raids
among the border tribes. But in the summer, when great
numbers of the Beni Sakhr come up to the northern pasturage,
and the ‘Anazeh draw in from the east, the Belqa is the scene
of continuous disturbance, ranging from pitched battles to the
satisfaction of individual blood-feuds, and no established
authority intervenes. Yet it is just in such frontier lands as
POPULATION
609
these that any strong administration would seize its chance,
and herein lies the political importance of tribes like the Bel-
qāwīyeh. They are cultivators after the inefficient manner
of the Arabs, and like all the half-settled people, their numbers
are surprisingly large in comparison with those of purely
nomadic tribes. They have few camels, and those which they
possess are bought from the Bedouin, not bred by themselves ;
but they rear large flocks of sheep and goats, and live richly
on their milk during the spring. The fact that they own
cultivated ground should give the Government a firm hold
over them; they are immobilized thereby, nor do their pas-
toral conditions give them the means of rapid transport.
Their numbers would make them a solid barrier between their
wandering kinsmen, who can slip through the fingers of the law
at any moment, leaving no pledge behind, and the permanently
settled lands. Moreover their geographical position makes them
the first problem to be dealt with, a problem on which the
security of wide and fertile regions, now lying to a great extent
derelict, must depend.' (Handboolc of Arabia, I, p. 398.)
The following is the distribution of the chief Belqāwiyeh
and 'Ajlūn tribes. (See also Handbook of Arabia, pp. 400–2.)
On the plateau and the SW: slope, i. e. S. of the J. Ösha'-
Köm Yājūz line :
i. 'Adwān (400 tents), ranging to W. Hesbān, the chief
Sheikh having a residence at 'Ain Hesbān. The sub-tribes
are the Sālih, 140 tents (Hesbān), Nimr, 60 tents (Zabbūd,
near Hesbān), Kā'id, 90 tents (between Hesbān and the Ghor),
‘Assāf, 70 tents (I.. of Salt).
ii. 'Abbād (600 tents), district of Wādis es-Sīr and Jeri'ah.
Sub-tribes : Manāsīr (near ‘Arāq el-Emīr) ; Tfqaha, 70 tents
(W. Jeri'ah); Nu'eimāt, 200 tents (NW. of Salt); Duweikāt,
120 tents (W. of Wadi es-Sīr).
iii. 'Ajārmeh (300 tents), Hesbān to the Ghör. Sub-tribes :
Muteiri’īn, 70 tents (Suwānīyeh and Mushaqqar); Isifah, 40
tents (El-'Al, near Hesbān); Sawā'ir, 30 tents (Sāmek);
'Ifeishāt, 25–30 tents (Nāūr); Harāfīs, 30 tents (plain of
Mahālah); Sheneiqiyin, 20 tents (Hesbān).
SYRIA
Qq
610
AJLŪN AND NORTHERN BELQA
On the northern slope, between the Jebel Ösha'-Kõm Yājūz
line and N. ez-Zerqa:
Beni Hasan, 860 tents. Sub-tribes : Izīra, 50 tents
(Rummān and Kamsa); Khawāldeh, 150 tents ('Alūk) ;
Ghaziyāleh, 120 tents (Sarrūt); Khalā'īleh, 40 tents.
The Beni Hasan extend N. of the eastern bend of the
Zerqa, into the district of 'Ajlūn bearing their name (see p. 580).
Their chief camp is said to be between Khirbet es-Sanıra on the
Hejaz railway, and Belʻameh. Sub-tribes : Beni ‘Aleim, 100
tents, about J. Qafqafa ; Rusheidāt, 100 tents (Mutawwi);
‘Amūsh, 300 tents. On the west the Beni Hasan extend to
W. Riyāshi (Tannūr), SE. of Jerash, where they find them-
selves in rivalry with the Circassians. In high summer almost
the whole tribe goes N. over the Yarmūk into the Haurān and
Jaulān, to graze their camels on the stubble-fields.
N. of the Beni Hasan, also giving their name to a district,
are the Beni ‘Obeid. The broken and wooded country
of high 'Ajlūn is unsuited to permanent tent life. Tribes
formerly ranging farther N., about W. el-'Arāb, have been
broken up.
The purely nomad Arabs are rather periodical invaders than
regular occupants of the district. The chief Bedouin of the
Hamād who disturb the Belqa and 'Ajlūn are sub-tribes of the
Beni Sakhr (see above, p. 608) and the 'Anazeh, who main-
tain a standing feud against each other. The dira of the Beni
Sakhr extends as far north as J. ed-Drūz, and in summer the
greater part of the tribe comes north : it is then that en-
counters occur, sometimes on 'Ajlūn territory, with the Shaʻlān,
a sub-tribe of the Ruweileh tribe of the ‘Anazeh, who have
occasionally been hard-pressed upon this border. When
drought forces the Bedouin to seek pasture and water west of
the Hejaz railway, an anxious time begins for cultivators,
whether settled or half-nomadic, and incidentally for the
Government. A cordon of troops may be required to keep
the great herds of camels, escorted by horsemen armed with
breech-loading rifles, from destroying all crops in the neigh-
bourhood of the wells. Only large Circassian settlements, such
POPULATION
611
as those of ‘Ammān and Jerash, are able to protect themselves.
The Beni Sakhr regard themselves as overlords of the half-
nomadic Belqāwiyeh tribes. It is noted elsewhere that
farther south they own corn lands in the most fertile parts of
the plateau, tilled for them by cultivators not of their tribe
(see p. 634).
Dwellings.-The houses of the fellahin usually consist of
one or two small rooms built of hewn stones selected from
among the ruins of ancient buildings. The roof is formed
of oak branches plastered over with white clay, renewed
every year. “A yard added for cattle, goats, and sheep com-
pletes the premises. A sheikh's house with all its depen-
dencies will be entirely enclosed in a large yard surrounded
by a wall perhaps 6 ft. high, and entered by a heavy gate,
barred at night. The dwelling will here have additional
rooms for guests, while each wife will have her own room.
There is a large chamber for entertaining travellers (manzil),
one half covered with mats and carpets. Often semicircular
additions project from the side of the house ; these have raised
floors and temporary roofs of branches, and are occupied in
hot weather. In the middle of the court there will usually be
a cistern.
A house described by Oliphant at Kefr Asad had a circular
enclosing yard with a high wall, round which were disposed
the dwelling of the owner, à cattle-shed, a donkey-pen, and
a large oven-building with domed roof and hole for fire in the
floor : such a nuqrah, or depression, is the normal place for the
fire in any room, the smoke escaping as best it may. Mortar
is not always used in construction, but the stone of the country
is a crumbling limestone which can be readily burned for lime.
In Circassian villages the house is of better construction,
though generally in like manner built with hewn stones taken
from ruins; the village of W. es-Sīr has been described as
built of brick-like slabs of dried earth, whitewashed. Each
house is a unit, with its own yard, and all are regularly aligned
to form village streets.
y
Qq2
CHAPTER XIX
SOUTHERN BELQA AND ARDH EL-KERAK
AREA.
For the area of this territory see Chap. XVII, p. 557.
PHYSICAL FEATURES
Relief
The country between W. Hesbān and Seil el-Hesa is an
open and high plateau with a crest-line running parallel to
the Dead Sea, to which the ground falls some 5,000 ft. in
an average distance of 7-8 miles, generally entering the water
abruptly and having little shore except at the northern and
southern ends of the sea. The eastward slope to the Hamād
is, on the contrary, gradual, amounting to no more than a few
hundred feet over a distance three or four times as great.
The plateau is saddle-like, lowest in the middle, and sloping
gently from both N. and S. towards Seil el-Mõjib, the chief
among the watercourses by which it is drained. The surface
is remarkably even, with only slight inclines or undulations,
and but few hills larger than mounds rising above it; among
these the most conspicuous is J. Shīhān, 5 m. S. of Wādi
Mõjib, from the summit of which extensive views open in
all directions. Though this evenness, and a general absence
of stones render travelling on the high ground for the
most part easy, communication is delayed by the fact that
the greater watercourses, running in a westerly direction,
cut the direct road up the country at right angles; the
valley of Mõjib is some 3 miles across from edge to edge,
and about 2,000 ft. deep, that of W. el-Wāleh presents an
obstacle only less formidable, so that several hours are lost
in long descents and climbs on the way between Kerak and
PHYSICAL FEATURES
613
Mādeba. The Hajj road in the extreme east avoids these
gorges, crossing the wādis or their upper branches much
nearer their heads; but it is too remote for general traffic, and
since the building of the railway, has lost importance even as
a pilgrimas' route to Mecca. As a result of this transverse
course of the large wādis, the country falls into well-marked
subdivisions between their valleys ; between W. Mõjib and
W. el-Wāleh lies El-Kūrah, between W. el-Wāleh and W. Zerqa
Māʻīn, El-Jibāl, both forming parts of the Belqa.
The crest-line of the plateau is often little more than the
edge of an escarpment, but rises to the following distinct
summits from N, to S. :
El-'ĀI (alt. 3,050 ft.) a few miles NNE, of Hesbān; El-
Maslūbīyeh (alt. 2,820 ft.), N. of Māʻīn; J. ‘Atārūs (alt.
2,509 ft.) in El-Jibāl; J. es-Saharīj, J. es-Sarfah, J. el-Arābi,
and J. el-Qarein between W. Mõjib and W. Kerak; Qenān Abu
Jidyān and J. 'Okbor (alt. 3,805 ft.) near Kerak; El-Meiseb
(alt. 4,068 ft.), immediately E. of Kefrabbeh, the highest point
between J. ‘Ajlūn and Seil el-Hesa; Hadd edh-Dhībeh and
J. Dubāb (alt. 3,230 ft.) just N. of Seil el-Hesa.
The geological foundation of the whole area is Cenomanian
(Nubian ') sandstone, which, wherever exposed, is mostly of
a rich red, but sometinies striated with purple and yellow.
Upon this are superposed two limestone formations. The
lower, known as Cenomanian and Turonian, is greyer in colour,
containing marl, and, in its upper part, scattered nodules of
flint; the upper, known as Senonian, is of paler colour, with
flint in regular seains. The sandstone remains exposed for an
average of a mile or so inland from the Dead Sea, and thus
forms the cliffs of the eastern shore ; but along the larger
wādis it is visible for a greater distance; in the Seil el-Hesa it
is found 10 miles up; in the W. of Kerak, 7 miles; in the lower
W. Mõjib it runs continuously for 10 miles ; in Seil Heidān
(Lower Wāleh) for 5 miles, and in Zerqa Māʻīn rather more.
North of the latter wādi its general extension inland, inde-
pendently of the valleys, increases to nearly five miles.
Between Seil el-Hesa and Kerak the Cenomanian limestone
614 SOUTHERN BELQA AND ARDH EL-KERAK
extends eastward practically to the escarpment. Between
Kerak and W. Mõjib it forms only a narrow zone, broadening
N. of that wādi, until beyond W. Zerqa Māʻīn it again ap-
proaches the crest of the plateau. Up the great wādis this
formation is exposed for many miles ; in the Mõjib valley
it spreads far to E. of the Kerak-Mādeba road, in W. el-Wāleh,
up to the road crossing. The Senonian, covering the whole
plateau and spreading east to the desert, is the predominant
formation and that with which the traveller is chiefly con-
cerned; it disintegrates into a very fertile soil, but is trodden
into firm tracks, which, however, are slippery in the rainy
season. The only other rocks calling for mention are sporadic,
and peculiar to small areas. A volcanic stone, mimosite or
basaltite, practically indistinguishable from true basalt, but
of the Cretaceous period, is found about Dhāt Rās north of
Seil el-Hesa, and in the middle course of that wādi; in
smaller patches near Kerak and in W. Kerak; on J. Shihān,
and not far N. of this hill, on the southern edge of the Mõjib
gorge, where the road crosses ; in the lower courses of W.
Mõjib, Seil Heidān and Zerqa Mā'in, and west of Mekāwar
and Māʻīn. There is some Pre-Cambrian and Cambrian rock
N. of the lower course of Seil el-Hesa. Diluvial rock and
alluvium are found on the lower levels. The bare peninsula
of Lisān (see below, p. 616 f.), which is diluvial, is composed of
marl and gypsum, but the narrow beaches and shores N. and
S. of it are alluvial soil, as are the fertile Ghör el-Mezra' and
Ghör el-Meseitbeh which lie between it and the eastern hills.
The uniforin character of the high plateau renders minute
description unnecessary. It presents great stretches of rolling
or gently sloping ground which include some of the finest
wheat-growing areas in the whole country (see below, p. 630).
In spring pasture is abundant, but there is an almost total
absence of trees, and the aspect of the land in many parts
has suggested comparisons with high chalk downs in Europe.
The broken country of the western slope is for the most part
summarily described below in connexion with the wādis which
intersect it, watercourse and intervening ridge here rapidly
PHYSICAL FEATURES
615
alternating, and, as the zone of exposed sandstone near the
sea is entered, becoming more and more difficult to cross.
But there are parts of this slope which deserve special mention.
When the hills rise by terraces, and the upper course of
a wādi turns along one of these, there is formed a small plain
or upland valley where cultivation is profitable and rare
villages occur. Such a tract is found in the upper valley of
Seil en-Nimeireh, known in this part of its course as W.
Jedeireh; here the villages of Khanzīreh, ‘Arāq and Tarʻīn
enjoy the advantages of a good soil with abundant water for
irrigation, while the more important village of Kefrabbeh
occupies a soinewhat similar position in the valley of Seil
Esā), across the next ridge to the north. All lie on or
near the southern route connecting Es-Sāfiyeh, at the S.
end of the Dead Sea, with Kerak. Terrace ground of a
similar kind is found on the slopes between Kerak and the
lower Mõjib, though here there are no settlements through
the absence of frequented tracks traversing the region.
North of W. Mõjib, hills push out from the plateau in a
NE.-SW. direction, and there is no room even for small
plains : here the projecting western end of El-Jibāl divides
the whole western slope into two unequal halves. This
ridge forms the watershed between Seil Heidān on the
south and W. Zerga Māʻīn on the north, watercourses
running from all its sides except the eastern. It slopes
from J. ‘Atārūs on the edge of the plateau past Khirbet
el-Mekāwar (the ruins of Herod's Machaerus) with its citadel-
hill of El-Meshneqeh; its southern sides towards Seil Heidān
have cultivable valleys and, a rarer feature in Moab, occa-
sional woods (see below). Below Mekāwar to the W. the
marshy plain of Ez-Zāra along the shore contains the famous
hot springs of the same name ; and much of the ground
leading down to them, like that not far away along the south
bank of W. ez-Zerqa, is of volcanic rock and lava. (Cf. above,
p. 614.) A track connects the shore at Ez-Zāra, one of the few
points between the head of the sea and Līsan bay where boats
can land, with the plateau in the neighbourhood of Libb.
616 SOUTHERN BELQA AND ARDH EL-KERAK
0
The section farther north between the lower Zerqa and
W. 'Ayūn Mūsa is not very well known ; but before the latter
wādi is reached, the Dead Sea has been left behind, and the
western slope has reassumed importance. For with the abut-
ment of the hills on the Jordan valley, instead of on the shore,
their valleys receive the thoroughfares which at all periods of
history have linked Palestine with Moab. By W. 'Ayūn
Mūsa and W. Hesbān run the tracks connecting Jerusalem
with the eastern plateau. That to Mādeba passes on the
right of the mamelon of En-Neba (Nebo, alt. 2,643 ft.) from
which a ridge runs west to J. Seyāgha, a bold scarped head-
land jutting out between W. Jedeid (Heri, Ghuweir) and
W. ‘Ayūn Mūsa, and falling in terraces to the Jordan valley
3,000 ft. below. This hilly country SE. of Jordan consists of
rocky valleys separated by bare limestone ridges, cultivation,
on the higher ground, not appearing until the plateau is
approached ; the slopes, however, are covered with grass in
spring.
Coast
The shore of the Dead Sea between the north end and
W. Zerqa Māʻīn is not now continuously passable, though
in 1874 pack-animals could be taken the whole way, if with
difficulty and by circuitous tracks. The sandstone cliffs rise
steeply, and are broken by small watercourses, in the valleys
of which palm-trees cluster. Here and there it is still possible
to walk for some distance, as near W. Umm Qaleib (2 m. south
of W. ‘Anāzeh), where the hills recede from the water's edge.
In the middle region, between W. Zerqa Māʻīn and W. Mõjib,
it is possible to land at the above-mentioned plain of Ez-
Zāra. Beyond this point, both N. and S. of W. Mõjib, the
cliffs are inaccessible until the northern bay enclosed by the
Lisān peninsula is reached. Here begins the first of the
alluvial beaches (ghors), known from the wādi crossing it as
Ghör el-Hadīthch; here is the small creek El-Mīneh serving as
the 'port' for shipment to Jerusalem of grain from Kerak
Soinewhat to the SE. of this spot are a few rude huts, built
PHYSICAL FEATURES
617
from the ruins on the neighbouring tell, for the storage of the
grain; this appears to be the place called by Musil El-Bele-
dīyeh, though in his account mention is also made of a ruined
tower and enclosure. Various brooks seem to run across the
Ghor at the corner of the bay. An old track from Er-Rabbeh,
the Darb el-Mezarāb, comes down into this Ghör along J.
Qarein, Qenān Qadeib and Umm Kiteh. South of the bay,
the Ghör el-Mezra' extends some distance inland, a fertile
tract cultivated by Ghawārneh Arabs, chiefly for grain (see
p. 634). The Ghörs along the coast from Lisān southward (El-
Meseitbeh, El-Megheisel, Ez-Zeheir) form a continuous belt
between the peninsula and Es-Sāfiyeh ; their characteristic
vegetation being cane-brakes, acacias, &c. The project-
ing end of the Lisān peninsula expands to a long plateau
of indurated marl and gypsuni, absolutely bare, and con-
spicuously white in sunlight when seen from higher ground.
The surface, which rises from N. to S., is cut in every direction
by ravines with perpendicular sides, so that it can only be
crossed with difficulty. On the seaward side this Lisān
plateau forms a line of abrupt cliff 400-500 ft. high, weathered
into deep furrows, and eaten into caves at the base. On the
landward side it rises as an almost vertical wall, 50–65 ft. high
from a depression parallel with its axis, called Ardh el-Ketāt.
It can, however, be ascended about the middle, where the
Roman road from Edh-Dhrā' crossed to the sea at the now
submerged cairn, Rujm el-Meqeita', marking the old ford
to the western shore, disused since about 1835. About
the middle of the peninsula, on a small hill surrounded by
ravines, are the ruins of an ancient walled building. The
hammer-head shape of the south-western point of Lisān, still
reproduced on many maps, has been inaccurate for more than
half a century. The correct form, a plain tongue of land, was
correctly mapped by Vignos as long ago as 1864.
Watercourses
The prevalent direction of the watercourses in this region
is westerly, their affluents coming down from N. and S.
618 SOUTHERN BELQA AND ARDH EL-KERAK
The shorter rise under the crest of the plateau, and reach
the Dead Sea by a direct course. But the larger rise
beyond the Hejaz railway on the hills forining the water-
shed between the Dead Sea and W. Sirhān and extending from
Jebel Hajānajeim in the S., through J. esh-Shefa, to J. el-
Mashqal in the N.; these wādis thus cut their way across
the whole breadth of the plateau, and as its main slope is
against them, the valleys which they form are of exceptional
depth.
These larger watercourses rising in the interior E. of the
plateau-crest, may now first be described, and afterwards the
lesser wādis which begin under the escarpment.
Seil el-Mõjib, commonly known as Wādi Mõjib, the great
watercourse of the country E. of the Dead Sea, rises on the
slope of Jebel el-Hafreh, NW. of J. el-Hajānajeim some 55 m,
as the crow flies SSE. of its mouth. Known at first as Ghadīr
es-Sultan and Wādi es-Sultāni, it receives as chief tributaries,
on the l. bank, Ghadir el-Abyadh (W. esh-Shermeh), a long
but non-perennial watercourse with several branches (W. es-
Suqūri, W. 'Useimer &c.) rising NE. of Dhāt-Rās; and on
the r. bank, various long non-perennial affluents, the largest
of which is W. el-Musheish. Traversing broken limestone
hills, it receives on the l., some 30 miles from its head, W. edh-
Dheiqeh, rising to SW. near Jafar, and successively known
as W. el-Mezebbel, W. el-Ghuweir, W. es-Seir and W. el-
Hanakein, in which last section it has perennial water. From
the junction with W. ed-Dheiqeh onwards, the main wādi
receives the name of Seil el-Mukheires, changed even before
the confluence with W. es-Sefei to that of Seil el-Mõjib. A
couple of miles from the junction it receives on the l. a brook
from the great springs of Lejjūn, and from this point is a
perennial stream. In this section of its course it is crossed
by the Qatraneh--Kerak road; the ford, perhaps now bridged,
had long been an important one, used by those caravans from
the north which preferred the easier easterly course along the
Hajj road, where the wādis are shallow, to the direct route
across the great gorges of the Wāleh and Lower Mõjib. N.
PHYSICAL FEATURES
619
of Lejjūn, Seil el-Mukheires can only be crossed in one or two
places, and is elsewhere impassable, flowing in a deep gorge
through plateau-country and serving as a dividing line between
fertile land on the W. and the barren on the E. On the
desert side it receives only one large tributary, W. et-Tarfā-
wīyāt, which rises far to the SE, under J. Maghār on the
interior watershed, and after being known under various
names, crosses the railway and Hajj road at Qatrāneh as
W. el-Mudheiqeh. On the l. bank it has several non-peren-
nial tributaries, and two with running water in their lower
courses : W. el-Ghuweiteh coming in SSE. of the ford below
‘Arā'er after a parallel course of some miles, and Seil esh-
Shuqeifāt, running again parallel, a short distance to W.
Between these two, a larger and more important tributary,
Seil es-Sfei, comes in on the r. bank, where Mõjih makes its
great bend westward towards the Dead Sea. Seil es-Sefei rises
far to E. on the interior watershed as W. et-Tewei, under which
name it crosses the railway. It is joined on the r. by the (dry)
watercourse W. Abu Halūfeh, runs through the ridge of Dalmāt,
and receives on the r. W. el-Kharazeh, and is known as W.
Saʻideh. Running W. under rocky sides more than 300 ft.
high, it falls in the next 4-5 miles about 600 ft. Only at this
point does it become perennial, receiving a brook from 'Ain
Saʻideh, and flowing NW. to the confluence with Mõjib through
an inaccessible gorge, the sides of which are on the north side
about 650 ft. high, on the S. about 100 ft. less. Seil el-Mõjib,
now running W. about 2,000 ft. below the plateau, passes the
crest-line in about 5 miles, receiving short tributaries on both
sides, inany carrying water, but none of importance except
W. el-Wāleh. The gorge soon narrows, and the cliffs 5-6 m. W.
of the road are described as rising to a great height. Here the
wādi can be passed by way of the tributary W. es-Sideir on the
S. bank, and of Naqb el-Masammat on the northern; though
the track is steep and rough on the north side, the crossing
is less tedious than at the ford on the main road. The river
cuts its way through sandstone cliffs into the Dead Sea about
2 miles below the junction of W. el-Wāleh on the N. bank; the
620 SOUTHERN BELQA AND ARDH EL-KERAK
narrow outlet of 40-50 yds., Bāb el-Mõjib, has been described
as a breach or rift rather than a valley. The sea at present
enters the mouth of the rocky defile, though as recently as
1874 a delta was still uncovered in advance of the cliffs ; the
water at the entrance is shallow. It would appear that even
in mid-winter small boats can only go as far as the first bend ;
in the spring, when there appears to be more water, it might
be possible for them to penetrate further, though to little
purpose, the sides being inaccessible. But the Mõjib could
never be a navigable stream even for sinall craft, since in the
13 miles or so between the Kerak-Mādeba road and the sea
it falls no less than 1,600 ft.
Seil Heidān, the chief affluent of the Mõjib, best known
as W. el-Wāleh from its name where the Mādeba-Kerak road
crosses it, rises on the interior watershed far to the E, under
J. esh-Shefa. It is at first called W. el-Hammām, under
which name it crosses the Hajj road and Hejaz railway near
Qalʼat edh-Dhaba': soon after the crossing, it receives large
but dry tributaries from NE. and N., rising SE. of 'Ammān.
About 8 miles west of the railway, it is known as W. eth-
Thamād, where it has a number of springs and much under-
ground water extending for some five miles and the bed
is now deep, with steep sides. The next section is called
W. er-Raineil, the name Wāleh being given only after the
junction of W. el-Butni on the l. bank, 5 m. E. of the Mādeba-
Kerak road. W. Wāleh becomes perennial about 1} m. E.
of this road; on the l. bank it here receives tributaries from
the S. fringe of the Kūrah plateau. West of the road, where
it runs in a valley of great depth it soon turns SW., and is
for a time known as Seil el-Hammām. S. of Jebel Jerwān on
the r. bank, it takes the final name of Seil Heidān, and here
the sides are largely composed of volcanic rock. The slopes
on the r. bank now become again accessible, and along
affluents on this side, W. er-Rumeimīn and W. ‘Ain “Arūs,
there are fertile valleys : the slopes on the l. bank are shorter
and steeper.
W. Zerqa Māʻīn rises SE. of Hesbān, and is soon known as
PHYSICAL FEATURES
621
Dead S.Zerqa, abcluding to rock :
W. el-Habīs, running under that name almost S. for 13 miles.
It then turns W. not far N. of Libb, making a great loop to
the spring 'Ain ez-Zerqa, 3 m. SSW. of Māʻin. It is now
perennial, and agains turn S. for 3-4 m., with the name Zerqa
Māʻīn, running in an impassable ravine ; a final westerly bend
takes it down to the Dead Sea through a deep but more open
gorge of sandstone and volcanic rock : in this section there
are many springs, including the well-known hot springs
Hammām ez-Zerqa, about 3 m. from the sea. It issues into
the Dead Sea through a cleft in the dark sandstone not
more than 25 yds. across, the cliffs rising for some 300 ft.
on either side. The rapid stream, still warm from the hot
springs, runs out through boulders and vegetation to a small
beach of gravel, sand and rock, on which are scattered tama-
risks, willows and reeds. In 1874 Kersten came down the
r. bank, from the springs to the shore in 3 hrs., the track
being evidently difficult.
W. el-Kerak rises in the fertile tract of Khôr el-Mezār near
Jafar, 9–10 miles due S. of Kerak town. In its upper course
it is known as W. es-Senīneh and W. el-Hanīsh; under the
latter name it deepens its channel, running through banks
150 ft. high. From 'Ain Jahra, NE. of Kefrabbeh, it is called
W. el-Bawāb; here, from El-Meiseh and the ridge running N.
of that hill, it receives several affluents, after the junction of
which it is perennial, much of its water coming from the large
spring, ‘Ain el-Franj, at the SW. foot of the hill on which
the town stands. It is here known as Seil el-Medābegh :
the right bank is about 330 ft. high, the left only half that
height, rising to a small plateau dominated by Qenān Abu
Jidyān. At the NW. corner of Kerak it is joined on the r. by
W. el-Māliheh. This deep watercourse comes round from the
north and east sides of the hill from a point far to the SSE.,
near Middīn. It is first known as W. Sadūr el-Maghār,
W. Hawīyeh and W. el-Biyār, receiving on the r. bank
W. el-Bunduqānīyeh and on the l. bank W. es-Sitt, the
latter known in its upper course as W. el-Mesāteb and
W. et-Tewei. After the junction of W. es-Sitt, it for a short
622 SOUTHERN BELQA AND ARDH EL-KERAK
time bears the name of W. Jawād, but before the confluence
with Seil el-Medābegh receives its final name of El-Māliheh :
in this lowest part of its course it is joined by the deep W. es-
Saqreh from the N. Beyond the confluence with W. el-Māliheh,
the Kerak wādi, now called W. ed-Defāli, broadens out, the
fertile slope Qubbet ‘Abd es-Seyyid, extending on the r. bank
as far as Seil edh-Dhuweihek, which brings down a perennial
brook : between the town and this point it has run first
W., then NNW. latterly assuming the fresh name of W. es-
Sebsabīyeh ; there are here springs both on the r. and the
1. banks. From Seil edh-Dhuweihek the wādi, now called
Seil es-Sāddeh and Seil el-Qādhi, passes into an inaccessible
gorge between Qenan Qadeib and Umm Kiteh on the r., and
the ridges of Sarj Abu Halāq and El-Kharri on the l. It runs
thus for about 41 m., the sides of the gorge clearly showing
the superposition of the limestone on the sandstone, and
finally issues through sandstone rocks in the alluvial ground
of El-Mezra' (see above, p. 617). Here it is known as Seil
el-Buksāseh, and receives on the l, the perennial Seil edh-Dhrā'
which has run almost parallel with it for some 51 miles on
the S. side of Sarj Abu Halāq.
The following are the more important of the lesser wādis,
beginning with those issuing from the hills near the head of
the Dead Sea, to the S. of W. Kefrein.
W. el-Jorfeh runs SW. into the lower Jordan, after a short
course beginning W. of Tell el-Matābeh ; it crosses the Ghör
between shallow banks, having on the N. side Tell Ghassül,
a small hill with a few dilapidated houses.
W. Ayūn Mūsa, called after the springs of the same name
(see p. 628), below which it is perennial, runs at first in a
narrow valley with high ground on both sides, especially to
N., and with occasional trees and patches of cultivation in
the broader parts of its valley. Where it leaves the hills and
crosses the Ghör, it is in many parts so densely filled with
scrub as to be almost impassable, but here and there, in spite
of broken banks some 30 ft. high, it can be crossed by cavalry.
W. Jedeid, called, near its mouth W. Ghuweir, and in its middle
PHYSICAL FEATURES
623
course W. el-Heri, runs to N. of the ridge which culminates
eastward in the commanding hill El-Maslūbīyeh ; it enters
the Dead Sea just N. of 'Ain Suweimeh, the bed being here
about 300 yds. broad, with steep banks difficult to cross.
South of El-Maslūbīyeh ridge is W. ‘Anāzeh or W. Meshabbeh,
also called, in its upper course, W. Ayūn edh-Dhīb, which
reaches the sea about 7 m. N. of W. Zerqa Māʻīn. Rising
NW. of Māʻīn, it is not at first perennial, but is described
as having permanent water for two or three miles below the
spring ‘Ain edh-Dhīb; this wādi is also styled W. Ghuweir
by some authorities in its lower course. Between this point
and the mouth of W. Zerqa Māʻin are several small wādis
the names of which do not appear to be finally determined.
South of W. Zerqa, descending the slopes of El-Jibāl, are
other lesser wādis ; they include Seil Saqārah and Seil ‘Atūn,
which bound the small maritime plain of Ez-Zāra (see p.615),
and Seil edh-Dhabiyeh, the last of any consequence before
W. Mājīb.
A few miles south of W. Mõjib, Seil esh-Sheqeiq, brings down
a strong brook from 'Ain Merenāyim, 4–5 miles away. The
upper branches of Seil el-Fawwār, W. el-Yārūth and Seil
el-Jubeibeh, rise NW. of Rabbeh, near Teidūn; after their
junction at 'Ain Jubeibeh, the now perennial stream is called
Seil el-Minga‘ah, receiving the name El-Fawwār at the gorge
through which it enters Ghör el-Hadītheh. The valley of the
next wādi, Seil el-Hadītheh, lies beyond the ridge of J. el-
Mehājein. It is formed as W. Beni Hammād by the confluence,
below the plateau west of Dimneh, of three watercourses rising
further S. not far from Rabbeh : W. el-Baghl, W. el-Maqāsed
and Seil el-Megheisel, the two latter carrying brooks ; it is
perennial from the confluence to the sea. As Wādi Beni
Hammād, it flows in a deep bed with very high sides, a
narrow cultivated strip of land extending about 2 miles to
the junction of Seil el-'Arābi on the l. bank. Lower down,
on the S. side, is a hot spring, Umm Qal'ah, possibly still
choked, as it was in 1898. The brook is now broader and,
some 3 m. from the junction of Seil el-'Arābi, a better hot
624 SOUTHERN BELQA AND ARDH EL-KERAK
spring, Hammām Ibn Hammād flows from the rock on the
1. bank (Temp. 116° F.). Below the spring the valley narrows
to a gorge traversing the sandstone, and in winter impassable
through flood water. After issuing from the cliffs, the wādi
crosses the Ghör el-Hadītheh, to the SE. corner of the Lisān
Bay, the brook still running in a deep bed; near its mouth
is the little creek, El-Mineh to which reference has above been
made (p. 616). The two principal watercourses S. of the
wādi of Kerak are Seil 'Esāl and Seil en-Nimeireh. The
former, of which the general course is NNW., runs S. of
the watershed formed by Umm Kiteh, Qenān Qadeib,
and J. el-Qarein. It begins from small dry watercourses
rising in the high ground further E. along the plateau :
in the lower valley of one of these stands the important
village of Kefrabbeh. The wādi of Kefrabbeh passes into
the perennial W. Ghazwān, which runs in a deep gorge
almost north. This stream is known below the hamlet
of Jūza as W. el-Jindi, ultimately receiving the name of
'Esāl. Before cutting its way through the coastal hills, it
runs between high ground Ardh el-Qaisārīyeh on the l.,
behind which rises J. el-Māliheh, and the ridges on the r.,
Darajet el-Hamra and J. el-Qarein, which separate it from
the basin of Wādi el-Kerak. Its tributaries on this side
are all short and without perennial water; between two
of them, on the slope below Darajet el-Hamra, is an oasis
about the spring ‘Ain Wāleh. Seil 'Esāl comes out of a
sandstone gorge into the comparatively broad alluvial ground
of Ghör el-Megheisel and Ghör el-Meseitbeh, here covered with
acacia trees and reeds : at this point it is crossed by the
'track from Es-Sāfiyeh to Kerak. Seil en-Nimeireh begins NE.
of J. Dhubāb with two upper branches, W. edh-Dhaba' and
W. el-Beidha, running NNW. and uniting above the village
of ‘Arāq under the plateau. The stream is now perennial,
and flows W. to WNW., receiving from the south, W. el-
Fār, which has running water brought down by Seil Ghurāb,
(W. Sideir, W. el-'Ain), and W. el-Khā’ineh, rising below
J. Meleih, and carrying water from `Ain Sarāqa at the village
PHYSICAL FEATURES
625
of Khanzīreh. Below the junction of W. el-Fār, Seil en-
Nimeireh is known as W. el-Jedeireh, and henceforth receives
only dry watercourses. Its final name is given to it where
it cuts through the hills above the coast. It here issues
through a considerable gorge in the sandstone, and reaches
the sea through the narrow Ghör ez-Zeheir, marshy ground,
thickly grown with tamarisks, oleanders, and other bushes.
Springs and Wells
On the plateau, and eastwards towards the desert, this
district is poor in water ; comparatively few wādis have
perennial brooks, and where this is the case they often run
in such deep ravines as to be for the most part useless
to cultivator or traveller. Springs, wells and water-holes
occur here only at rare intervals. Along the east of the
plateau the following are watering-places for camels. W.
eth-Thamad, an upper section of Seil Heidān (W. el-Wāleh),
9–10 m. ESE. of Libb, and some 6 m. west of the Hejaz rail-
way at Qalʼat Dhaba': the bed of the wādi has abundant
ground water over a distance of 3-4 miles, for which it is
only necessary to dig holes 1-2 ft. deep. Hafā'ir el-Hana-
kein, abundant water-holes in Wādi Hanakein (a section of
W. edh-Dheiqeh, a tributary of Seil Mukheires), are 10–12 m.
SW. of Qatrāneh. Lejjūn, copious springs forming a pool and
brook, rise on the foot of the hill of El-Fityān near the Roman
camp of Lejjūn, 10 m. W. of Qatrāneh, and not far from the Qa-
trāneh-Kerak road. In the South, Bir en-Nā'im (alt. 3,140 ft.)
lies about 11 m. E. by S. of Middīn, 8 m. W. of the Hejaz
railway at its nearest point, and some 12 m., as the crow flies,
from the station of Qatrāneh ; it is on the E. side of the ridge
Abu Rakbeh, and is said to yield a good supply. Another
well, Bir Bashbash, lies 21 m. west.
In the wādi close SE. of Middīn there is a frequented
spring lying not far E. of the road. On the plateau, the
ancient cisterns and reservoirs are still used, though where
these are open, the water is generally allowed to get foul.
Should these sources of supply fail, recourse must be had to
Rr
SYRIA
626 SOUTHERN BELQA AND ARDH EL-KERAK
springs west of the plateau-crest, often at a considerable
distance. Thus the people of Mādeba will fetch water at need
from `Ain Jedeid (see below, p. 628), distant 4-5 miles, or even
from 'Ayūn Mūsa, a couple of miles farther to the north.
West of the plateau, water is far more abundant. As above
noted, a large proportion of the wādis running to the Ghör and.
Dead Sea are perennial, though in their lower middle courses,
where they cut deeply through the hills, their ravines are
often inaccessible. From Es-Sāfiyeh to the Lisān, and again N.
of Mezra', they run out across a narrow alluvial shore and are
used for irrigation ; thus the traveller along the coast has
never far to go without a supply. In the upper basins of these
wādis, not far W. of the plateau-crest, springs and streams are
numerous. Thus the upland basins of Seil Nimeireh and Seil
Esāl have abundance of good water both for drinking and for
irrigation. To the N. of them, the upper branches of W. el-
Kerak have never-failing sources with copious springs quite
close to the town. Again further N., Seil el-Megheisel and
W. el-Maqāsed (upper branches of W: Beni Hammād or Seil
el-Hadītheh) have springs (“Ayūn Abu Sa'id and others) about
2 m. W. and NW of Rabbeh. Lower down W. Beni Hammād is
the hot spring, Hammām Ibn Hammād (alt. 147 ft.), on the
1. bank, about 4 m. from the sea ; it flows with some force
from the rock, with a temperature of about 100° F. and is
used by Arab bathers. Among other sources S. of Mõjib
mention need only be made of 'Ain el-Bedīyeh above the S.
bank of that wādi almost opposite the ford under Naqb el-
Masammat : there are four springs, watering an oasis with
thick grass and trees. The tract of El-Jibāl has many per-
ennial wādis flowing into the Dead Sea, the lower Seil Heidān
and the lower Mõjib. ‘Ain er-Riyyeh and Ain ‘Arūs are on
the fertile slopes above the r. bank of Seil Heidān near the
track running S. from Mekāwar. Higher up on the same side,
about 2 m. W. of the point where the Mādeba-Kerak road.
crosses, there is a hot spring at the mouth of the affluent,
Seil ez-Ziza. More important are the hot springs, Hammām
ez-Zāra, on the small coastal plain due W. of Mekāwar,
PHYSICAL FEATURES:
627
some 31 m. S. of the mouth of W. Zerqa Māʻīn (see p. 615).
The plain, which is cut into unequal parts by Seil Saqārah, is
enclosed landward by an amphitheatre of sandstone and
basalt, up the middle of which a track goes to Mekāwar
past a ruined tower on a massive projecting rock There are
two hot springs near this ruin, one forming a brook, and
several more rise along the plain, marked by reeds and
cane-brake from which steam rises. The brooks which
they form do not all reach the sea, but where they do, the
deposits have formed small promontories at their mouths. The
chief spring, El-Wāfiyeh (the copious) is some 100 yds. from the
sea, and sends up a dense cloud of vapour : its temperature is
given as 107° F., and it yields 55 gallons a second. In the
wādi crossing the N. of the amphitheatre both hot and
cold streams run; along the former, pits are dug for Arab
bathers who frequent the springs for rheumatism. The
water is not unpleasant to the taste.
The hot springs of Hammām ez-Zerqa are situated 3-4 miles
from the mouth of W. Zerqa Māʻīn, on the r. bank; they are
approximately at an equal distance from Ez-Zāra, but are
most accessible from Mekāwar. They begin W. of the ex-
pansion in the valley known as El-Buqei', ten springs suc-
ceeding each other over a stretch of about 3 miles, the water
flowing from the junction of the sandstone and limestone.
Highest up are the smaller springs of lower temperature,
issuing from the foot of ravines in which palms flourish. The
fifth spring is one of the largest. It rises at some distance
a bove the bank amid palms and brushwood, forming a brook
which rushes in a series of cascades over terraces of sulphur
deposit ; its temperature is 130° F., and the stream is visible
more than a mile away. The seventh and eighth springs,
half a mile lower down the valley, bubble out with great force
close together, but are soon overarched by sulphurous in-
crustations, and disappear from sight. The ninth spring is
also large, but it rises at some distance above the wādi, and its
waters have time to cool before they become accessible. The
tenth and last is the hottest of all, with a temperature of 143° F.
Rr2
628 SOUTHERN BELQA AND ARDH EL-KERAK
At 'Ain ez-Zerga, SSW. of Mā'in, where W. Zerga Māʻīn
first becomes perennial, the water rises in abundance, forming
pools in the gravelly bed of the wādi, which is bare and has
very steep banks, though horses can be watered. The tem-
perature of the water is thermal, about 89° F. Four to
five miles almost due N., and about 6 m. WSW. of Mādeba,
are springs in W, edh-Dhib, at the point where the perennial
water begins in its valley ; a group of trees marks the most
easterly spring. Three miles again NNE, in W. Jedeid,
300 ft. below the large stone circle of Hadāniyeh, is 'Ain
Jedeid, one of the springs to which the people of Mādeba
(distant 4-5 m.) resort in cases of extreme drought. The
water rises in a clear pool under some boulders at a tempera-
ture of 80° F., and is said to be abundant even in a dry autumn.
About 3 m. away, a little E. of N., in Wādi ‘Ayūn Mūsa, are
the springs of the same name in like manner used in emergency
by the people of Mādeba.
CLIMATE
For the general climatic conditions, see Chap. II, p. 24. As
in other parts of the country, rain rarely falls between the
beginning of May and October, but in winter and spring violent
storms of rain and hail may be experienced. Upon the plateau
the difference between day and night temperature may be very
great in spring. At the end of February, on the edge of the
Hamād near Meshatta, Tristram was tried by scorching days
succeeded by nights with 6 degrees of frost. The traveller is
naturally prepared for a marked contrast in atmospheric con-
ditions between the almost tropical ghors of the Dead Sea and
the plateau 3,000 ft. above it. But it is sometimes forgotten
that on the main road, traversing the country from N. to S.,
contrasts almost as great, and far more sudden, are en-
countered at the passage of the large wādis, Seil el-Hesa, Seil
el-Mõjib and W. el-Wāleh; for while the air at the top of these
ravines may be fresh and cool, at the bottom of the valley it
will be close and very oppressive. It should be remembered
by any who may camp in the lower parts of such valleys that
CLIMATE
629
during squalls on the Dead Sea furious gusts of wind may
suddenly rush up the gorges, and that the positions of tents
should be carefully chosen with regard to this contingency.
NATURAL RESOURCES
Minerals.--The Ghawārneh Arabs of Es-Sāfiyeh sell to
travelling merchants the blocks of bitumen which float on the
Dead Sea; possibly the bituminous wells, 'Ayūn Humr, close
to the shore about 2 m. S. of the mouth of W. Mõjib may
serve a similar exchange. The Arabs get sulphur and gypsum
on the Lisān peninsula, antimony in W. el-Keneyyiseh (Upper
W. Ghuweir), W. es-Sitt, and about Humeimāt; alum they
bring from 'Ain Mūma, west of Kerak. A bituminous coal,
burning with a dark red flame, and smelling of asphalt, is
found in the rocks on the eastern side of Nuqrat el-Beidha,
beyond the l. bank of W. el-Hanakein, not far S. of the
Qatrāneh-Kerak road, and some 3 m. S. of Lejjūn: this coal
is said to be used by native smiths. . Salt appears to be chiefly
imported from W. Sirhān; that which is obtained from the
Dead Sea is regarded as of inferior quality. Lime is burned
very generally, the cretaceous rock of which the country is
formed lending itself readily to this purpose.
Flora.-Though there are no forests in the district, and
the high plateau is now almost bare, there are scattered trees
in many parts of the western slope, both in the wādis and on
higher ground ; patches of woodland are occasionally found.
On the low hot ground along the Dead Sea, the date-palm, the
acacia, the Euphrates poplar, the plane, the false sycomore
and wild fig are frequent, accompanied by such semi-tropical
shrubs as grow at a similar level in the Jordan valley. On
hill-sides and higher ground the plane, oak and terebinth are
found. The two latter trees occur in some numbers in the
country west of J. Shīhān, north of the lower Seil Heidān, and
about Mekāwer and ‘Atārūs : the valley of W. er-Rumeimin,
running S. into Seil Heidān from below Mekāwer, is described
as wooded on both sides, while trees also cover the western
slope of J. Jerwān on its l. bank. The fig and wild almond also
630 SOUTHERN BELQA AND ARDH EL-KERAK
flourish on the higher ground. Whenever the wādis have
permanent water they are lined with oleanders which often
almost attain the proportion of trees.
Fauna.--The wild animals of the district likely to be useful
to the traveller include the ibex, found among the rocky
gorges along the Dead Sea, and the gazelle, alike in the low
country and on the high plateau ; both supply good venison.
The boar chiefly haunts the cane-brakes of the watercourses ;
the flesh is good, though not eaten by the people of the country.
Among birds, the partridge is ubiquitous in the higher lands,
while in the western valleys but more especially in the ghors
by the Dead Sea, turtle-doves and pigeons abound. Fish
swarm in the perennial watercourses, as in Zerqa Māʻin, or in
Seil ed-Dhrā', where it is crossed by the Sāfiyeh-Kerak road.
The species most often mentioned is Scaphiodon Capoëta, a
chub-like variety.
INDUSTRIES AND TRADE
Cultivation.-The plateau contains some of the best corn
lands in Syria, which cover wide areas. Agriculture extends
from near the crest-line to points at irregular distances from
the desert; from N. to S. continuity is broken by the valleys
of the great transverse wādis. Cultivation at present crosses
the Hejaz railway only in the northern part of the Mādeba area;
in the southern part the interval between the wheatfields and
the desert is six miles; in El-Kūrah it is about eight. South of
El-Kūrah towards Kerak, the cultivated zone hardly extends to
Seil el-Mukheires, which here forms the boundary between
productive and barren ground. South of Kerak, as far as the
valley of Seil el-Hesa, it is at first a rather narrow strip,
broadening considerably to the S., where it stretches about
7 miles E. of Dhāt Rās, the railway here lying 10 miles beyond.
The above are the large and continuous tracks ; but smaller
areas are found in favourable sites on the western slope, and
in the ghors. Such occur round Khanzīreh and Kefrabbeh,
about 'Atārūs, and in many valleys, where good soil covers
gentle inclines, or flat. expanses along the wādis. The hot
INDUSTRIES AND TRADE
.. 631
ghors produce cereals of all kinds; the Mezra“, broader than
the rest, rivals Es-Sāfiyeh for its grain. Work in the grain-
fields is largely carried out by imported labourers from
Hebron, Jerusalem, and Nāblus. For good crops four
rains are regarded as needful : at the end of October and
beginning of November, in the middle of December, at the
end of January and beginning of February, and in late March
and early April. On the plateau barley ripens towards the
close of May and wheat in June ; the ghör is always a few
weeks earlier. The reaped grain is carried to the threshing-
floor on camels and mules, the threshing being usually done
by a wooden board set on the under-side with rows of sharp
flints. Upon this board the thresher stands and is driven
round and round over the strewn crop by a pair of mules or
a single camel. The grain is chiefly winnowed by tossing
against the wind, but sieves are also used. After heavy
crops, land is allowed to lie fallow, sometimes as much as
three years.
As a rule, land is held communally, and re-divided every
year according to the requirements and claims of the several
households. Only in villages of which the people have
recently purchased land froin the Bedouin is private property
in the soil general among fellahin ; among the half-fellahin
the same conditions prevail. Much of the best land still
belongs to the Bedouin, who lease it to peasants, receiving as
rent a fifth, or, if the land is very good, a quarter of the
produce.
Fruit trees, mainly olives and figs, are cultivated in the
western valleys or in the ghors, where the presence of springs
and brooks makes irrigation possible. Some vineyards are
still to be seen beside the orchards round the upland villages
of Kefrabbeh, Khanzīreh and ‘Arāq, as well as near Kerak,
and viticulture might become once more an important industry
as it was in ancient times; the same statement applies to
tobacco, now sparsely planted in the Kefrabbeh region and
about Mekāwar. Gardens growing onions, garlic and other
vegetables are found in the villages.
632 SOUTHERN BELQA AND ARDH EL-KERAK
Pasture.--Pasture being good in season both on the western
part of the plateau and on the broken country sloping to the
sea, cattle, goats and sheep are keptin numbers by fellahin and
by the half-nomadic Arabs (see below p. 633). Horned cattle,
which are chiefly used for ploughing, do well both on the high
ground and the low; they are of a small race, and commonly
black; the biggest beasts are those of the Ghawārneh in the
country, with the result that the cows yield more milk and the
calves are weaned later ; herds are apt also to be larger than
in places where grass and water are less permanent. Camels
belong to the purely nomadic Arabs ranging the desert border
(see below p. 634); they are driven west by their owners when
grazing of a particular quality is required; thus the Beni Sakhr
will take camels from the Hamād right across the plateau to the
plain of Ez-Zāra on the sea-shore because the cane-brakes
among the hot sulphur springs are considered to possess
medicinal properties. Asses are numerous in the villages ;
mules are also found in some numbers, but horses are few.
Trade - There is little trade in the district. Some traffic
in the ordinary necessities of life is carried on by a few shop-
keepers established in the villages. Goods are also hawked
tribes.
INHABITANTS
Settled People. The district has comparatively few settled
inhabitants except at Kerak .and Mādeba. Almost all the
villages lie to the S. in Ardh el-Kerak, and mostly on the
western slope. The largest are Kefrabbeh and Khanzīreh ;
others are 'Aineh, 'Arāq, ‘Amaqeh, Jafar, Jūza, Māʻin,
Mūteh and Tarʻīn. There is a tendency for ruined villages or
sites of ancient towns to be re-occupied, the settlers finding
shelter in huts built with the stones of the ruins, or in vaulted
chambers which have remained intact. This appears to have
been the case at Mūteh and Middin. In other places, fellahin
will occupy an old site for only part of the year, if it lies near
INHABITANTS
633
corn-land or good pasture. In this region, as in others, the
people are in the habit of living out in tents during the harvest
season.
Fowls being universally kept, eggs are commonly obtain-
able. Meat, where eaten, is usually mutton ; only Christians
and Jews as a rule eat beef. Cheese is made from the milk of
goats and sheep, as well as from that of cows.
Arab Tribes.—The Arabs of the region are Ma‘āzeh (half-
fellahin), not breeding camels, but asses and a few horses, with
herds of goats, sheep and cattle.
In the SE. of Ardh el-Kerak are the Hejāya, 550 families
(according to Musil) ranging between Seil el-Hesa and Lejjūn.
The Nu'eimāt, dispossessed of the greater part of this territory
by the Hejāya, are now a small tribe of about 80 families
with the Khureisheh, another small tribe of about 100 -
families, next them on the west.
The country W. of these tribes, bounded by Seil el-Hesa,
the Dead Sea, Seil edh-Dhrā' and a line running ESE. past
Kerak town, was formerly the territory of the El-Amr, now
also a dispossessed and reduced tribe of about 100 families.
By the beginning of the nineteenth century the El-Amr had
fallen into the debt of the people of Kerak, who, under the
capable leadership of their chief clan the Mejāliyeh, gradually
obtained possession of all their best land and now hold it as far
S. as Dhāt-Rās, and ‘Aineh on the N. bank of Seil el-Hesa.
A similar process of ejection was carried out about the middle
of the century against the Hamā'ideh or Hamīdeh, once
chief owners of all the land N. of Kerak. This tribe lost
the country between the town of Kerak and W. Beni Hammād,
with the fine agricultural land on the plateau about Rabbeh,
Qasr Rabbeh, and Shīhān, which the Mejāliyeh kept for them-
selves. · The Kerakīyeh thus own the pick of the land along
the plateau for a distance of some 35 miles N. of Seil el-Hesa,
their eastern borders running from J. Shīhān to Lejjūn, and
thence down to Dhāt Rās and ‘Aineh. The Hamā'ideh,
however, remain a large tribe of 800 familics, since they still
range the wide area from W. Beni Hammād to W. Zerqa
634 SOUTHERN BELQA AND ARDH EL-KERAK
A
.
Māʻin. The Salā'iteh (Es-Slit), 280 families, hold the desert
tract E. of Seil el-Mukheires, and the similar country across
Mõjib on the far side of El-Kūrah. North of W. Zerqa Māʻīn
begin the Belqāwīyeh tribes, of whom the most important,
in the southern Belqa, are the Ghanamāt, with 220 families.
The larger of their two sub-tribes is that of the ‘Ajārmeh ;
their country extends N. to W. Hesbān, where they meet the
‘Adwān (see above, p. 609). Most of the above tribes have
come from further south, pushed N. by successive waves of
emigration. The Ghawārneh, or people of the ghor are fairly
numerous (about 180 families in Ghör el-Mezra' alone). But
they are raided by all the more warlike tribes within reach of
them, and only the extraordinary fertility of their soil enables
them to support the constant exactions to which they are
exposed. They are of very dark complexion, as befits the
inhabitants of an exceedingly hot region.
The Arabs obtain most of the objects which they do
not themselves produce (utensils, clothes, Shoes for horses,
coffee, &c.) from the khawāja or travelling merchant, who
sets up his conspicuous white tent in the encampment after
giving the sheikh a present for the privilege of trading. Such
merchants take either money for their goods, or an equivalent
in kind—wool, camels' or goats' hair, livestock, grain, butter
or cheese. The improvident Arab is usually in their debt,
and borrows on the security of next year's crop.
The only Bedouin entering the district are the Tauqeh,
a sub-tribe of the Beni Sakhr, who range up the desert along
the whole of its eastern side. They own much of the fertile
land on the plateau, where their sphere of influence runs from
Jafar, north-west of Dhāt Rās, east of Kerak and Mādeba to the
Haurān. They are overlords both of the fellahin and of the
half-nomadic Arabs, and profit both by the material and
moral advantages of that position. Slaves are found with all
the tribes, not only negroes, but Mohammedans of other
races stolen by slave-merchants as children in Egypt and
Morocco, and sold chiefly at Medā’in Sālih, Ma'ān and
Mecca. Slaves appear to be well treated and allowed so
INHABITANTS
635
much freedom that they have no desire to return to the
places of their birth.
Dwellings.-Permanent houses, like the more temporary
dwellings above-mentioned, are commonly built of stones
brought from the ruins scattered over the country. The actual
habitation is preceded by a walled yard with a large stone-
built oven (tābun) in one corner. Part of the yard is sunk
below the level of the rest for the use of the cattle ; adjoining
this are the stalls used in winter. In the yard of most larger
houses is a cistern (bi’r), often kept locked, and covered by a
flat stone with a hole in it, through which water is drawn.
The hole is protected by a wooden cover, less to prevent
ordinary defilement than to keep out locusts; a store-room
(dukkān) commonly opens on the yard. The windowless one-
storeyed dwelling-house, forming one side, is entered through
a door with a stone bench to right and left, that to right often
having a small tent-roof fixed over it. The flat roof is sup-
ported on one or more stone arches carried by piers projecting
inwards sometimes as much as 6-7 ft., the interspaces or bays
forming compartments used for various purposes. One is
always a granary; most of the rest, of which the floors are
raised 1–2 ft., serve as sleeping places. The hearth is a circular
space with a clay rim, placed in the middle of the building.
The roof consists of beams laid over the arches ; on these are
reeds and brushwood and over all is spread a layer of clay
mixed with cow-dung and ashes, renewed yearly in September.
A narrow external stair gives access to the roof. This is
covered by a tent-awning in summer, under which it is usual
to sleep.
CHAPTER XX
EL-JIBĀL AND ESH-SHERA
(THE COUNTRY SOUTH OF SEIL EL-HESA)
THIS region, comprising the high country east of Wādi
‘Arabah, is bounded on the east, for all practical purposes, by
the Hejaz railway on the edge of the desert. On the south,
the boundary is an arbitrary line running from the head
of the Gulf of Akaba north-east to the railway, forming the
frontier between Syria and the vilayet of the Hejaz. It
thus includes the high plateau between Wādi 'Arabah and
the desert which comprised the eastern half of the ancient
Edom. Administratively it is included in the vilayet of
Damascus, and the sanjaq of Kerak.
AREA
The area is for the most part a narrow plateau continuing
the plateau of Moab to the south. On the west it falls rapidly
by narrow steps to the ‘Arabah, but northwards to Moab and
eastwards to the desert there is a gradual slope. The maximum
length is about a hundred and ten miles ; the average breadth
between the ‘Arabah and the Hejaz Railway about twenty-
five. It is thus a mere strip of territory, but a part of the great
land bridge connecting Damascus with the south, and possess-
ing in Maʻān the gateway of Arabia : from this place the
railway and pilgrims' road run down to Medina and Mecca,
and camel-tracks diverge to Jebel Shammār and to Nejd (see
Handbook of Arabia, vol. ii, Routes 18 and 19). .
PHYSICAL FEATURES
The crest-line of the plateau, which forms an escarpment
rather than a range, is known in the northern half by the
PHYSICAL FEATURES
637
name of El-Jibāl, and in the southern by that of Esh-Shera (or
(?) Esh-Sher’ah), the division between the two being marked by
a gap or depression south of Shõbek : according to Burckhardt
the Wādi Ghuweir (or Seil ed-Dathneh) is regarded by the Arabs
as a boundary. It is chiefly along the southern half of El-Jibāl,
from the gap northwards to the neighbourhood of Dhāna, that
the country, viewed from the east, actually creates the im-
pression of an open sloping plateau ; north of this point it
appears as a mass of hills, south of it as a steep slope with
numerous patches of green. For the greater part of its length
the crest runs rather west of south; but south of the latitude
of Ma'ān, Esh-Shera bends to the south-east, and a secondary
line of hills continues parallel with the ‘Arabah; in the bifurca-
tion thus formed begins the great sandstone plain of El-Hisma,
which extends far into Arabia. This country is very little
known, but may acquire importance should the branch line
destined to connect the Hejaz Railway with Akaba run, not
from Ma'ān, but from a point much farther south, for example,
from the station of El-Madawwareh (more than 80 miles ESE:
of Akaba; see Handbook of Arabia, vol. ii, p. 125), between
which place and the sea it is reported that a survey has been
made.
Successive sections along El-Jibāl from north to south have
the following names : Jebel Sõbaleh, Qenān el-Qarn, Jebel
Zābar, Zahret ‘Azāreh, Hala el-Qarān (alt. according to Musil,
1,640 m.), after which comes a line of escarpment with no
conspicuous heights extending to the above-mentioned gap
where El-Jibāl ends. Esh-Shera begins with Maghārīb el-
Khor (1,650 m.), after which follow Jebel Madeirej, Jebel
Milghān, Jebel el-Haddād, Ras Ail (1,610 m.), Qareinet ez-
Zeyyāt, Jebel el-Jedeid, and Jebel el-Hafeir, where the range
sinks to El-Qedreyyāt, a hilly tract with scattered eminences.
With Esh-Shera ends the long ridge which began at Mt. Hermon:
farther south are found hill-systems of which the general trend
is east and west.
To the west of the great plateau-crest are lesser hills dropping
1 Not to be confused with El-Jibāl, farther north (Chap. XIX, p. 613).
638
EL-JIBĀL AND ESH-SHERA
rapidly to the ‘Arabah, for which their last ridges form a rocky
wall, cleft by the gorges of many wādis. Below the crest-line
of El-Jibāl and parallel to it there is a series of terrace plains
along which an old track runs from the Wādi el-Hesa to Homei-
meh (see below, p. 641 f.); on these small but well-watered and
protected plains lie the agricultural villages of El-Aimeh and
Senefheh, and the larger settlement of Tafīleh (see p. 642).
Under Jebel esh-Shera the terrace formation is still marked, and
though it has now no inhabited places, a whole series of ruined
sites shows that it once supported a considerable population.
The western slopes of El-Jibāl and Jebel esh-Shera are in parts
wooded : south of Shõbek, Khör el-Hīsheh has continuous
woods of oak and other trees. The eastern slope towards the
railway is open country broken by a few barren ridges. It
becomes more desert from north to south, and towards Maʻān
the surface is covered with loose black flints.
Compared with Wādi ‘Arabah and the region to the west of
it, this area is well watered; it is richer in water than Moab.
But the country being unsurveyed, and numerous water-
courses little known, there is uncertainty as to the exact
course of many wādis, and even confusion of names. Those
traversing the eastern slope are accurately known only where
tracks cross them; and as the watercourses on this side run
for the most part to the east; while the roads run north and
south, knowledge extends but little beyond mere points of
intersection. Of a few wādis on the west slope more informa-
tion is available, since tracks to the ‘Arabah follow in large part
the course of several among their number. But even here
there are discrepancies in the most recent maps and disagree-
ments in nomenclature, while minutely accurate descriptions
are far to seek.
Wādis
The following are the chief western watercourses from
north to south :
The great Wādi el-Hesa rises in hills far to the south-east,
beyond the railway at Qalʼat el-Hesa; from 'Ain el-Bazī‘iyeh
' PHYSICAL FEATURES:
639
it is said by Musil to have perennial water ; the floor of its
valley is fairly broad, with cultivable strips at the sides,
though its banks are steep. Its chief southern affluents are
the Seil el-Bākher, joining it not far east of the road and
crossing at Naqb el-Qasabeh, the Seil el-Jāʻez entering to the
west of this, and the Wādi La'bāni coming in just west of .
the road and crossing of Naqb el-‘Akūzeh, and taking its rise
almost due south near Khirbet Gharandel: this latter wādi has
a broad valley with strips of cultivation, and running water
in parts of its middle and lower course. The Seil el-Qasrein
comes in to the west; nearer the mouth are the Seil ‘Afra and
the Wādi edh-Dhabāʻah.
No other watercourse in the region is equal to the Wādi
el-Hesa, of which the deep channel is only exceeded by that
of the Wādi Mõjib in Moab; it is a broad and deep natural
boundary, to cross which takes the traveller some two hours.
The wādis which reach the Dead Sea either through the
Ghör, or as affluents of the Wādi el-Jeib, are but imperfectly
described. The Seil Feifeh, rising to the south-east near
Tafīleh, whence it sometimes bears the name of Nahr Tafileh,
is said to have water all the year in its lower course. Seil
Khaneizīr rises farther south in the same direction near Khirbet
Gharandel. The smaller Seil et-Telāh, on which is the ruined
site of Telāh, has a brook claimed also as perennial.
Then follows the Wādi Dākhel, up which runs an important
route connecting ‘Arabah with the great north and south
road on the plateau. The wādi forks some miles above its
mouth, and the British maps give the name Dākhel to the
northern branch, that of Ghuweir to the southern ; but it
would appear from German travellers (Dalman, &c.) who have
ascended the valley in recent years that the name Dākhel is
properly given to the southern branch by which the pilgrims
from Gaza travelled to the Hajj road between Buseireh and
Dhāna, and that the name Ghuweir is here misplaced. For
them the real Wādi (or Seil) Ghuweir is the more southerly
watercourse (sometimes called Seil ed-Dathneh), which comes
down from Shõbek, and joins, at Fīnān (ancient Phunon), the
640
EL-JIBĀL AND ESH-SHERA
Seil Dhāna coming from near the village of Dhāna, the two
together continuing in our maps as Wādi Fedān or Ifdān.
South of these two wādis may be mentioned: the Wādi Abu
Khusheibeh from the south of Jebel Hārūn affords the most
usual means of access to Petra, and south of this the Wādis
Gharandel and Muweileh, leading to Delāghah. Again south
are Wādis Turbān, Dharbeh, and Muhtedi, and then the far
larger Wādi Yitm, rising a long way NNE. in Jebel esh-Shera,
with the most frequented road to Ma'ān from Akaba running
up a great part of its course.
The wādis which run east of El-Jibāl and Jebel esh-Shera
are of small importance to the traveller. They are unknown in
their lower courses, and mostly fall into the unexplored de-
pression El-Jafar beyond the Hejaz Railway.
The wādis carrying permanent water are chiefly those
running into the Dead Sea, the Ghör and the northern Arabah.
Continuous observation is necessary to decide whether any
given wādi is perennial or not, and this is at present wanting.
The wādi at Petra fed by “Ain Mūsa has commonly been des-
cribed as perennial, but Dalman has on four successive visits
found it dry: from this single example it may be inferred that
statements as to running water should be received with
caution. It is, however, clear that the upper western slopes
and terrace plains are copiously watered; and if, in the month
of August, Musil saw many waterfalls tumbling into the gorge
of the Seil er-Rehāb, south of Seil ‘Afra, it is almost certain
that in positions even more favourable there are many streams
that never cease to run.
0
Springs
Springs are numerous in the upper course of all the wādis
and in the lower course of many; on the east slope they are
found on the high ground near the watershed, but become
rare as the wādis approach the desert. A survey of the
country would doubtless reveal the presence of springs and
wells in very extensive distribution.
641
FLORA AND FAUNA
On the flatter ground there is grass after the winter rains,
and at other times close to watering places. The tree of the
high country is the terebinth (Pistacia mutica) which gives good
shade and yields red berries eaten by the Arabs. Where trees
occur on the west sides of El-Jibāl and Esh-Shera, the oak
is found on the higher slopes, and on the lower the 'ar-ar
(Juniperus oxycadrus) and lizāb (Juniperus excelsa), varieties
of the juniper and of rather sombre foliage; the poplar is
said to be grown at Elji (El-Ji) for the sake of its timber.
The most extensive wooded tract is El-Hīsheh between
Shõbek and Elji, where a certain amount of timber could be
obtained. The oleander grows in profusion along the course
of all wādis where water generally runs. The scrub in the
wādis running down to the ‘Arabah probably resembles that
found in the wādis to the west of that depression.
The fauna of the high country includes the wolf, fox,
hyena, jackal, hare, wild-cat, and boar (the last two in the
wooded tracts); in the rocky hills and gorges on the edge
of ‘Arabah the panther is found. Birds include the hajal,
shunnār, pigeon, and kata, the latter haunting springs and
wells. Bees are numerous in Esh-Shera, and the Seil el-Hesa
supplies fish which are purchased in Kerak.
COMMUNICATIONS
The main lines of communication are from north to south,
continuing, south of the Wādi el-Hesa, the two great roads
from Damascus: the Hejaz Railway and Hajj road along the
edge of the desert, and the more westerly way down the
plateau, which follows the line of Roman roads. In ancient
times this latter route connected Petra and Akaba with
Jerash and Damascus; but Petra is a dead city and Akaba
a maritime village, and until Akaba has a railway and a
port the real terminus of both the great roads is Maʻān,
the entrance-gate into Arabia. In former times a third
north-south track ran down the west side of the crest from
SS
SYRIA
642
EL-JIBĀL AND ESH-SHERA
Seil ‘Afra through El-'Aimeh and along the terraces by Shõbek
to Delāghah and El-Beidha, joining the Roman road to Akaba
at Homeimeh. This route can still be used, and is easy south
of Shõbek, but under present conditions it serves only a scanty
local traffic. It is said by Musil to continue farther south into
El-Hisma and Iram.
. The more important transverse routes connecting this
region with Egypt, Sinai, and West Palestine across ‘Arabah,
are : the track from 'Ain Hosb in northern ‘Arabah up the
Wādi Dāhkel to the north-south road in the neighbourhood
of Buseireh ; a more southerly track from 'Ain Hosb up the
Wādi Ghuweir to Shõbek; the route from 'Ain Hosb or 'Ain
el-Weibeh over Naqb Namleh to Petra, for Ma'ān; and
a second route from 'Ain el-Weibeh to Petra by Naqb
er-Rabā'i and Wādi Khusheibeh. Minor transverse tracks
run up from ‘Arabah.
HABITANTS
Settled places. In the whole area there are only nine
places with settled or half-settled inhabitants. Akaba is a
maritime village with one street on the east shore of the
Gulf of Akaba near its head. Its population is unlikely to
exceed 1,000, and is chiefly occupied in cultivating, for a share
of the produce, the palm-groves and gardens in the narrow
strip of fertile land between it and the sea, which for the
most part belong to Huwāt, Huweitāt and 'Imrān Bedouin.
Water is found in this strip at a depth of about 3 ft., but
there is a public well and cistern immediately west of the
fort formerly occupied by the Turkish garrison. Ma'ān, with
about 3,000 inhabitants or more, on the edge of the desert,
has great gardens of peaches, apricots, figs, and pome-
granates with a few palms, and corn land distant about
three or four hours to the west (see further, Handbook of
Arabia, vol. ii, p. 121). Tafileh, with a population estimated
at about 9,000, is the capital of a kaza, and the principal
place in El-Jibāl. Shõbek is similarly important with regard
to Esh-Shera.
INHA BITANTS
643
· Smaller villages are Buseireh, El-‘Aimeh, Senefheh, and
Dhāna. These places have grain fields (barley, wheat, dhura)
and olive groves with rich well-watered gardens of fig and
other fruit trees, and vegetables. The people are fellahin, but
only in part sedentary, since they live a great part of the year
in tents among their fields and gardens, storing their grain in
their villages to which they return when there is little agricul-
tural work in progress. Seen from a distance the gardens
about these villages appear as rich expanses of verdure. The
rarity of permanent villages in a country rich in water and
with a sufficiently fertile soil is due to the imperfect pro-
tection afforded by the Government.
The Bedouin, unless forcibly restrained, levy black-
mail (khuwweh) upon all cultivators within easy reach,
either annexing the best fields and compelling the peasant
to cultivate them for their benefit, or appearing on the scene
at harvest-time and exacting a proportion as their share.
Small villages like El-Aimeh and Senefheh owe their com-
parative prosperity to the fact that they lie under the plateau-
crest and are protected by the steep rocky walls above them
to the east. To such unstable conditions must be ascribed
the occasional evacuation of villages. Sites known to have been
occupied in comparatively recent times are now abandoned.
Before Burckhardt's time, Umtedeh((?) Muhtedi), a villagenorth
of Buseireh, had been inhabited, but the people had migrated
to the latter place; the Greek-Christian inhabitants of
Bedebdeh, not far from Petra, had more recently gone north-
ward to Kerak; while early in the nineteenth century there
are said to have been settled villages in the district south of
Petra. The building of the Hejaz Railway with its defended
stations has encouraged agriculture all down its line in Moab;
it may ultimately have a similar effect in these more southerly
regions, though the cultivable soil is less conveniently acces-
sible and there is more desert west of the line. There is
a certain tendency among the Bedouin to adopt cultiva-
tion and a settled life, but rather among the breeders of
goats and sheep than among owners of camels ; for the
SS2
644
EL-JIBĀL AND ESH-SHERA
former are more closely bound to a few sites with good
grazing, and so learn something of sedentary life. But tribal
feuds and the nomadic temperament militate against per-
manent labour, and spots tilled for several years are suddenly
abandoned. The boundaries of cultivation are always
changing along the desert edge where wells are rare, and
uncertainty of rainfall is a further cause of fluctuation.
Both in El-Jibāl and Esh-Shera the fellahin own cattle, but
not in great numbers ; the cows yield little milk, and are used
chiefly for ploughing and threshing. Fowls are everywhere
kept; the eggs are good, and the birds themselves fit for
eating. Goats and sheep form considerable herds and flocks.
Mules and asses are used for riding and for burden; no
fellah is without an ass. Horses are not generally owned by
fellahin, being expensive to keep; mules tend to take their
place. Dogs are found everywhere, but are ill cared for.
Dwellings.--The tents in which the people dwell in the fields
are the usual booths of goat-hair cloth; their houses are the
low rectangular stone huts with courts met with elsewhere.
In settlements on or near ruined sites (e.g. Buseireh) the
fellah adapts an old house to his needs, or uses its stones to
build a new one.
Arab Tribes.-—The chief Bedouin of this region are, from
north to south: the Hejāya, to east of a line running
from Kerak to Buseireh; Liyātineh, about Wādi Mūsa; and
Huweitāt, south of this point as far as Akaba. The Saʻīdīyān,
from beyond ‘Arabah, penetrate the hills south of Jebel Hārūn.
The Beni Sakhr range the desert east of the Hejaz Railway
from the Jafar depression northwards. See further, Tribes of
Kerek and Shõbek, Handbook of Arabia, vol. i, p. 405.
.
CHAPTER XXI
THE GHOR (JORDAN AND DEAD SEA); AND
WĀDI ‘ARABAH
THE GHÕR (R. JORDAN AND DEAD SEA).
THE Ghör is a section of the great depression or rift which
begins in northern Syria at the base of the Anti-Taurus range
and is continued southwards through the Dead Sea and Wādi
‘Arabah to the Gulf of Akaba. This rift was produced,
not by the slow erosive action of water, but by a sudden
movement of the earth’s crust; its floor is a long narrow
strip of that crust, dropped thousands of feet below the
level of the plateaux on either side (Huntington). Though
it falls 2,372 ft. in about 104 miles, it has no precipitous
breaks, but may be regarded as a long incline with gradients
of varying severity. The steepest incline is between Lakes
Hūleh and Tiberias, and the most gradual in the section S. of
Ed-Dāmieh.
The surface-composition of the valley-floor varies in the
different sections. In the north, from the district of Bāniyās
to about 3 miles S. of L. Hūleh, it is principally alluvium.
Then follows a volcanic gorge extending to L. Tiberias, where
the stream is an almost continuous cascade and quite impass-
able. The whole valley S. of L. Tiberias is diluvium, pre-
dominantly marl. In this formation, from a point about
3 miles N. of the Beisān plain, the river works its way deep
down, forming an inner valley, 'a trench within a trench,
the floor of which it has covered with alluvial soil : this inner
valley bears the name of the Zör, to distinguish it from the
greater valley in which it is cut, known henceforward as the
Ghör. The Zor, about the lower middle Jordan, attains
646
THE GHOR AND WĀDI ‘ARABAH
a depth of some 150 ft.; its breadth is rarely less than a mile
and never more than two miles. The flat expanses along the
stream are covered with vegetation often of tropical rankness,
while the water is frequently overhung with willows and tama-
risks, or bordered with reeds and canes. The high sides of
marl rising on either hand are in their upper part bare, and
abut boldly upon the Zor. Their summits are broken in
irregular lines, and eroded into cones of the same kind as those
found upon the surface of the Ghör, to which they are tran-
sitional : the upper edge of the Zor has indeed been described
as the bluff-end of the Ghõr, which, by the excavation of the
lower or contained valley, has become the higher of two
terraces. Large parts of the Ghör surface, especially along
the edge of the Zor, are desolate expanses of saline marl rising
in ridges and mounds often of the conical form above men-
tioned, and in some places spreading like huge encampments,
to which they have been compared. The fertile tracts of the
Ghör lie mostly nearer the hills on either side, especially where
brooks come in from the eastern or western ranges. Here there
are stretches of gravel, sand, and clay, the drier parts covered
by broom and thorn-bush.
The numerous tributaries, many of which carry perennial
water, cut the Ghor at right angles in open and comparatively
shallow beds. Most, however, carry torrential water which,
as rising far below the ocean level in a soil impregnated
with chlorides and sodium, is bitter and often warm (G. Adam
Smith). Cane-brakes and oleanders line the banks of many,
and there are swamps which cause malaria.
The Hūleh valley which forms the head of the Jordan Section
of the Ghör, is about 20 miles long and 5 miles wide. For the
first 5 or 6 miles southward the floor is fertile alluvial plain ;
the remainder is largely filled with marshes and lake, the most
considerable margin being on the W. side, where the plain is
over a mile wide. The surface on either side of the lake is
fairly firm, and rich wheat lands come close to the west
shore. Towards the south end, the valley narrows to a few
hundred yards, being almost enclosed by a low line of volcanic
THE GHOR
647
hills. On the SW. side there are plantations of large eucalyp-
tus trees.
Between Lakes Hūleh and Tiberias the Ghor becomes con-
tracted by the mountains which press in on either hand, and
the river gorge which lies close to the east side cuts deep into
the basaltic bed. At L. Tiberias it spreads out to over 8 miles
and then gradually narrows down towards the S. This area
is almost entirely filled by the lake, there being only small
strips of plain E. and W.
The breadth of the Ghör for the first 12 miles or so south
of L. Tiberias is 3–4 miles. It then expands westward, merging
in the plain of Beisān, and, if this be included in its area, here
doubles its width. Below W. Māliheh, at the southern
extremity of the plain, the hills close in, and the valley is at
its narrowest; but it soon expands once more to an average of
about 3 miles, widening still farther in the region of Ras Umm
el-Kharrūbeh, to reach the breadth of 6 miles at Ed-Dāmieh.
There is now a general expansion, especially westwards to the
plains of Fasā'il and Jericho, the total breadth soon averaging
about 10 miles. This is maintained to about the lat. of Jericho,
when it increases to some 14 miles, as a result of the receding
bay in the eastern hills through which W. Kefrein and W.
Hesbān enter the plain. During the last mile or two the
width again contracts, and amounts to about 9 miles at the
head of the Dead Sea.
With the exception of the late volcanic basalt of the high
ground about its sources, flanking the gorge between L. Hūleh
and L. Tiberias, and forming the Galilaean hills down to
Beisān, almost all the high country enclosing the Jordan
valley is composed of cenomanian or of senonian limestone.
Only Jebel Fuqú', W. of the Beisān plain, and the Samarian
ridges S. of it culminating in Ras Umm el-Kharrūbeh and
Qarn Sartabeh are of miocene rock. A wall of limestone hills
rising to the mountains of 'Ajlūn and the Belqa lines the
whole eastern side of the Ghör : the only exception on this
side is the volcanic rock south of L. Tiberias, especially about
the outlet of the Sherī'et el-Menādhireh (R. Yarmūk).
648
THE GHOR AND WADI ARABAH
The R. Jordan
The name applies strictly to the river only from the point
where it issues from Lake Hūleh, but its real sources rise
far to the north in the S.W. base of Hermon, forming a
stream known as the Nahr Hāsbāni. The Jordan is a
purely inland river, and, so far as is known, is the only con-
siderable river which flows in a valley practically ready-made
from head to mouth. Although the usually accepted source
of the Jordan is at Bāniyās, the bed of the Hāsbāni lies
in the axis of the Jordan valley. It forms a southern
continuation of W. et-Teim, which in summer carries only' a
small amount of water, and drains the valley between Mount
Hermon and J. edh-Dhahr, the latter being a low ridge forming
the watershed between the N.Hāsbāni and N. Lītāni. The source
of the Hāsbāni is at the foot of a volcanic bluff named Ras
el-'Aujeh, which forms the end of a ridge running down N. of
Hāsbeya. Here a large fountain Neba' Hasbāni bursts forth
in the channel across which a strong permanent dam has been
built. Farther up W. et-Teim there is only an insignificant
stream from several small springs, but in winter the bed
carries a large body of water. About 150 yds. below the dam
is the bridge carrying the road to Hāsbeya. Thence the
stream winds southwards through a rich valley with gently
sloping sides covered with dense foliage by which it is almost
concealed. Below Khān es-Sūq it falls rapidly in a deep bed,
and is steadily augmented by many springs. Some 5 miles
lower down it issues into the great volcanic plain towards
Hūleh, in a deep and narrow chasm cut in the higher western
plateau. At El-Ghajār it is spanned by a Roman bridge of
3 arches ; between this point and Tell el-Qādhi and Bāniyās
is a region of running water and woods. About 5 miles below
Tell el-Qādhi, it is joined by the united streams of the Leddan,
(Edh-Dhān), and the Bāniyās which are the real sources of
the Jordan. The Leddān has its source in a great spring issuing
from the western side of Tell el-Qādhi, and the Bāniyās has its
principal source in the cave of ' Pan’. These streams join a
THE GHOR
649
short distance before reaching the Hāsbāni and, at the point of
confluence, carry a volume of water four or five times greater
than the parent stream. A little farther upstream the Hāsbāni
receives on the r. the waters of N. Bareighīt from Merj ‘Ayūn.
The trunk, now a considerable river, pursues its course
southward through the Hūleh valley, traversing a fertile plain
before spreading into marshes. Here the banks are of reddish
clay, soft and deep in places ; the stream was estimated by
Macgregor, 1869, at 30 to 100 ft. wide, with a flood depth
of 7 ft.
The Hūleh marshes are about 6 miles long by l] miles wide,
bounded on the west by a plain 1 to 2 miles wide. They are over-
grown with an impenetrable mass of papyrus, 8–10 ft. high,
and other water plants said to be the greatest solid mass
of papyrus in the world ’ (Masterman) ; even the narrow
winding channel of the stream is navigable only in parts. The
northern part of the marshes has been drained and here, at
intervals along the western mountains, copious springs provide
streams for irrigation; the largest of these is 'Ain el-Mellāhah.
Below the marshes is L. Hūleh (alt. 7 ft.), into which the
channel enters at about the middle of its northern end. It
is a shallow stretch of muddy water about 4 miles from N. to S.,
and 3 miles from E. to W.; its area, as well as that of the
marshes, is slowly contracting on account of silt and decayed
vegetation. The bottom is covered with weeds which grow
up nearly to the surface. The lake, marshes, and tributary-
streams are abundantly stocked with fish.
On issuing from the lake the river is about 60 ft. wide, and
for about a mile the fall is not rapid. Near Jisr Banāt Ya'qūb,
which carries the Damascus chaussée, the river begins to fall
below the level of the Mediterranean. The channel is here
about 80 ft. wide, bordered with oleanders, papyrus, and reeds,
and its course lies in a deep basaltic gorge. The river,
now a raging torrent, falls 70 ft. per mile for 8-9 miles
until it reaches the marshy plain El-Batīhah at the head of
L. Tiberias. Here the waters are diverted to many mills, and
the muddy and much reduced stream flows through a delta
650
THE GHOR AND WĀDI ‘ARABAH
into the lake at a level of 682 ft. below the Mediterranean.
In this latter stretch it is fordable at many points and,
although the current is not rapid, the inflow is visible far into
the lake.
Where the Jordan issues from L. Tiberias it is a stream of
clear sweet water. At the outlet, on the r. bank, there is
a promontory of gravel which forms a sort of breakwater
and sends the current along the l. bank; at the ford here the
bed is of shingle and gravel, with easy shelving approaches.
Southward the banks are 15 to 20 ft. high and the stream is
from 50–60 yds. wide and 8-10 ft. deep. The water soon
becomes heavily charged with sediment, eroded from the
marly banks in its sinuous course of about 65 miles crowfly
to the Dead Sea, during which it twists about in every direc-
tion of the compass. In many places the river splits up into a
number of smaller courses. The width, depth, and current
vary greatly, but the river may be taken as averaging 70–80 yds.
wide and 2–3 ft. deep when not in flood ; the speed of the
current varies at different points from 2–12 knots per hour.
The greatest width of 180 yds. is at its mouth; here the
depth is normally about 3 ft. and the current slow.
The Jordan is in flood when the snows melt on Hermon ;
it reaches its highest point in April, and is at its lowest in
late summer. In time of flood it can only be safely crossed
by the bridges of Jisr Banāt Ya'qub about 11 mile south of
L. Hūleh, Et-Tumm immediately south af Tiberias, Jisr
el-Mujāmi' about 2 miles south of the confluence of the
Yarmūk, Jisr esh-Sheikh Husein opposite Beisān, and Jisr
el-Ghörānīyeh opposite Jericho, which mark the passage of
important roads connecting Galilee, Samaria, and Judaea
with the trans-Jordanic country from Damascus and the
Haurān south to the Belqa. The flood-water covers the
whole level of the Zor, rising to a height of several feet,
but the rise above summer-level must vary considerably
in different years. The average would appear to be about
5 ft., but Lynch, descending on a falling flood in mid-April
1848, observed recently uptorn bushes caught in the branches
COURO The height Fars to be
THE GHOR
651
of trees N. of Ed-Dāmieh at a height estimated by him
as 15 ft., which indicated a far greater volume of water.
When the flood has subsided, which is before May, the imme-
diate banks present a desolate scene. The floor of the jungle
is covered with deposits of mud and gravel. ... Dead drift-
wood is everywhere in sight. Large trees lie about, overthrown,
and the exposed roots and lower trunks of the trees still
standing are smeared with mud, except where they have been
recently torn by passing wreckage' (cf. Adam Smith). The
series of soundings taken by Lynch during his passsage down
the river are reduced in value through the fact that they were
obtained when the water was stilll too high for crossing at
many of the fords. The maximum depth recorded by this
traveller is 12 ft., about 3 miles N. of the Dead Sea; but the
water was 10 ft. to 8 ft. just S. of Lake Tiberias, and depths
of 10 ft. were recorded between Jisr el-Mujāmi' and the Beisān
plain ; not far below El-Mujāmi', 6 ft. were measured, and
7 ft. at Ed-Dāmieh. The deepest places were at points where
the stream contracts, the shallow where it was broadest;
the smallest measurement taken by Lynch was 2 ft. The
estimates of speed published by this officer are higher than
such as would be obtained later in the year. At some of the
rapids which he shot in his metal boats he records 12 knots
an hour; along the flatter reaches, as between Ed-Dāmieh
and the mouth of W. el-'Aujeh, the speed was nearer 3 knots ;
3-4 knots represented the average over considerable distances
S. of Beisān. But though the worst rapids are in the northern
part of the valley, they are found at intervals far to the south,
and mention is made of 'wild and dangerous rapids' between
Ed-Dāmieh and Makhādet Hajleh in the plain of Jericho ;
there are said to be 27 major and a greater number of minor
rapids distributed along the course of the river between
Tiberias and the Dead Sea. From the records of travellers
it may be inferred that in the early summer the water at the
better-known fords may rise some way up a horse's flanks,
and that the bed is for the most part fairly good. The
fords of the middle and lower Jordan are very numerous
652
THE GHOR AND WĀDI “ARABAH
(between fifty and sixty), but only those have importance
which lie upon frequented roads or tracks. Such are those
.connecting the plain of Beisān with Tell el-Arba'in,
Tayyibeh in north 'Ajlūn, and Irbid (Makhādet el-'Abāra, M.
'Ain es-Sauda, M. Wādi et-Tibn); those linking the same
region with Fāhil and central 'Ajlūn (M. et-Tumra, M. Sheikh
Daʻūd, M. el-Hamra); and those passed by tracks from Tubās
to Rājib and Jerash (M. et-Turkmānīyeh, M. Umm Sidreh).
There are few fords of practical interest below this last point,
Salt being approached from NW. and SW. by main roads
from Nāblus and Jerusalem, the crossing being made in the
former case by a ferry at Jisr ed-Dāmieh and in the latter by
the bridge at El-Ghörānīyeh. In the Jericho plain the
river grows too deep to cross in comfort. At the most southerly
(so-called) ford, El-Henu, about 3 miles north of the Dead Sea,
a horse must always swim..
The ferry at Ed-Dāmieh consisted, before the war, of a raft
or lighter drawn across the river by a steel cable. When not
in flood the river may also be crossed at this place by wading :
Van de Velde states that when crossing here in mid-May' the
water did not reach much above the knees '. Light bridges,
possibly only of a temporary character, are reported to have
been constructed across the river near Mafīdh Jõzeleh, about
5 miles due south of Ed-Dāmieh.
The great number of tributary wādis falling to the Ghör are
mostly dry in summer, but in winter they carry an enormous
volume of water. The chief perennial affluents of the Jordan
come in on the l. bank, draining a wide area of the eastern
plateau which is more plentifully watered in this region
than in northern Syria. Those of the inner slopes of the
western range drain a comparatively small area scantily pro-
vided with springs, a peculiarity which is even more marked
in the section of northern Syria. The mouths of the larger wādis,
both perennial and non-perennial, are characterized by deposits
of gravel and sediment washed down by the violent winter
spates, whose volume and force carry soil from the uplands
and cause extensive erosion of the soft limestone formation.
THE GHOR
653
Of the eastern perennial affluents several fall into L. Tiberias
at the NE. end, and on the same side of the lake is the con-
siderable stream of W. es-Semak. The greatest eastern affluent
of the Jordan is the R. Yarmūk (see pp.570 ff.) which joins some
5 miles south of the lake. A few miles still farther south the
considerable stream from W. el-'Arāb comes in, and, about
30 miles crowfly farther down, is the N. ez-Zerqa the second
largest affluent (see pp.590 ff.). Between Yarmūk and Zerqa
there are a number of small streams from springs in the moun-
tain base. Southward there is no important stream except the
Seil el-Mõjib, falling into the Dead Sea (see pp. 618 ff.). N. and
S. of this latter there are respectively the perennial streams
of W. Zerqa Māʻīn (Callirhoë) and W. Kerak (see pp.620 ff.), and
at the SE. corner of the sea is the Seil el-Hesa (see p. 638).
Of the western perennial affluents the most important are
W. el-Bīreh nearly opposite W. el-'Arāb (see p.528); N. Jālūd
in the valley of Jezreel (see p. 531 f.); W. Fār'ah, the lower
part of which is named W. Jāzeleh, draining the highlands of
Samaria ; W. el-'Aujeh N. of Jericho ; and W. el-Qelt which
flows close to Jericho. . There are no perennial streams of
any consequence falling into the Dead Sea on the west, but,
on or near the shore, there are copious springs such as 'Ain
el-Feshkheh, 'Ain Ghuweir, ‘Ain Trābeh, and 'Ain Jidi.
Lake Tiberias, Bahret Tabarīya, or Sea of Galilee
This lake is irregular pear-shaped with the wide end on the N.;
it measures 13 miles from N. to S. and 7 miles from E. to W. atits
widest point opposite Mejdel. The surface level, which varies
slightly with the seasons, is normally 682 ft. below the
Mediterranean; the greatest depth is variously given as from
148 ft. to 200 ft. The water is clear and sweet and is preferred
for drinking by the natives to that of the Jordan. The shore
for the greater part is a broad pebbly beach with small shells
and some stretches of sand; here and there outcrops of
basalt occur. In certain parts, such as that westward from
the Jordan inlet, again S. of Mejdel on the western shore, and
at Qal'at el-Husn on the east, the mountains come close to
654
THE GHOR AND WĀDI ‘ARABAH
the water. North of Mejdel lies the plain of El-Ghuweir,
see p. 534 f.; behind modern Tiberias the mountains recede,
leaving a crescent-shaped plain largely covered by the ruins
of an ancient city ; farther S., a narrow strip of plain runs
to the southern end of the lake. A similar narrow plain
runs along the eastern shore. On the NE., there is the
marshy and very unhealthy plain of Batīhah. The slopes
bordering the lake are covered with luxuriant foliage in
spring ; everywhere oleanders are seen.
Many of the wādis which fall into the lake on the eastern
side are dry, or nearly so, in summer. The surrounding
scenery is picturesque, especially on the eastern side of the
lake. On the western shores there are several hot saline
springs as at Tābghah and Fūlīyeh, and also S. of Tiberias,
where there are ancient and modern hot baths. The water
of the latter is sulphurous with a temperature of 143° Fahr.
The lake is subject to frequent storms and sudden squalls,
the cool air from the uplands rushing down the gorges with
great violence and making the sea dangerous to sailing craft.
Boatmen do not venture far from the shore unless under
settled conditions. Since the Haifa-Der'a railway was built
steamers ply between Semakh and Tiberias (see p. 551).
Fishing occupies the attention of a large part of the popu-
lation and is followed more particularly between Mejdel and
Batihah. At Tābghah, the fish are attracted by the warm
water from the hot springs, and between mid-January and
mid-April, fishermen make this hamlet their head-quarters
(see further, Chap. XVI, p. 549 f.).
The Dead Sea, or Bahr Lut
This inland salt sea measures 47 miles from N. to S. and, at
its greatest width opposite 'Ain Jidi, measures 10 miles, narrow-
ing to 2 miles opposite the promontory El-Lisān, 'the tongue';
its area is some 340 square miles. The surface level varies
according to the season of the year. Besides this, the general
level of 1,292 ft. below the Mediterranean, observed during
the survey in 1874, is now considerably higher, as is proved
THE GHOR
655
by the little island of Rujm el-Bahr near the north coast
which then served as one of the trigonometrical stations, but is
now submerged. Many trees standing off the shore are now
completely submerged. The form of the coast-line has there-
fore considerably changed in recent years. The greatest depth
of the sea, on the E. side 10 miles S. of the Jordan inlet, is
given as 1,278 ft. ; the trough drops very abruptly on the
eastern side but shelves down more gradually on the western,
especially at the northern end, where it is affected by the
Jordan silt.
· Various theories have been advanced to account for the
general rise in the level of the Dead Sea in historic times.
The principal cause appears to be the vast volume of sedi-
ment which is washed from the soft limestone of the
adjoining highlands during the winter spates. At the mouths
of the numerous wādis, deltas project into the sea, spreading
over several square miles and strewn with boulders carried
there by the torrents. Wright estimates the area of the
Jordan delta alone at 15-20 square miles. The great volume
of evaporation, estimated at 20,000,000 cubic ft. per diem,
on the one hand, and the water brought into the sea together
with the displacement by siltage, on the other, are probably
the principal factors which determine the level.
A striking feature in the configuration of the Dead Sea is
the Lisān promontory, which juts out from the eastern shore
more than half way across the sea and forms a small bay which
faces north. This bay shelves very gradually and is largely
silted up by the floods from W. Kerak and W. Beni Hammād.
South of Point Molyneux, the northern end of the pro-
montory, the water, at its deepest, is not more than 15 ft.
At high water it spreads for a mile southward over the salt
flats or sablcheh. In 1818 travellers reported seeing Arabs
fording the sea from Pt. Molyneux to the western shore, but
in 1838 this ford was reported as impracticable. Within the
memory of old natives a well-known causeway was passable
for sheep from the Lisān to W. Umm Bagheq ; camels and
mules could cross anywhere in this neighbourhood.
656 THE GHOR AND WĀDI ‘ARABAH
The water of the Dead Sea is heavily impregnated with
saline, mostly chlorides of sodium, magnesium, and calcium,
yielding 26 per cent. of mineral salts as compared with
6 per cent. in the Atlantic Ocean. It is consequently exceed-
ingly buoyant and on account of the high specific gravity
(1.166) the storm waves are destructive to craft. For the
same reason storms quickly subside and in general the appear-
ance of the lake is dark and dead. The water is destructive
to all forms of animal life and fish are only found where it is
diluted by fresh water from perennial streams and springs.
Wind storms blowing through the length of the sea are
frequent. An interesting fact is recorded by Cady, who,
in February 1900, noticed strong currents setting northward
along the eastern shore. He suggests as explanation that the
southward flow of the central Jordan current striking the
promontory of Lisān, is returned by side currents. E. and W.
The Shores of the Dead Sea. Immediately west of the mouth
of the Jordan lies a shelving shore-plain, pebbly in places or
covered with light salt-washed soil in others. Then follows
a belt of reedy marshes to ‘Ain Feshkhah. The promontory of
Ras Feshkhah here projects to the waters edge; then for about
15 miles southward there is a beach of sand and gravel about
1 mile wide, while opposite Wādis ed-Darajeh and Hasāsah
the width is over a mile. At Ras Mersed the passage along
the shore is again obstructed, but beyond it there is no obstruc-
tion on to Jebel Usdum. The plain of 'Ain Jidi measures 1 mile
by ] mile. Between ‘Ain Jidi and Sebbeh (Masada) a distance
of 10 miles, the cliffs recede to 2 miles from the shore and the
plain is intersected by numerous wādis, at the mouth of each
of which is a delta. The cliffs of Ras Mersed, ‘Ain Jidi and
Sebbeh are prominent features on the western shore. J. Usdum
runs some 8 miles along the SW. angle of the sea, rising sheer
from the water. The lower 200 ft. of the cliffs consist of
transparent rock salt seamed by perpendicular fissures.
Many of the springs along the shore-plain at the base of the
western mountains are warm and give rise to oases of varying
extent and character. 'Ain Feshkhah (temp. 70°–80.5° Fahr.).
THE GHOR
657
the strongest of a group of numerous springs of perennial
but brackish water, forms a large pool in a considerable area
of dense reed and other growth. ‘Ain Ghuweir (temp.
96° Fahr.), 100 yds. from the shore, is concealed in a belt
of very tall reeds which extends longitudinally for about
14 mile ; 'Ain Trābeh is situated in a thicket of reeds and
clumps of tamarisk. ‘Ain Jidi (temp. 84° Fahr.), the finest
of all the springs on the western shore, issues from below
a mass of rock on to a shelf of the mountain cliffs, at an
elevation of about 600 ft. above the Dead Sea. The stream
gives rise to an almost impenetrable thicket of reeds and
thorny scrub in its downward course to the shore, and, at the
foot of the mountain, forms a small oasis which bears
vegetation and sparse cultivation.
At the S. end of the sea there are a great number of shoal-
like promontories, and the bed of the Ghör here consists of mud
flats with saline deposits, large parts of which are flooded
at high water. For further description of the southern shore
of the Dead Sea, see p. 663; and for description of the eastern
shore, see p. 616 f.
Climate
The climate of the Jordan Valley and of the Dead Sea
is almost tropical, in character. Owing to great depth of the
depression, the flanking highlands shut out the breezes from
sea and plain, and the heat during summer from the cliffs
around the Dead Sea adds to the extreme oppressiveness of
both days and nights. The enormous amount of evaporation
also spreads a low-lying haze and the heat is comparable to
that of a forcing-house.
The temperature at Jericho in August has been known to
rise to 120° Fahr. while the sun's rays in the Ghör and lower
wādis are blistering and almost unbearable. In winter the
days are hot, but the nights are often pleasantly cool. (See
further, Chap. II, p. 45.)
Throughout the Ghör generally malaria is prevalent and,
S. of Beisān, even the natives migrate periodically to the
It
SYRIA
658
THE GHOR AND WĀDI ‘ARABAH
highlands. Those who live most of the year in the lower
Ghör are sickly and degenerate. In the southern Ghor the
harvest is a month or six weeks earlier than in the maritime
plain and from two to three months earlier than on the
neighbouring highlands. (Post.)
Agriculture
Production has in the past been much restricted because
of the lack of sufficient irrigation, without which the fierce
heat quickly parches everything. The channel of the
Jordan is mostly too deep to admit of simple irrigation
systems, but there are many square miles of land to
which its waters, and in particular those of its affluents, are
easily adaptable. On the E. side, between the Yarmūk and
W. Fāhil, there are sufficient streams to irrigate the whole of
that region, which bears good grain crops without elaborate
irrigation. The tropical climate is said to be favourable to
the culture of cotton, rice, sugar-cane, indigo, and dates,
besides the usual cereals, fruits and all kinds of vegetables.
Between Lake Tiberias and the Dead Sea, the soil of the
Zör is mainly unsuitable for cultivation. The soil of the
Ghör itself, especially toward the hills, is mostly good and has
been reported by Egyptian experts to be admirably suited in
certain parts to the cultivation of cotton. Experiments in
cotton-growing have been made from time to time. In one
year, some 580 Egyptian feddans were put under cultivation
near Beisān with results which in the main justified the
experiment. Landowners decided later to extend the experi-
ments by putting an area of 2,000 feddans under cultivation
(Weakley). One of the most serious difficulties was the scarcity
of labour during picking time (see further, p. 489 f. and p. 546).
Considerable areas, chiefly on the very fertile parts of the
western shores of Lakes Hūleh and Tiberias, as well as in the
valley between these two, and also south of the latter, are
cultivated by Jewish colonists, see I.D. 1203. Experiments
in cotton, tobacco, and cocoon cultures here met with little
success, and the land is now almost entirely under cereal crops.
THE GHOR
659
14.
Much of the middle Ghör is cultivated by the people of
various villages of Samaria, and a great part of the eastern
side was at one time cultivated by the natives of 'Ajlün who
were afterwards crowded out by the extension of the Sultan's
estates-the Jiftlik Hamayüni. These state farms covered
a considerable total area and both Fāhil and Arba'īn
were administrative centres under the mudir of Beisān, who
was the chief administrator of the Ghör. There are other
state farms in the neighbourhood of Jisr Banāt Ya'qub and
also in southern Ghör. Although improvements were intro-
duced and some experiments made, little progress appears to
have resulted in developing these lands; they are farmed out
to the natives of the Ghör and cultivated on the métayer
system (see Chap. VI, p. 249 f.).
. Both the plain of Beisān and that of Jericho are con-
sidered to have great agricultural possibilities, given well-
directed irrigation and good administration. In the former,
flax was abundantly grown in the Roman period; maize and
rice were cultivated in crusading and later times. Towards
Jericho date-palm groves stretched for miles and gardens of
balsam were farmed by the Roman government. Before and
during the Crusades, sugar-cane was cultivated, and remains
of the sugar mills still exist. Of existing irrigation canals in
the Ghör, two, each 41 miles long, run south from W. el-
'Arāb to Zõr el-Bāsha and water a tract which produces
two- and three-fold crops. Several copious springs on the
west side of Lake Hūleh, the chief of which is 'Ain el-Mellāhah,
supply water for irrigating the plain there. With proper
irrigation there is no region where results would be swifter
or richer than in these fertile tracts of the Ghör. Although
the climate in summer is unsuitable for Europeans, it is quite
possible for negroes.
Inhabitants
Very few Bedouin live continuously in the Ghor. The
effect of the climate is shown in the sickly and degenerate
appearance of those who are more particularly confined to
Tt2
660
THE GHOR AND WĀDI ‘ARABAH
this region and who, in summer, seek the comparative relief
of the higher slopes, occupying their upland tribal territory
in the mountains on either flank.
The distribution of the Arab tribes fluctuates in various
districts and the statistics of early authorities are unreliable.
The following incomplete table of tribes is compiled from
Schumacher's maps 1908–11, from various articles, and from
A tribal Handbook of Syria.1
The Eastern Ghör :
The Sukhūr el-Ghõr, about the Yarmūk and W. el-'Arāb;
they also cultivate the district of Delhamīyeh, in
the Western Ghör..
The Ya'qūb el-Fādil and the Rāja, about the W. el-'Arāb
district.
The Beni Sakhr, about Tell el-Arba'in.
The Balāwaneh, about the lower W. Rājib.
The Mashālkha and the ‘Abbād, about the lower N. ez-Zerqa.
The Western Ghör:
The Sukhūr, the Hamādi, and the Beshatwi, between
W. el-Bireh and Beisān plain.
The Sīyr and the Ghazzawīyeh, in the Bieisān district.
The Masā'īd, about W. Fār'ah.
The K'ābneh el-'Aujeh, about W. el-Aujeh.
The Ghawārneh, in the plain of Jericho.
The Sawārhereh, about Jericho and Nebi Mūsa.
The 'Ubeidīyeh and thë Ta‘āmireh, from the Jordan mouth
to Ras Feshkhah.
The Rashā'ideh, about ‘Ain Jidi.
The Beni Sakhr are the most powerful of these and they
now constitute the chief tribe of the southern trans-Jordan
country. The Bedouin of the Ghor are cultivators and
stock raisers some tribes having a proportion of low class
fellahin. Certain of the lower class tribes, such as the
Ghazzawiyeh and the Ghawārneh, have become fellahin and
are tenant cultivators of the state lands. An estimate of the
numbers occupying the Ghör proper, at any one time of the
? Prepared by the Arab Bureau, Cairo; provisional edition, 1918.
THE GHOR
661
year, is difficult as the tribes generally utilize the arable and
pasture lands on the lower slopes, in the tributary wādis, and
on the adjoining highlands as well.
WĀDI ‘ARABAH
Physical Features
The great depression known as the Wādi “Arabah, so wide
that in parts it suggests a plain rather than a valley, prolongs
to the Gulf of Akaba the cleft between the high country to
east and west begun by the Jordan and the Dead Sea. It is
not a continuous trough with a slope in one direction, but is
divided by a watershed near the middle into two parts, of
which the northern is the longer by some ten miles. The
line of this watershed, as determined by Lieut. Vignes of
the French Navy, is a curve with a general direction varying
from SW. to NE., lying between 30° 8' and 30° 14' N.
latitude. As the Dead Sea level is about 1,270 ft. below
that of the Gulf of Akaba, while the altitude of the watershed
at its highest point is not far from 800 ft., the average gradient
of the northern slope is the steeper, with a rise of about
2,000 ft. in some 60 miles as against a rise on the southern
slope of 700-800 ft. in 50 miles. The surface is generally
hard, and where not traversable by light wheeled traffic
could be made so; there are no greater obstacles than those
of occasional sand or marsh mentioned below, all avoidable
without much difficulty, and possibly a steep pitch at the
south end of the watershed. The valley is broadest in the
north, contracting to the watershed and beyond, and once
more widening to the south, though with a less expansion.
It is enclosed along both its sides by escarpments, forming
walls only broken by the wādi-gorges which enter from
east and west. These rocky walls are in places precipitous,
especially in the east, where the main crest of the interior
heights is nearer than on the west, and the descending steps
into the valley are narrower. The one part where they sink
to insignificance is in the region of the watershed; here the
662
THE GHOR AND WĀDI 'ARABAH
western hills are low, and can be entered without difficulty,
though their intricate and broken surface does not encourage
exploration. The geology of the region is summarized
elsewhere (see p. 613 f.); here it may be noted that the prevail-
ing rock is limestone, though crystalline rocks are found in
the south-west, while sandstone appears in many places on
the eastern side.
The general character of the ‘Arabah may now be briefly
described, proceeding from the watershed northward to the
Dead Sea, here named the Northern slope.
The Northern Slope.- On this side an easy incline leads
down the right bank of the Wādi Heyāneh to the plain
of El-Bāhah lying twelve miles away at the junction of
this wādi with the great Wādi el-Jerāfi, which comes from
the south-west; the watercourse thus formed becomes
the main wādi of 'Arabah, and under the names of Wādi
el-Ghamr and Wādi Jeib, runs continuously to the Ghör
and the Dead Sea, with a course as long as that of the
Jordan valley. Gravel plains succeed, after which the
wādi traverses more or less open ground, with gravelly
ridges or flats at its sides. But about thirty miles beyond
El-Bāhah it enters a limestone gorge ten miles in length,
with abrupt walls ultimately rising to a height of some
200 ft., and impassable broken country to a depth of two or
three miles or more on each side ; from this gorge it issues
into the Ghõr, a line of limestone cliffs curving to right and
left, and forming a kind of amphitheatre round the south end
of that depression. The western border of the northern slope
has too much gravel or rough limestone, and is too frequently
cut up by wādis for cultivation ; but along the east side the
reports of more than one traveller describe expanses of
cultivable plain. About the Wādi Fedān (Ifdān) and the
Wādi et-Telāh, remains of ancient terraces show that wide
tracts, now barren, once supported a considerable population.
There is little doubt that all the east side of the valley
was once a most fertile district, the streams of water in
each valley being used to irrigate gardens and extensive
WĀDI ARABAH
663
cultivation' (Kitchener, 1883). This side of 'Arabah may
have, in addition, some mineral wealth. At Fīnān, in Wādi
Fedān (13 miles south of Wādi Dākhel, and the same distance
east of 'Ain el-Weibeh), was a copper-smelting town, the ores
being brought from the hills to the north; it is doubted,
however, whether these would repay exploitation at the
present day. (Dalman.)
The link between the Dead Sea and W. ‘Arabah is formed
by a sablcheh, or bare marshy lowland with saline efflorescences.
It is traversed by watercourses from both sides, and only
to be crossed after heavy rains on tracks known to the Arabs.
The Sabkheh cannot indeed be passed without difficulties of
transport except in the dry weather, the very time when the
heat, the mosquitoes, and the flies make its passage almost
unendurable to white men and to all animals not bred to such
conditions. Its extent varies with the level of the Dead Sea,
which is affected both by seasonal and by periodic change ;
in 1883 its length was estimated at ten miles, but it is now
much less. The Sabkheh proper is muddy or marshy
ground; but on its eastern side are two fertile patches or
oases, Es-Sāfiyeh and El-Feifeh, occupied by Ghawārneh
fellahin. Each place has a village of tents or reed huts,
more or less permanently occupied, though in hot weather
the people withdraw to the surrounding hills. The larger
village, Es-Sāfiyeh, is at the extreme north-east corner, close
to the sea, and south of the Seil el-Qerāhi, the name given
to the lowest section of the great Wādi el-Hesa, which issues
from the hills through a sandstone gorge on the east. The
perennial water of the seil is distributed over the adjoining
tract by numerous irrigation-channels, and renders possible
an extensive cultivation. Tobacco, wheat, barley and dhura
are sown in January, maize and indigo in March ; white
grapes are grown on trellises, and water-melons and cucumbers
produced in numbers. Cattle are kept, small in size and
usually black with white faces; there are herds of sheep and
goats, donkeys, and fowls laying small eggs. El-Feifeh,
rather more than five miles south of Es-Sāfiyeh, is separated
664
THE GHOR AND WĀDI ARABAH
from it by a barren expanse of sand dunes ; its position
relatively to the Seil el-Feifeh, or Nahr Tafileh (as the lower
Seil ez-Zerqa is here sometimes called), is similar to that
occupied by the larger village to the Seil el Qerāhi, and its
cultivation is of a like nature ; in 1912 it was said not to be
inhabited. About the two oases there are various trees and
bushes, including three species of acacia. As the traveller
proceeds northwards towards the Dead Sea, these trees are
replaced by tamarisk, poplar, castor-oil, and fushr (see p. 105).
There follow swampy patches with jungles of grasses, and salt
patches, ending in a foreshore of barren saline mud or sand.
Among the fauna of the Sabkheh may be mentioned boars
(plentiful in the reed-beds), and jackals, with very numerous
birds-doves, duck, snipe, buzzards, owls, hawks, and smaller
species.
The Southern Slope. The southern slope of W. ‘Arabah
is distinguished by the absence of any great central water-
course running the whole way from the watershed to the sea.
In the twenty-five miles north from Akaba, where the valley
is broad, the water which comes down after rains is absorbed
by two large mud-flats, transformed into lakes in winter, but
separated by a barrier of boulders from two opposite wadīs,
Menāʻiah on the west and Muhtedi on the east. The
southernmost, known as Ed-Defīyeh, or Sabkhet Defīyeh,
begins some five miles north of Akaba, and runs north for
about seven miles, with an average breadth of two miles, the
main track up the wādi following its eastern side. The more
northerly, Et-Tābah, begins some eight miles farther north,
and has an almost equal superficies, though a less regular shape.
Wells of importance to travellers are situated on the edge of
these flats : 'Ain ed-Defīyeh at the north-east corner of the
first ; 'Ain Tābah and 'Ain Ghadyān on opposite sides of the
second. On and about the marshy ground, there is extensive
vegetation--reeds, sommar, halfa and palm scrub—while east
of Tābah, Musil crossed expanses of saline plain and dunes
overgrown with ghadha bushes. A few miles north of Et-
Tābah, the 'Arabah contracts and its floor begins to be
WĀDI ARABAH
665
covered with shifting sand which extends for some twelve
miles, though along both sides there is flat hard ground.
This sandy stretch ceases near Wādi Gharandel, which
descends from the east side, with a spring near its mouth,
a usual halting-place for travellers. North of this wādi,
a long stony slope leads for some ten miles to the watershed,
which ends abruptly on its southern and eastern sides. The
north-east part of the watershed is formed by a ridge, Jebel
el-Rīsheh, or Rīshet el-Hawar, south and north of which run
tracks connecting Egypt and Syria with Petra and the
Hejaz Railway.
Communications
The ‘Arabah forms a natural and direct highway between
two seas ; 'the only serious obstacle to its use is the fierce
heat of a valley enclosed within rocky walls and running for
nearly a quarter of its length below the level of the Mediter-
ranean. In ancient times an extensive traffic passed up and
down it; ruins of fortified posts attest the importance which
it still retained under the Roman and Byzantine Empires.
But even in those days, lateral routes crossing it, or running
into it to follow a part only of its course, came to rival or
excel it in importance; roads from the eastern plateau and
across north Sinai carried an increasing share of the world's
commerce, for the most part approaching or leaving the great
valley by tributary wādis—on the east by Wādis Yitm,
Gharandel, Khusheibeh, and Dākhel; on the west by Wādis
Heyāneh, Jerāfi, and Murrah (Fiqreh). But after the triumph
of Islam, its value to the world declined ; and in modern
times the rise of steam communication by land and sea, the
shifting of the great trade-centres, and the absence of a strong
local government have combined to make this region one of
the least frequented parts of the nearer East. If commercially
it may be described as dead, strategically it may yet know
some revival. Akaba commands the direct route to Maʻān
up the Wādi Yitm. The Romans had a fort and post at 'Ain
Hosb commanding the approach to the passes above the Wādi
666
THE GHOR AND WĀDI ARABAH
Marrah (Naqb es-Sefei, Naqb el-Ghārib); and it has already
been observed that should the present frontier of Egypt be
moved northward, these passes might regain something of
their old military significance.
There are no food supplies along the whole length between
Akaba and the Ghör, but grain, cattle, and sheep in moderate
quantities could be brought from Es-Sāfiyeh. When the
pasture in Sinai is known to be good, flocks of sheep from
the Haurān and the Belqa for sale in Egypt are driven down
through El-Jibāl and across ‘Arabah. Such flocks were seen
by Jaussen on the hills just north of the watershed in spring,
at which time alone they would be met.
Water-supply.-Under present conditions the wells and
springs on both sides of the valley supply enough water at
intervals for small caravans, which permits the use of horses,
though all baggage must be carried by camels. The following
are the more important springs and wells in Wādi “Arabah
naming from north to south: On the northern slope : ‘Ain
‘Arūs, 'Ain el-Qaseib, 'Ain Hosb, 'Ain el-Weibeh, El-Ghamr,
and Bir Meleih. On the southern slope: 'Ain el-Bi’ār, ‘Ain
Gharandel, ‘Ain Tābah, “Ain Ghadyān, and 'Ain Defīyeh, the
latter 1l] miles north of Akaba. Were the ‘Arabah to be
used for the passage of troops, provision for the storage of
water would have to be made at all wells on the route which
do not, like 'Ain el-Weibeh, 'Ain Hosb, and 'Ain Arūs,
yield a reliable and fresh supply. This would be especially
necessary on the southern slope, where there are fewer good
wells; and in any event the water in several places (e.g.
‘Ain Defīyeh, 'Ain Ghadyān, El-Ghamr) leaves much to be
desired in point of quality.
Fauna and Flora
The chief wild animals found in the 'Arabah are the
panther, hyena, wolf, fox, gazelle, on the flat ground (qā')
under the escarpments, ibex on the rocky hills to east and
west, wild cat and jerboa. Scorpions and snakes also occur,
WĀDI 'ARABAH
667
the most dangerous of the latter being the horned viper which
is sometimes deadly to grazing beasts.
The flora includes various types of acacia, palm-scrub with
a few tall palms (no large groves except at Akaba), and the
thorny scrub described as growing in the Southern District (see
Chap. XIV, p. 468). The ghadha, a bush with fresh green
leaves growing many feet high and forming lines like hedges,
is found in the sandy places ; it affords grazing for camels,
but may cause diarrhoea ; its wood gives a clear fire and is
thus a useful fuel.
Inhabitants
With the exception of the inhabitants of Akaba in the
extreme south, and of the above-mentioned Ghawārneh fellahin
at Es-Sāfiyeh and El-Feifeh on the edge of the Sabkheh, there
is no settled population in or very near the 'Arabah. The chief
Bedouin tribes which range the valley are the Sa'idīyīn, about
the middle, and nearer Akaba, the Huwāt, who come down
from the desert hills on the south-west (see p. 642).
APPENDIX
(Cf. Handbook of Arabia, p. 618.)
CONVENTIONAL SPELLINGS.
Acre
Akaba
Aleppo
Alexandretta
Antioch
Ascalon
Bedouin
Beersheba
Beirut
Bethlehem
Caesarea
Caliph
Carmel
Damascus
'Akka
Aqabeh
Haleb
Iskanderūn
Antāqīyeh
'Ashqalān
Bedāwi
Bir Seba'
Beirūt
Beit Lahm
Qaisārīyeh
Khalāfah
Kurmul
Dimishq, Esh-
Shām
Bahr Liūt
Darwish
Durzi, Durūz
Amir
El-Furāt
Firmān
Tellāh,
Fellāhin
Feddān
Ghazzeh
Jilʻād
Khalīl er-
Rahman
Hejāz
Imām
Islam
Jaffa
Jericho
Jerusalem
Kadi.
Kaimmagam
Kaza
Koran
Lebanon
Mecca
Medina
Moslem
Mudir
Mudiriyeh
Nahiyeh
Nazareth
Orontes
Qantar
Saladin
Sherif
Sidon
Sultan
Syria
Tiberias
Tripoli
Tyre
Vali
Vilayet
Vizier
Islām
Yāfa
Erīha
El-Quds
Qādhi
Qā’im Maqām
Qadha -
Qur'ān
Libnān
Mekkah
El-Medinah
Muslim
Mudir
Mudārīyeh
Nāhiyeh
En-Nāsirah
El-'Asi
Qantār
Salāh ed-Dīn
Sherīf
Saida
Sultan
Sūrīya
Tabarīya
Tarābulus
Sūr
Wāli
Wilāyah
Wazīr
Dead Sea
Dervish
Druse, Druses
Emir
Euphrates
Firman
Fellah,
Fellahin
Feddan
Gaza
Gilead
Hebron
Hejaz
Imam
INDEX
| Abu Quleib, Tell, 563 Administration, 236–
Abu Quttein, Wādi, 593 251, 264, 428, 556
Aaron (or Hārūn), 224 Abu Rakbeh, 625 | Admiralty Coast Survey
Aaronsohn, 259, 262, Abu rīhah, 266, 267,338, (1858), 330
265, 266
340
Adullam, cave of, 116
'Aba, 285
| Abu er-Ruweis, Wādi, 'Adwān (tribe), 609
"Abāra, Makhādet el-, 595
'Adwān, Wādi, 634
652
Abu Sa'id, “Ayūn, 626 Aelia Capitolina, 124
‘Abāyeh, 285
Abu sfeir (or nāranj), Afqeh, 365, 366, 410
‘Abbăd (tribe), 609, 660 198, 265
‘Afra, Seil, 639, 640, 642
‘Abbei dīyeh (tribe), 462 | Abu taba, 271
Afranj,Wádi el-,429, 436
‘Abd el-^Azīz, Wādi, 586 | Abu Tālib, 216
Africa, 27, 187, 228
'Abd el-Qādir Jīlāni, 212 Abu Tumeis, Tell, 563, East, 186, 191
'Abdallah, 161
564
North, 156, 195, 288
‘Abdallah, Ras Wādi, Abu 'Ubeidah, 128 | Afrīn Su, R., 10, 20
501
| Abu Zabūra, 440 ‘Afūleh, 518, 520, 526,
'Abdallah, Wādi, 501 Abu Zeyyād, Wādi (or / 537: account, 545,
'Abdallah ibn 'Ali, 164 El-Makhrūqah), 587 552; railways, 484,
'Abeih, 201
Abyadh, Ghadir el- (or 493-495
‘Abellīn, Wādi, 527, 531 Wādi esh-Shermeh), | Agäl : see 'Igal
‘Abesān, 470
618
Agha Khan, 215
Abhar, 102
Abyadh, Jisr el-, 413 Agricultural products,
Abil, 373
Abyadh, Nahr el-, 334, 256–273
Ābil, Tell, 573
401, 424
Agriculture, 176, 183,
Abraham(Khalil of Heb-Abyadh, Ras el-, 15, 525, 203, 241, 252-275,
ron), 224
533 : account of, 536 277: see also specific
Abrash, Nahr el-, 328, Abyadh, Wādi, 467, 590/ districts
421-422
Abyssinian wells, 484 Ague, 337
Abu ‘Ali, Nahr: see | Acacia, 101, 102, 105, Ahaz of Judah, 117
Qadlīsha, Nahr
447, 468, 542, 617, Ahin, Merj, 359, 367
Abu 'Ayāth, Tell, 582 624, 629, 664, 667 ‘Āhireh, El- (or Ez-
Abu Dharr Ghifāri, 214 | Acre : see ‘Akka
Zeidi ?), 240
Abu Erjāl, Wādi, 593 Adalia, 290
Ahl esh-Shimāl, 608
Abu Hanīfah, 212 | Adalīyeh, 415
| Ahma, Sahel el-, 522,
Abu Halūfeh, Wädi, 619 Adana, 215, 352: cli- | 528, 532, 535,537, 539
Abu Hareireh, 435, 436 mate, 24, 52–65, Ahmar, Jisr el-, 413
Abu 'l-Hin, Jebel, 380, 68–69, 92, key Ahmar, Ras el-, 554
381
Vilayet of, 264 Ahmar, Tell el-, 21, 568
Abu Khusheibeh, Wādi, 'Adas, 97, 259
| Ahmed: seeunder specific
640
‘Adāther,Jebel, 525, 527, name
Abu ’n-Nada, Ras p. 501, 528
| Ahmed Kirfās, 337
Tell, 568, 576
Addax, 107
Ahmed ibn Tulūn, 129
Abu Nār, Wādi, 480 Ādi, Sheikh, 222 Ahseini, Wādi el- : see
Abu Naseir (tribe), 462 Adil Bazar, 10
‘Ainbeh, Wādi
Abu Qadeis, Tell, 483 Adji Göl, 426
‘Aidīb, 541
670
INDEX
552
‘Aiha, 377
| Air pressure, 24, 25, 35,; Ajnādein, 111, 125
‘Aimeh, El-,638, 642,643 40, 46
'Ajrem, Jebel el-, 466
‘Ain: see also under Air-worship, 216
'Ajrem, Wādi, 467
specific name
‘Aizaqāneh, Wādi, 524, Akaba, 9, 10, 12, 174,
‘Ain, Ras el- (in Akka), 529
428,556,637,641,642,
530,539
'Ajam, Wādi el-, 386, 644, 664, 665, 666,
‘Ain, Ras el-(near Ba'al- 415, 559: see also 667 : A.-Dead Sea
bek), 372
Wādi el-'Ajam
watershed, 465; A.-
‘Ain, Ras el- (in Nāblus), 'Ajārmeh (tribe), 609,634 Kosseima road, 466,
438, 439
‘Ajlūn:
469; A.-Ma'ān road,
‘Ain, Wādi el- (in South Central, 494,602,652 640; Gulf of, 12, 23,
ern Desert), 468
District of, 19, 191, 395, 462, 465,636,
‘Ain, Wādi el-(trib. of N. 556, 557, 558, 642, 645, 661
ez-Zerqa), 594
572, 578: ('Ajlūn Akka (or Acre) :
'Ain, Wādi el- (trib. of and Northern ‘Akka-Safed road,
W. el-Kerak), 624 i Belqa) 580-611 ; 527, 534
'Ain, Wādi el" (trib. of agriculture, 601, Bay of, 473,530,535
W.el-Yābis in 'Ajlūn), 602; area, 580, District of, agricul-
586
581; climate, 600, ture,547; climate,
'Ain ‘Arūs, Wādi, 620
601; fishing, 549; 540; manufac-
'Ain Ghadeirāt, Wādi, flora, 104, 106 ; tures, 491; oil
468
forests and trees, presses, 279;
'Ain el-Ghazāleh, Wādi 571,598-600, 604; stock-rearing,548
(trib. of W. esh-Shel fruit - growing, Kaza of, 239, 516,
lāleh), 573
602; hills, 573,
'Ain el-Ghazāleh, Wādi 594; industries, Plain of, 15, 515,
(trib. of W. Sheri'ah), 601-604; miner 517-519,525-527,
574, 575
als, 568, 601 ; 530, 532–538;
'Ain Haudh, 503, 511
pasture, 603; agriculture, 546,
‘Ain Janna, 585, 595, physical features, cotton growing,
599-602
581-595; popula
268; flora, 542;
'Ain el-Jirm, 591, 593, tion, 604-611 ; water-supply,537
597, 598: see also relief, 581-584 ; Sanjaq of, 239, 472,
Jirm, 'Ain el-
springs and wells, 495, 499, 516
'Ain Māhil, 526
595–600 ; stock Town of, 523, 531,
'Ain el-Quf, Wādi, 451
rearing, 602-604 ; 532, 533, 535,
'Ain es-Seyyāh, Wādi, tracks from Belga 540: in history,
501
to,592; tribes, 609; 132, 147, 149,
'Ain et-Tireh, Wādi, 501 water - courses,
150,156-162,164-
'Ain et-Turāb, 573, 574, ('Ajlūn) 585-588, 167, 168, 169, 173;
596
(Belqa) 588-595
manufactures,
'Ain et-Turāb, Wädi,574 Jebel, 21, 22, 571, 548; olive groves,
'Ain ez-Zeitün, 544
572,573,580,582, 260; population,
‘Ainbeh, Wādi (or El 595, 598, 600, 613
553 ; trade, 492,
“Ahseini), 587
Kaza of (or Irbid), 493, 550, 551;
‘Aineh El-, 632, 633
240
water-supply,527,
‘Aintāb, 10, 171, 239, Northern, 94, 600, 538
425 : agriculture, 257, 652
Uniate archbishop
261, 266, 268, 272, Southern, 93.
of, 511
climate, 60, 92, key; Villages of, 585,586, 'Akkār, Bay of, 412
education, 201; in-
595, 602
Castle of, 412
dustry, 279, 284, 286, Wādi : see Kefrinji, District of,366,369,
287; population, 175 i Wādi
412
INDEX
671
Kaza of, 239, 359 : 132, 134, 136, Alliance Israélite Uni-
agriculture, 387; 138-141,146,151-1 verselle, 202, 203
population, 393 153, 155, 170, | Alluvial beaches (ghors),
Jebel, 359, 362, 367,! 172, 173 ; indus- / 616, 617
412
try, 278, 279,284- Alluvium, 442, 614, 645
Jurd, 412
287, 353, 354; / 'Alma, 524, 538, 554
Nahr, 333, 412
inhabitants, 178, | Plateau of, 526, 537
‘Akőbar, 383
180, 183, 184, Almonds (loz), 100, 104,
Akrād, Husn el-, 139
195, 228, 232; 253, 255, 272, 295,
‘Akūzeh, Naqb el-, 639
religion, 205; 307, 313, 449, 450,
‘ĀI, El-, 597, 609, 613
trade, 300, 303, 452, 508, 547, 599,
‘Ala, Jebel el-, 345, 346, 304
629
348, 356, 401
Vilayet of, 9, 238, Alms Tax, 220
Alajeh, 285
239, 326, 344, Althoea officinalis, 100
‘Alăla, Mt., 348, 426
345 : agriculture, 'Alūk, 584, 610
Plateau, 345
257, 259, 261, Alum, 95, 629
Alamūt, 214
262, 269, 272, Amalric of Jerusalem,
Alawi, Burj el-, 529
300; industry, 145
Albanians, 168, 169
277, 280, 284 ; Amanus Range, 10, 13,
Aleppo (09 Haleb) :
inhabitants, 175, 14, 93, 96, 100, 104,
District of, 140, 151, 196; religion, 105, 107, 325
178, 180, 249, 208, 222; trade, 'Amaqeh, El-, 632
345
303
Amāra, Tell el-, 562
Emir of, 129, 133 Alexander the Great, 'Amarah, (tribe), 498
Kaza of, 239, 345, 1 120, 121
Amber, 94
351, 355
| Alexandretta (or Iskan- America, 185–189, 200,
Pasha of, 169
derūn), 10, 344 : flora, / 201, 255, 272, 290,
Pashalik of, 156 | 106; liquorice factory, 293, 301, 343, 355,
Pines .106, 507 272; minerals, 94,1 392: South, 186, 187,
Plain of, 178
96 ; trade, 264, 290-|| 278, 343
Sanjaq of, 191, 238, 292, 294, 300-305, American Civil War, 268
239, 345, 353 313-317, 340
Colleges and Schools,
Town of, 9, 20, 95, Kaza of, 239
199-201
139,273, 301, 344, Alexandria, 29, 49, 168, Influence on educa-
346, 350, 352, 294
tion, 204
355, 356, 358, Alexandrian clover, 97 Jews, 256
372 : agriculture, Algerians, 553, 554
Liquorice Co., 272
254, 256; com- | 'Ali, son of Abu Tālib, Missionaries, 199,
munications, (A.- 214219
201
Hama chaussée) Ali, Wādi, 429, 438
Soap factory, 492
349, 399, (A.- 1 ' Ali Beg, 157
Standard Oil Com-
Damascus chaus- / 'Aliyeh, Dāmet el-, 562
pany, 95
sée) 349, (A.- Alizarin, vegetable, 287 Subjects, 196, 553
Homs road) Alkali (or qili), 101, 279, United Board of
425, (A.-Palmyra! 355, 391, 602
Foreign Missions,
road) 425, (A.- Allah, 224, 230
201
Rayah railway) | 'Allān, 583, 598: “A. Vines, 260
302; currency, Salt road, 583. Amīr or Khalīfah, 223
weights, and mea 'Allān, Jisr el-, 571, 'Āmir, Merj ibn: see
sures, 320–324;1 574
Esdraelon, Plain of
education, 200, 1 'Allān, Nahr el-, 558, Amir Bāshir, 409
201, 203; in 560, 561, 567, 571, Amir Mūsa Dagh, 18
history, 110, 130-1 576, 603
'Ammān, 457, 581, 584,

672
INDEX
590-593, 597, 598,1 326 ; castles, 132, 139, 1 Patriarch of, 205,
600, 602, 604, 607, 331, 334-337; cli 206, 208
611, 620: ‘A.-Jerash mate, 337; flora, 106; Town of, 325, 329,
road, 592, 594, 598 ; industries, 341-342 ; 334, 424: agri-
A-Jordan road, 590; inhabitants, 182, 196, culture, 260, 272;
'A.-Salt road, 584 215, 342-343; mine-
education, 201 ;
Ammān, 'Ain, 597
rals, 338; mountains, industry,279,283,
‘Ammān, Wādi, 590, 13, 14, 362, 369, 398, 340, 342; inhabi-
593, 603
401, 412; physical tants, 176,343; in
'Amq, El-, 273, 346, 401 survey, 326-336 ; re-
history, 110, 121,
‘Amr, El-, (tribe), 633 lief, 328–333; water 124–153 passim ;
‘Amr, Wādi, 501
systems of, 421-424; A.-Aleppo road,
Amūd, Jebel, 213
woods, 338 ; ziyārehs, 401
‘Amūd, Wādi, 587
330, 334, 336, 337
Valley of, 339, 349
'Amūd, Wādi, 523-525, Antāqīyeh : see Antioch / 'Antūra, 200
527,528,529,534,537, Antaradus, 127
Apamea (or Fāmīyeh),
539,547
Antarsus, 132
121, 124
‘Amūsh (sub-tribe), 610 Antelope, 107
Plain of, 399
Amygdalus communis, Antelyās, Nahr, 407, 408 Apples, 98, 99, 104, 105,
100
Anti-Cassius Ridge, 326, 271, 378, 509
‘Anazeh (tribe), 179,608, 328
Apricots (or mishmish),
610
Anti-Lebanon, District 99, 104, 246, 255,
‘Anāzeh, Wādi, 616, 623 of, 156, 358, 362,516: 270, 271, 306, 377,
Anderīn, 349, 352, 353 agriculture, 386–390 ; 384, 449, 487, 489,
Anderson, Capt., 541, area, 369-370 ; indus 509, 544, 547, 602,
553
tries, 390–391 ; in 642: dried, 310;
Anethum graveolens, 1001 habitants, 392–394 ; kernels, 310, 313;
Anfeh, 360
minerals, 392; moun- paste, 270, 298, 310
Anglican Church: see tains, 11, 12, 18, 20, 'Aqib, Wādi el-, 572
Church of England 21, 269, 344, 345, 357, 'Aqil, Sheikh of Jūlis,
Anglo-Egyptian military 364,372, 387; descrip-|. 511, 554
and civil service, 186 tion, 373–385; fauna, 'Aqqarah Hāur el-, 514
Angora goat, 274
106, 107; flora, 99, 'Aqqārah, Jebel, 498
Aniline dyes, 287
104 - 105; physical 'Aqqārah, Wādi, 501
Aniseed, 351, 388, 579 features, 370 - 385; Aqra, Jebel el- (or Mt.
Anjar, 403
river systems, 395– Cassius), 14, 326, 328,
‘Anjara, 586
421; water-supply, l 423, 424: minerals,
Annales du Bureau Cen- 371-373,378-381,384 96; 338
tral Météorologique de Anti-Taurus Range 10, Aqra', Ras el-, 473, 474,
France, 92
| 12, 14, 395,645
480
Annuaire oriental, 459, Antigonus, 123 | “Aqrabeh, Wādi el-, 574
495, 496
Antimony, 96, 629 | Āq-Sonqor el-Bursqi,141
Ansarīyeh or Nuseirīyeh Antioch (or Antāqīyeh): Aqueducts, 404, 418,
(tribe or sect),193, 204, Bay of, 402 1 538, 540, 566, 586,
220, 221, 325, 326, District of, 96, 273, 596
334, 335, 342–343, 274, 338, 340 | 'Aqūra, 366, 410
355, 393,554: account, Kaza of, 106, 239, 'Arāb, Wādi el-, 580
215-219 ,
326, 340, 341, 587,588,595,598, 599,
Ansarīyeh (village), 425 343
603, 604, 605, 608,
Ansarīyeh, Jebel, Dis Lake of, 18, 108, 610, 653, 659, 660 :
trict of, 138, 215, 345, 401
account, 588
358, 413 : agriculture Plain of, 340, 346, 'Arāb el-'Abid (tribe),
339-341; area, 325-
347, 401
608
INDEX
673
Arbata
160,
Arab el- Ghawārneh | Arıq en-Nātif, Wādi, | Arrows, 142, 149, 152
(tribe), 498, 548, 555 | 501
| ‘Arrūb, Wādi el-, 443
617, 629, 632, 634, 'Ar'ar, 641
Arsūf, 147, 150; 428,
660, 663, 667
Arba'in, 659
441, 478
Arab Conquest, 109, Arba'in, El-, 337 . Artichoke, 449
125-128, 130,193-195, Arba'in, Jebel el- (in Artillery, 155, 566
198, 205, 249
N. Syria), 96, 399 ‘Arūd, Naqb el-, 466
‘Arabah, Wādi, 17, 20, | Arba'in, Jebel el-: see ‘Arunt, Nahr el-: see
23, 428, 462, 465, 469, Riha, Jebel
Orontes
471, 557, 636-642, Arba'in, Tell el-, 652,660 | 'Arūs, 'Ain (Belqa), 626,
644, 645: account of, / Arbutus (or strawberry (W. 'Arabah) 666
661-667
tree), 102, 104, 401, \ 'Arūs, Jebel el-, 523,525–
'Arabi, 257
486,507,541, 543, 600 527
‘Arābi, Jebel el-, 613
'Arūs, Nahr, 413
‘Arābi, Seil el-, 623 Archers : see Bowmen Arwad: see Ruwad
Arabia, 9, 10, 114, 115, and Cavalry
Arz, Jebel el-, 363
126, 207, 279, 304 | Ardh, El., 583
Arz Libnān, 363
Ardh el-Bathaniyeh : see Asad ed-din Shīrkūh,145
Arabic Language, 196-1
| 'Asal, 'Ain el-, 595
199, 207, 222° Ardh el-Kerak, 96: see 'Asal, Neba' el-, 408
Newspapers, 189 also Belqa, Southern | 'Asal el-Ward, 379, 381,
People for Tribes, Ardh el-Kheit, 529
382
111, 123, 124, Ardh el-Qaisāriyeh, 624 | Asācifeh : see Usquf
133, 134, 156, Area (of Syria), 11, 12: ‘As'as, Wādi, 587
163, see also specific dis Ascalon, 111, 127, 136–
168, 174, tricts
139, 147, 148, 432, 440
230, 'Areijeh, Wādi el-, 430, Asceticism, 213
231, 342, 355, 432, 462
Ash, 102, 104, 599
390, 460, 463, Argana, 301
Ashkar (or Ishkar),
471, 487, | Argentina, 185–188 Wādi el-, 438, 439
497, 498, 547, | ‘Arīsh, El-, 158, 160, Ashkenazim, 195
571, 584, 593, L 163, 271, 275, 463 : | Ashrafīyeh, 420
600, 603, 604 climate, 24, 45, 52-69, 'Ashshār, 550
611, 629, 632, 74-83, 92, Icey
'Ashūr, Wādi el-, 528
633, 634, 644, / 'Arīsh, Wādi el-, 118,467 | Ashur-nasir-pal, 117
663
Armenia, 125, 155, 273 | Āsi, 'Ain el, 532
‘Arabūn, Wādi, 585 Armenian Catholics, 208 | ‘Āsi, El- : see Orontes
Arack, 259
Church, 207, 208 | ‘Āsi, El- : see Seleikhāt,
‘Arād, Tell, 461
Massacres, 300 l Wādi
‘Arā'er, 619
People, 123, 126, \ 'Āsi, Neba' el-, 397
“Ārah, Wādi, 480, 482
132, 136,138,140, Asia, 583
‘Arā‘is, Birket el-, 596
143-145, 151, 152, Asia Minor, 10, 279, 288,
Aramaic language, 194, 195–197,206, 207, 342 : agriculture, 10,
196, 2229
302, 459
263, 264 ; in history,
Arameans, 109, 115, 116 | Armlets, glass, 289
109, 110, 114, 115,
‘Arāmsheh (tribe), 555 Armour, 144
118, 121-123, 125,
‘Arāq, El-, 615, 624, 631, | 'Arni, Nahr, 377, 414 129, 130, 133, 135,
632
‘Arqa, 366,369
137, 153, 164, 167,
‘Arāq el-Emīr, 589, 590, / 'Arrābeh, Sahel (or plain 170, 171, trade, 290,
609
of Dothān),in Samaria, 292
'Arāq el-Masālimeh, 500 475, 480,483, 488, 491 Asparagus, 98
‘Arāq el-Menshīyeh, 437, \ 'Arrābeh, Sahel el-, (in | Asphalt, 94, 338, 392,
4:48
Galilee), 523, 532, 533 629
157,
165,
193,
195,
SYRIA
UU
674
INDEX
1
'Assaf (sub-tribe), 609 Avalanches, 365 · Bāb (sect), 512
Asses, 105-107, 247, 274, ‘Awaj, Nahr el- (or Nahr: Bāb, El- (village), 425
341, 353, 389, 390, Zabirāni), 11, 21, 377, Bāb, El-: see Báb Jebbūl
632, 633, 644. See 386,413, 421,556,558, Bāb Enneh : see Sahyūn
also Donkeys
559: account, 414, Bāb Jebbūl (or El-Băb),
Assyria, 116–119, 228 415
Kaza, 239, 345
Aswad, Abu el-, 362 | ‘Awaj, Wādi el- (lesser), Bāb el-Mojib, 620
Aswad, Jebel el-, 386, 381
Bāb Tūma, 418
414, 420
'Aweiret Zeizūn: see Bāb el-Wād, 451
swad, Jisr el-, 413 / Zeidi, Wādi ez Babylon, 120
"Ata, 'Ain, 359, 367, 371 Awwali, Nahr, 364, 405– Babylonians, 117-119
‘Atārūs, Jebel, 23, 613, 406
Badan, 107
615, 629, 630
Awwali, Wādi, 213 Badger, 486
‘Āthid, 280
'Ayün: see specific name Badrān, 'Ain, 443
Athl, 102
'Ayūn, Merj, 11, 370, Bagdad, 129, 357
‘Athlīt, 150, 256, 440, / 371, 373, 387, 388, Bagdad Railway, 293,
441, 494, 500, 504,1 418, 516, 532, 542, 300, 303, 304
505, 510, 511, 513 1 548, 550, 554, 649 : Baghl, Wādi el-, 623
Atonement, Day of, 210! M. ‘A.-Safed road,524 | Baghrās, 132
‘Atõt, Burj el-, 479 Ayūn, Kaza of, 239, 370, Bāhah, El-, Plain of,
Attar of Roses, 100
516, 552
466, 662
‘Atūn, Seil, 623
'Ayūn, Wādi, 422 Bahhāth, Wādi, 589
‘Auba, Wādi, 529 'Ayūn, Wādi el- (or Bahlūlīyeh, 325
Aufāneh, 559
Izmāl Fadl), 587 Bahr Lūt: see Dead Sea
Augite, 559
| 'Ayūn edh-Dhīb, Wädi, Bahret : see under speci-
Auhagen, 250
623
fic name
'Auja, El-, 464, 467,470: 'Ayūn Mūsa, Wādi, 616, / Baibars, Sultan, 150-
see Hafir, Kaza of 1 622, 628
151
'Auja, Nahr el-, 17, 433- 'Ayūn Urqush, Jebel, Bajjeh, Lake, 572
435, 438-439, 441, 363
Bajjeh, Wādi el-, 572
452, 477, 479, 483 T'Ayūn Urqush, Wādi, Bakehouses, 242
Aujeh, Ras el-, 648 367
Bakh'a, 194, 196
‘Aujeh, Wādi el., 430, 'Ayyād, Manzilet el-, 514 Bākher, Seil el-, 639
651, 653, 660 1 Ayyubids, 197
| Balah, 99
Auliya : see Weli | 'Azāreh, Zahret, 637 Balah, Deir el-, 470
Aurelian, Emperor, 124 | Azāreq, Wādi el-, 467 Balak, 141
'Ausej, 468
‘Azāzmeh (tribe), 471 Balaniles aegyptiaca,
‘Ausej, Wādi, 590 'Azeizāt, 184
101
Australia, 185–187 ‘Azerīyeh, El-, 448 Balāt, 141
Austria, 172, 242, 293, Azraq, Wādi el-, 589 Balat, 'Ain el, 539
296, 300, 302, 306, 'Azzūn, Wādi, 438 Balātunus, 139
309, 312, 315, 553
Balāwaneh (tribe), 660
Austrian Annals, 1904,
Baldwin I, of Jerusalem,
key, 92
140, 143
Austrian Consular Re. Ba'albek, 13, 18, 367, Bālikh, River, 140
port, 257, 280, 533 371, 397, 402: in Balkan Wars, 291, 300
Government, 204 history, 153, 156, 169, Balkans, the, 606
Marines, 172
172; inhabitants, 196, | Ballūt, 102
Shipping, 294, 300, 393
'Balm of Gilead', 101,
316
Kaza of, 213, 240, 105
Trade, 293, 296, 370
Balsam, 101, 659
300, 302, 306, Plain of, 262, 371, Būmiyeh, 98, 449, 547
309, 312, 315
390
Banādūra, 98
B
_
INDEX
675

Banana, 99, 103 | Barri, 424
| Bawardeh, Nahrel., 334,
Banāt Ya'qūb, Jisr, 414, Barter, 231
401, 424
523, 527,649, 650, 659 Bārūk, Jebel el-, 363 Bay-laurel, 541
Bāniyās, see Marqab ] Bārūk, River, 364 Bay tree, 279, 543
Bāniyās (or Bulunyās), | Bārūq, 405
Bayezid II, 155
near Lādiq,yeh, 327, Bārūg, 'Ain, 405
Bayonets, 170
335, 337, 342
Bārūq, Jebel, 406 Bazī‘iyeh, 'Ain el-, 638
Bāniyās, near Damascus, Bārūq, Nahr, 405 Bdimản, 206
ill, 122, 140, 146, Barūqah, Wādi, 588 Beans, 98, 252, 253, 259,
370,375, 376,645,648: | Barüqah, 'Ain, 596
310, 323, 339, 351,
canal,418; castle, 139, Basal, 98
381, 387, 487, 493,
145 ; river, 648 Basal el-fār, 100
508, 545, 579, 601
Bāqa, 480
Basalt, 288, 331, 332, Bear, Syrian, 106, 542
Baqarah, 'Ain el-, 411 348, 349, 369, 372, Beaufort Scale, 8, 32, 38,
Bāqiyeh, 97
373, 374, 376, 377, 48, 84-91
Baqr el-Wahsh, 107 396, 415, 423, 482, Bedāwīyeh (religious or-
Bar Elyās, 403
502, 516, 522, 534,1 der), 212
Bāra, El-, 348
535, 537, 559, 560, Bedebdeh, 643
Barada Canals, 386, 414, 561, 562, 566, 570, Bedeiwīyeh, Tell, 527
418, 419
571, 627, 647, 649, Bedendi, Ras, 525
Barada, Nahr, 357, 3584 653
Bedīyeh, 'Ain el-, 626
374, 378, 379, 382, 'Basaltic Flow', 21 Bedīyeh, El-, 585
383, 384, 386, 403, Basaltite, 614
Bedouin, the, 94, 95, 175–
413-418: gorge, 374, Basas, 'Ayūn el, 539 180, 183, 191, 193,
378, 379
Baseit, Bir, 94 .
194, 196, 198, 221,
Barada, Tell, 402 Baseit, Ras el-, 196, 327 224-229, 231, 233,
Barbar, Wādi or Nahr, Basha, Zör el-, 659
234, 252, 273, 274,
377, 419
Bashbash, Bir, 625 353, 355, 372, 432,
Barberry, 366
Basil, 132
446, 453, 460, 461,
Bardāni, Nahr el-, 368, Basket-makers, 289 463, 468, 470, 471,
403
Basket work, 102, 103 484, 489, 498, 513,
Bardi, Nahr el., 420 Basle, 94, 191
514, 520, 548, 549,
Bareighīt, Nahr, 539, Basr el-Harīr, Kaza, 240 551, 555, 560, 563,
649
Bass, “Ayūn el-, see 567, 576-579, 592,
Bārid, Nahr el-, 328, Ward, Ayūn el
607–610, 634, 642-
359, 412
Basset, see specific name | 644, 659, 660, 667
Bārideh, Wādi: see Bat, 542
Bedr, Ras el-, 565
Musrārah, Wādi Batāta, 98
Beech, 100, 104, 338
Bārīsheh, Jebel, 345– Bathing, 626, 627 Beef, 633
347, 356
Baths, hot, 654
Beersheba (or Bir Seba):
Barley, 97, 105, 252, Batihah, El-, 549, 568, District of, 461,462,
253, 255,258, 275, 576, 649, 654
464, 465, 471 :
295, 298, 305, 306, Batīkh ahnar, 271
agriculture, 272,
310, 322, 323, 339, Batīlch alchdhar, 99
448,450,451,470;
388, 450, 451, 452, Batīlch asfar, 99, 271
communications,
456, 470, 487, 488, Batrah, Wādi, 381
435, 469
489, 493, 494, 508, Batrūn, Kază of, 213, Kaza of, 240, 428,
533, 544, 547, 571,1 241, 359, 388, 393
458
578, 579, 583, 601, Port of, 360
Town of, 12, 175,
631, 643, 663
Battering-rams, 120
176, 429, 434,
Barns, 545
Baumert, 435, 436
442, 450, 451 :
Barquq, 99
Bā‘ūn, Wādi, 586
population, 460 ;
Barreh, 352, 353 Bawāb, Wādi el-, 621
wells, 467
| Uu 2
676
INDEX
407
Bees and Bee-keeping, Vilayet of, 238, 239, Belāt, Kaza el-, 525
353, 425, 430, 454, 242, 283, 326, Belāt, Khirbet, 525
491, 509, 603, 641
359, 370, 472 Belāt, Tell, 525
Beet, 98
Beisān, Mudir of, 659 Beled esh-Sheikh, 510
Behannis, 407
Plain of, 19, 472, Beledeh, Ras, 327, 422
Beidha, 'Ain el-, 586
532, 645, 647, Beledīyeh, El-, 617
Beidha, El-, 642
651, 652: agri- Belgian Electric Com-
Beidha, Wādi el-, 624
culture, 489, 490, pany, 415
Beilān, 14, 166, 172
659 ; extent, 476; Belgium, 293, 303, 309,
Kaza of, 106, 239
inhabitants, 660; 312, 315
Pass, 124, 170
water-supply, 485 Bellāneh, Jebel el-, 523
Beirūt:
Town and District | Belqa, the, 104, 133, 474,
Kaza of, 239, 359, of, 474, 476, 518, 556, 650, 666: ex-
366, 387,388, 393 520, 647, 650, tent, 22; inhabi-
Nahr, 34, 361, 406, 657 : agricul tants, 179, 196
ture, 546, 547, Northern, 557, 573,
Ras, 34, 361, 362
658; in history: 604, 608: see also
Railways, 557 : B. 126, 132; popu-
Ajlūn and North-
Damascus, 415, lation, 496, 497, ern Belqa (under
416, 493
660 ; trade, 494 ;
‘Ajlūn)
Road, 418: B. water-supply,485, Southern, and Ardh
Tripoli, 407-409
532
El - Kerak, 557,
Sanjaq of, 239, 370, Beit Ahmed, Wādi, 330
612-635 : cli-
388, 516
Beit ‘Akkār, 571
mate, 628-629;
Town of, 239, 243, Beit Akkār, Wādi, 571 dwellings, 635 ;
300, 344, 357, Beit ed-Din, 284, 391 : industries, 630–
361, 369, 396, valley, 406
632; inhabitants,
407, 536 : agri- Beit Durās, 437
632-635; natur-
culture, 270, 272; Beit ība, 483
al resources, 629,
climate, 24, 25, Beit Jāla, 460
630 ; physical
27, 28–32, 34-38, Beit Jenn, 377, 414, 527, features,612-628;
44, 45, 47, 52–83,1 554
tracle, 630-632 ;
92, ley; currency, Beit Jenn, 'Ain, 414
water - supply,
&c.,320–322,324; | Beit Jibrīn, 139, 436
625–628 : see also
education, 198– | Beit Lahm, 192
Nāblus, Sanjaq
204, 410 ; in his- Beit el-Ma', 423
tory,148,157,165- Beit Meri, 37, 366, 407 Belqāwīyeh tribes, 584,
167, 172, 173; in-'Beit el-Milh, 505
603-605, 607-609,611,
dustry, 276, 278, ! Beit Nüba, 139
634
280, 285, 287,288, Beit Ras, 602
Ben Ābil, 346
289, 390, 391; Beit Sāhūr, 96
Ben Sheinen, 261, 280
inhabitants, 175, Beit Shehāb, 172, 173 Beni 'Aleim (sub-tribe),
176, 182, 184, Beit Sūhin, 422
610
196, 198, 232, Beit Umm Jubeil, 554 Beni Hammad, Wädi,
393; pines, 362; Bekfeya, 391
623, 626, 633, 655
religion, 205, 208, Belād Beshārah, 4.98 Beni Hasan (district),
209; trade, 274, Belād el-Qamh, 558 558, 580-582, 597,
290-292,294,296- Belād er-Rabi', 558 599
300, 303, 304, 306, Belād er-Rūhah, 526, Beni Hasan (tribe), 593–
310-312, 316,317,1 531
594, 610
492 - 4.94, 551; Belād esh-Sheqif, 457 Beni Isrā’il, Qalʼat, 335
waterworks, 409, Bel'ameh, 597, 610 Beni Juhma, 581, 597,
410
| Belāt, 403, 404
1 599, 600
of
INDEX
677
610
Beni Na'im, 461
373; el-Gharbi, 373 ; Bouillon, Godfrey of,
Beni 'Obeid, (district), Kaza of, 240, 370; 137
580, 581, 597,599 Biqā “el-'Azīz, El-, Bowls, of brass, 289
Beni 'Obeid (tribe), 580, 372, 373, 377, 387, Bowmen (or Archers),
516, 581
130, 141, 146, 147,
Beni Saʻb: see Tūl Bi'r, 635
149
Keram
Bir, see specific name Box, 102
Beni Sakhr (tribe), 608, Bir, Wādi el-: see Hasa, ( Box-calf, 288
610, 611, 632, 634, Wādi el.
Brass, 289, 306, 311
644, 660
Bir Fadl, Wādi, 501 Brassware, 548
Beni Selʻa (or Suweileh), Bir Sahrij, Wādi, 381 Brazil, 185, 186, 293
470, 583, 590, 598 Bir Seba : see Beersheba Brazil Street, Zahleh,
Benj, 100
Bir el-Washl, Wādi, 381 178
Berbers, 156
Bird seed, 269
Bread, 231, 258
Bersīm, 97
Birds, 108, 430, 478, 487, Bricks, 288, 455
Beitīn, 431
630
Bridges, 399, 401, 404,
Bertrand, General, 158 Bīreh (Judaea), 437, 438 406 - 410, 412-414,
Berzeh, 385, 417
Bireh (Ajlūn), 593
422-425, 437, 438,
Beshārah, 213
Bīreh,' Wādi el-, 520, 480, 481, 532, 564,
Beshatwi (tribe), 660 521, 522, 523, 528, 571, 574, 576, 588,
Besherreh, 363, 365, 411 538, 653, 660
648, 650, 652
Beshir, Druse emir, 172 Bīrejik, 171
Brigandage, 471
Bêt Meri : see Beit Meri | Birket: see specific Bril, A., 256
Bethlehem, 430 : agri- name
Briquettes, 298, 300,
culture, 448, 451 ; | Birma, 581, 595
311, 494
climate, 30, 31, 33, 68- Birth rate, 181–185 | Britain: see United
73, 92; education, Bisellah, 97
Kingdom and Eng-
202; industry, 289, Bishops, 207, 209
land
454, 455; inhabitants, Bishri, Jebel, 9
British Colonies Im-
178, 186, 227, 460; Bitlis, 288
ports, 296
minerals, 446 ; pools, Bittīr, Wādi, 437
Diplomatic and
431 ; trade, 295, 458 Bitumen, 94, 338, 392, Consular Reports
Bethsaida, site of, 549
(quoted),291-293,
Belinjān, 98
Biyādh, Khalwet el-, 220 295, 297-299,304,
Beyāzid, Sheikh, 473 Biyār, Wādi el-, 621
305,321-323,439,
Bezalel, 285
Bkerki, 206
454, 490
Bi’ār, 'Ain el-, 666 'Black' fish, 400
in Egypt, 186, 199
Bible, translations of, Black Sea, 303
Fleet, 172, 173
198
Blackberry, 99, 104, 486 Goods, 296
Bidān, “Ayūn, 484 Blackmail, 177, 643
Oil-drilling opera-
Bilan (or Bidán), Wādi, Blanckenhorn, Max, 9, tions, 601
474, 476, 484
10, 12, 92
Schools, 201
Billān, 486
Blizzards, 350
Shipping, 294, 296,
Binduq, 100
Blood-feuds, 184, 230
300, 303, 316
Bint el-Basha, 271 Blūdān, 379, 380
Subjects, 553
Bint Umm Jubeil, 538 Boars, 448, 603, 630, Syrian Schools So-
Biqā, District of, 280 : 641, 664: wild, 486
ciety, 201
agriculture, 253, 257, Bokhara, 195
Bromide, 95
259, 262, 268, 270, Bosnian colonists, 488 Brooke, Lt., 330
271; in history, 110, Bosrah, 561, 565, 567, Broom, 102, 105, 447,
114, 118, 122, 126, 572
468, 646
132, 139, 140, 157, Bostān, 498, 511 Brummāna, 366, 407
166, 173; esh-Sharqi, Bostān, Wādi, 502, 503 Brussa, — 263
678
INDEX
Brussa Silk Thread, 285, 530, 532, 537, 547 : Cannabis indica, 101
Bubalis, 107
1 account, 533, 534 Cannabis sativa, 101
Būbān, Manzilet el-, 514 Butter, 274, 298, 301, Capers, 98, 542
Buchan,- (Report), 92 305, 310, 313, 352, Capra mambrica, 274
Buffaloes, 107, 108, 274, 634 : buffalo, 354 Caravans, 666
353, 389, 400, 453, Buxus longifolia, 102 Caravonica, 268
490, 509, 548, 579 : Büyük Kara Chai, 401 Caraway, 100
butter, 354; hides, Buzzards, 664
Carbonate of soda, 391,
288, 302
Byādi, 270
502
Building material, 100, Byzantine, Empire, 124- Carmel, Bay of, 543
102, 103, 296, 382, 127, 130–133, 665
Cape (or Ras el-
458, 505, 541: tax,
Kerūm), 17, 432,
246, 247 ; trade, 276,
442, 477, 535
288
District of (or Kur-
Bukharic, 197
Cabbage, 97, 223
mul), 446 : agri-
Bukovina, 293
Cabinet making, 454
culture, 507-509 ;
Buksāseh, Seil el-, 622 | Cable-ferry, 402
area, 499 ; cliffs,
Bulgaria, 191, 196, 293, Cactus, 99
520; climate,
295, 606
Cady,-, 656
27, 504, 505;
Bullion, &c., 314
Caesarea, see Qaisārīych
commerce, 508 ;
Bullocks, 453
Cairo, 155, 337
fauna, 507, 509;
Bulunyās, 327
Calendars, 208, 225, 234 flora, 506, 507;
Bunduqānīyeh, Wādi el-, Caligula, 219
geology, 502, 503;
621
Caliph: see Khalifs
industries, 507–
Buqdūnis, 98
Callirhoë: see Zerqa 510; inhabi-
Buqei', El-, 432, 526, Mā'in, Wādi
tants and popu-
527, 554, 583, 584, Calotropis procera, 105
lation, 493, 496,
593, 598, 627
Calves, 453
497, 510-514,
Buqei', Wádi el-, 474 Cambrian rock, 96, 614
552; minerals,
Buqei'ah, El-, 113, 132, Camels, 105, 107, 130,
95, 505-506;
139, 325, 332, 333, 160, 180, 181, 225, mosques, 513 ;
339, 362, 398, 412, 247, 274, 301, 341, natural products,
413
353, 389, 390, 453, 505–507 ; physi-
Burckhardt,-, 330, 400, 455, 457, 461, 464, cal features, 500-
037, 643
467. 468. 469 490
502 ; pine, 507 ;
Burdugāl, 98
509513. 548, 579,
sacred places,
Burghul, 257, 278, 310, 609, 631-633, 643,655, 513; settlcd com-
313
666, 667: hair, 274, munities, 511,
Burghūz, 403, 404
634 ; milk, 274; skin, 512; stock-
Burghūz, Jisr, 368, 403, 274; tracks, 636 ; rearing, 509; vil-
404
water-places, 625
lages, 512, 513;
Burial-grounds, 103, 218 Canaanites, 115, 194
water - supply,
Burj: see specific name Canals, 365, 387, 398, 503, 504
Burnet, thomy, 486, 507 400, 406, 412, 415, Mount (or Jebel
Burshein, Wādi, 433,436 || 416, 547, 560, 589, Kurmul), 16, 111,
Burton, Sir Richard, 659 : Barada, 386, 113, 161, 360,
363, 364, 367, 376, 382 414, 418-419; sub-
441, 442, 473-
Burtugān, 98
terranean, 420. See 475, 515, 518,
Buseireh, 639, 642, 644 | also Irrigation
531, 532: extent,
Butm, 101
Cane-brakes, 572, 603, 499 ; fauna, 106 ;
Butm, Wādi el-, 572, 6201 617,627, 630, 632, 646 flora, 107, 506 ;
Buttauf, Sahel el-, 15, Canes, 399, 481, 561, population, 510,
521-523, 526, 527, 589, 596, 597, 646
512; quarries,
INDEX
679
505; springs archers and knights), , Chinese thread, 283
and wādis, 501, 120, 121, 128, 130, Chlorides, 646, 656
526, 530
131, 133, 136,141-143, Cholera, 300
Carmelheim : see Sitt, 145, 146, 147, 150, Chorepiscopos, 207
Jebel es-
152, 153, 159, 372, Christ Thom, 101, 105,
Carmelite monastery, 566, 622
486
499, 500, 505, 508, Caverns, subterrancan, Christian Calendar, 225,
512, 513
395
234
Carmelites, 209
Caves, 384, 486, 502, Churches, 205–210,
Carob (or Locust) tree,' 536
233
101, 104, 259, 509, Cedar of Lebanon, 103, Easter, 226
541, 599
104, 363, 367, 395
Ecclesiastical
Carp, 400, 550
Celibacy, 206, 208
Courts, 245
Carpenters, 289
Celtis australis, 102
Education, 199–204
Carpets, 285, 306 Cemeteries, 103, 218
Holy Week, 226
Carriages, 293
Cenomanian strata, 482, Inhabitants or
Carrot, 98
483, 502, 601, 613, Tribes, 179, 182,
Carthamus tinctorius, 98 647
183, 184, 186,
Carum carui, 100 Centaury, 105
187, 193, 198,
Cascades, 574
Centipede, 108, 487
227, 232-234,
Cassia lanceolata, 100 Central Depression, the, 281, 497, 513,
Cassia obovala, 100 1 18-20, 108, 261, 345, 605, 608, 633 : in
Cassius, Mt: see Aqra', 357,358, 362, 371-373, history, 109, 127,
Jebel el-
379, 395, 400
152 ; administra-
Castles, 139, 144-146, Central Range, (Judaean tion, 236, 237,
148-150, 331, 360, district), 429-431,460
241, 243, 250 ;
405, 412, 521, 565 : | Central Ridge, 442, 449
and swine, 274;
account, 334-337; Ceratonia Siliqua, 101
craftsmen, 454,
mediaeval, 482 Cereals, passim : see 455; fishermen,
Cast-net, 550
| under specific cereals
550 ; governor of
Castor oil, 282: plant, Chalcedony, 331
Lebanon, 359;
100, 339, 545, 664 Chaldean Catholics, 208 native, 193, 458,
Cat, wild, 107, 507, 641, Chalk, 96, 442, 443, 502, 511,513 ; priests,
666
503, 569
199; rulers, 191;
Cataracts, 401, 571, 573 | Charcoal, 93, 102, 106,
statistics, 342–
Catfish, 549, 550
306, 321, 468, 506, 343, 355, 392–
Catholics, 198, 203, 208, 510, 604: burners, 394, 459,460,
243, 459, 553, 554, 338, 598
496, 511, 553–
606
Chariots, 119, 120, 122
554, 579, 606
Cattle, 180, 247, 273, Charms, 225
Labour, 180
292, 301, 307, 308, Chaussées, 325, 331, 332, Religion, 194, 204-
313, 341, 353, 389, 349, 363, 364, 377, 210, 218, 219,
430, 450, 453, 461, 384, 385, 399, 407
225
538, 579, 601-603, Cheese, 274, 633, 634
Villages, 563
632, 633, 635, 663, Cheetah, 106, 507, 542 Christians, Arabic-
666 : horned, 104, Chemicals, 308, 311, 314) speaking, 206 ; Nesto-
632. See also Herds | Cherry, 98, 104
rian, 196
Caucasus, 191
Chert, 331
Christmas, 218
Cauliflower, 97
Chianti (engineer), 168 Chrome, 96, 338
Caustic soda, 279, 296, Chick-pea, 97, 252, 253, Church Missionary So-
302, 308, 311, 314, 259, 306, 339, 489, ciety, 201-202, 209
391
1 508, 547
Church of the Resur-
Cavalry (incl. mounted China, 285, 302, 390 | rection, 148
680
INDEX
Churches, 203, 206, 209, Cælesyria, 370
yarns, 302, 303, 311,
606: see also specific Coffee, 293, 296, 298, 314
communities
1 306, 308, 311, 314, Councils, administra-
Cicer arietinum, 97
634
tive, 241
Cilicia, 10, 352: in his- Coleoptera, 487
Courts: see under Law
tory, 110, 121, 123, Colocasia, 98, 103 Cows, 273, 390, 453, 490,
129, 131, 132, 140, Colocasia esculenta, 98 | 509, 548, 632, 644 :
145, 151, 153, 154, Colocynth (= hondhol), hide, 288
171
100, 272
Crataegus Azarolus, 102
Armenian Patriarch Colonization, 189, et Craters, 569
of, 207
seqq.
Cresses, 97
Circassian Villages, 356, Commerce, 289-317 : see Cretaceous Period, 614 :
569, 611
I also specific districts Rock, 629
Circassians, 179, 180, (trade)
Crete, 196
189, 191, 195, 197, Concrete, 288
Crispi, Signor, 204
204, 355, 554, 557, Conder, 462
Crocodile, 106, 486
569, 570, 573, 578, Conies, 107, 448
Crocodile, Ground (or
598, 602-604, 606- Conrad, Emperor, 145 1 Rudhdha“), 486
608, 610
Conscription, 165, 566, Crocodile, R.: see Zerqa,
Cisterns, 382, 443, 503, 567
Nahr ez-
504, 538, 559, 566, Constantinople, 124, 135, Crocus, 546
597, 625, 635, 642 155, 158, 199, 206, Crops, Rotation of, 253
Citron, 98, 103, 449, 237, 238, 243, 245, Crosses, 455
487, 509, 544
| 249, 294, 354, 428, Crow, 108, 487
Citrullus Colocynthis, 551
Crusades(and Crusaders)
100
Consular Reports : see 109-111, 128, 134-
Citrus Aurantium, 98 under British, Aus | 150, 205, 214, 335,
Citrus Bigarada, 98 I trian, German, etc. 513, 521
Citrus Limonum, 98 Consular Tribunals, 237 | Crystalline rocks, 662
Citrus Limonum, var. Contracts, 245
Cucumbers, 98, 339, 433,
dulcis, 98
| Convents, 606
449, 451, 508, 544,
Citrus madarensis, 98 | Copper, 96, 289, 301, |
Citrus medica, 98
302, 306, 308, 311, Cucumis citrullus, 99
Clay, 253, 288, 289, 483, 313, 314, 548, 663 | Cucumis salivus, 99
646, 649
| Copts, 459
Cucurbita maxima, 98
Climate, 24–92, 252, Corn, 186, 231, 488,489 | Cuinet, V., 12, 175, 219,
253 : see also specific Cornfields, 380, 433 341, 342,351, 353, 355,
districts
Cornland, 543, 642, 643 388,392, 393,449,453,
Climatological data, 34-Costumes, 555
454, 458, 459,488,
92: tables, 51-92 Cotoneaster, 102
490, 495, 496, 509,
Cloth, 298, 308, 311 Cotoneaster Pyracantha, 548, 552, 578, 579
Clothes, 634
102
Cummin, 100
Cloud, 35-36, 39, 44, 45, Cotton, 101, 248, 252, Cuminum Cyminum, 100
47, 68-69
267–269, 276, 313, Cupressus sempervirens,
Clover, 97, 275, 546, 603 339, 350, 352, 354, 103
Coal, 93, 94, 276, 296, | 477, 489, 490, 545, Currant, Zante, 98
298, 300, 303-305, 546, 551, 579, 658 : Currency, 318-320 ; see
308, 311, 314, 338, fabrics, 285, 293, 298, also specific districts
392, 494, 629 : tar, | 306, 311; ginning, Customs (taxes), 245,
93, 94, 392
268, 490, 492 ; goods, 247, 248
Coast towns, see Syria 296, 308, 314, oil, Cydonia vulgaris, 99
Cocoa-nut oil, 279
279; raw, 292, 310, Cypress, 103, 104, 447
Cocoons : see Silk
311 ; stuffs, 302, 303;l Cyprus, 390, 391
663
INDEX
681
416, 418
Cyrus, King; 120
415; flora, 99, 105; | Dante Alighieri Society,
Cytisus, 600
in history, 109–1 204
111,117, 120-123, Dār el-Funūn, 203
126, 129, 130, 133, Darajeh, Wādi ed-, 430,
134, 136, 140, 656
Dabbeh, Ed-, 463
144-146, 151-154, Darazi, 219
Dabbūseh; 576
156-158, 162, 169, | Darb el-Eqfūl, Wādi
Dābiq, Merj, 155
173, 174; indus- (or Qfūl), 588
Dābu, Wādi, 520
try,267, 278-280, Darb el-Mezarāb, 617
Dagh, Giaur, 10, 14
284-289,390,391; | Darb ez-Zöl, 463
Dahab, Nahr ed-, 425, inhabitants, 175, Darbeli, 280
426
180, 184, 195, 196, Dardār, 102
Dahab, Wādi ed-, 572
198, 229, 233; Dāreyya, 418
Dahabīb, Wādi ed-, 573 minerals, 94; Darqūsh, 401
Daher: see Zāhir, 'Omar moneylenders, Dates, 99, 271, 310, 451, .
ez-
605 ; population, 509, 658, 659 : see also
Dairy farming, 273
393, 394 trade, l Palmas
Dākhel, Wādi, 469, 639, | 297, 298, 304, Dathneh, Seil ed- : see
642, 665
306, 492, 493,/ Ghuweir, Wādi
Dalā’ikeh, 256
550; water-sup- David, King, 115, 116
Dāliyeh, 496, 498, 500, ply, 277, 414- De Forest, Dr., 405
502, 503, 508-512
De Phelipeaux, Louis-
Dāliyet er-Rūhah, 481 Kaza of (or Shām), Edmond, 159
Dalman, Gustav, 434,
240, 370, 393 Deacon, 207
435, 437-439, 479,480, Plain of, 273-275, Dead Sea (or Bahr Lūt),
639, 640, 663
357, 358, 385, 12, 13, 17, 20, 22, 23,
Dalmāt Ridge, 619
386, 388–390, 427, 428, 430, 431,
Damak, Wādi, 587
395, 417–420, 449, 466, 612, 615,
Damascus :
557, 558
616, 618, 619, 622,
Aramaean District Railways, 38, 415, 623, 626, 633, 639,
of, 116
416, 493, 577 640, 650, 651, 653,
District and Town Sanjaq of (or Shām 661-663: area, 19,
of, 9, 11, 12, 21, Sherīf) 240, 370, 654 ; climate, 23, 32-
386, 608: agri 388, 389, 558 34, 46-48, 629; des-
culture, 257, 260 Sultan of, 140, 149 cription, 654-657 ;
262, 269-272, Vilayet of, 9, 10, fauna, 108, 448, 630 ;
547 ; climate, 26, 106, 238, 240, geology, 442, 613, 621;
28, 52-55, 58–61, 259, 278, 326, in history, 139, 146 ;
64, 65, 70-73, 345, 359, 370, inhabitants, 183, 194 ;
92, key, 350; 462, 556, 636 minerals, 94-96, 446,
communications, Damat, 423
455, 456, 466, 629 :
(roads), 344, 349, Dames de Nazareth, 200 see also Ghõr, the
357, 363, 376, Dāmieh, Jisr ed-, 475, Death rate, 181-185
377, 384, 385, 590, 645, 647, 651, Deber, “Ayūn ed-, 594
407, 414, 534, 652
Décreusage, 284
574, 636, 641, Dāmūr, 406
Dedication, Feast of, 210
649, 650; cur Dāmūr, Nahr ed-, 406 Deer, fallow, 107, 507,
rency, &c., 319- | Dāmür, Ras ed-, 362, 542
322, 324; educa- 406
Defāli, Wādi ed-, 622
tion, 200-203, Dan, 262
Defīyeh, 'Ain ed-, 664,
205, 206, 208, Dāna, District of, 352 666
209, 212, elec- Daneibeh, 573
Defiyeh, Sabkhet, 664
tric powerstation, Danleh; 'Ain ed-, 380 Defīyeh, Wadi ed-, 664 .
682
INDEX
Deforestation, 506 505, 540, 541, 575, Dhura misri, 258
Defterdār, 241
576
Dhura safra, 97, 258
Deidebeh, Jebel, 523 Dhaba', Qalʼat edh-, 620, Dhura shāmi, 258
Deifūr, 269
625
Dhuweihek, Seil edh-,
Deir, Ed-, 503
Dhaba', Wādi edh-, 624 622
Deir, Sabkbet ed-, 463 Dhabā‘ah, Wādi edh., Diarāni Canal, 418
Deir, Wādi ed- (09 Wādi 639
Diarbekr, 288, 301
Jerash), 581, 582, 586, Dhabiyeh, Seil edh-,623 Diarrhoea, 667
594, 595, 599, 602 | Dhāherīyeh, 436, 448 Dibbāsh, 335
Deir Abān, 437
Dhahr, Jebel edh-, 19, Dibbin, Tell, 373
Deir ‘Alla, 584, 590, 592 370, 372, 373, 392, Dibl, 554
Deir ‘Alla, Tell, 581 403, 648
Deir ‘Amis, 528
Dhahr el-Meisareh, 584 Dīdi, 560
Deir 'Atiyeh, 382, 384 Dhahr el-Qadhīb, 363, Diener, C., 31, 37, 92
Deir el-Balah, 463
364
Difla, 'Ain, 595
Deir Ballūt, Wādi, 438 Dhahr el-Qandil, 363 Difla, Wādi, 594
Dhahr Safra, 328, 329 Difrān, 103
Deir Dõsi, 448
Dhahret Hadhūr, 331
Deir el-Kreim, 206 Dhahret Quseir, 331
Deir el-Qal'ah, 407 Dhān, Edh-: see Led- Dilbeh, 'Ain ed., 443
Deir el-Qamar, 241, 284, dân
Dill, 100
285, 359, 391
Dhāna, 637, 639, 640, Dilli, 596
Deir Qānūn, 416
643
Diluvial rock, 614
Deir es-Sa‘neh, 605 Dhāna, Seil, 640
Diluvium, 645
Deir Sherāf, 483
Dhanīyeh, 365
Dīmeh, 285
Deir Sineid, 436
Dharbeh, Wādi, 640 Dimneh, 623
Deir-es-Sumeid, 564 Dhāt-Rās, 614, 618, 630, Diorite, 466
Deishūn, 554
Diplomas, 201
Delāghah, 640, 642 Dheiqeh, Wādi edh., Dīra, 471, 610
Delā’ikeh' (tribe), 555 618, 625
Divorce, 211, 220, 244
Delāta, 524
Dheleil, Wādi, 593, 594, Dīwāns, 285
Delhamīyeh, 660
Dog River : see Kelb,
Deltas, 655, 656
Dhīb, 'Ain edh-, 623 Nahr el-
Denmark, 210
Dhīb, Wādi edh-, 628 Dogs, 644
Der'a, 567, 572: Haifa, Dhib, Wādi 'Ayun edh-, | Dolerite, 559
Der'a Railway, 95, 623
Dolmens, 560
456, 492-494, 551, Dhrāʻ, Edh-, 617 Domestic conditions,
552, 596, 654 Dhrā', Seil edh., 622, 227-235
Der'a (or Haurān), 630, 633
Dominicans, 209
Kaza of, 240, 254 : Dhrūr, Tell edh-, 480 Donkeys, 389, 453, 461,
see also Haurān
Dhuba', Wādi edh-, 474 490, 509, 548, 579,
Derdāra, 'Ain, 373 Dhubāb, Jebel, 624 1 603, 663. See also
Derrāgin, 99
Dhullām (tribe), 461, Asses
Dervishes, 212, 227
471
Dothān, Plain of: see
Deschamps,–,257 Dhura, 105, 252, 253, ‘Arrābeh, Sahel
Desert, 346, 349, 350, 258, 296, 307, 323, Dothān, Tell, 475
379, 558
339, 450-452, 456, Doves, 108, 664
Desert Lakes, 420-421 1 457, 487-489, 493, | Dragoman, 237
Deutsches Handelsarchiv, 1 508, 544, 547, 578, | Drainage, 562
295, 297
579, 601, 643, 663 Draw-net, 550
Devil-worship, 204, 222 Dhura, 'Ain edh-, 381 Dress, 227, 285, 306,
Devotional objects, 458 Dhura beidha, 97, 258 l 607
Dew, 31, 37, 350, 352, Dhura hamra, 258 Drill, 120, 163
INDEX
683
155,
293,
Drought, 182, 183, 253, Dūg, 'Ain ed-, 444
133, 134, 138,
351, 628
Dūra, 436, 443, 448
139, 145, 146,
Drugs, 314
Dushāni, 257
149–152,
Drums, 231
Dussaud, M., 193
157-161, 164,
Druses, the, 193, 194, Dustreh, Khirbet ed-, 165, 168, 170,
233, 234, 325, 343, 502
172, 173, 174
497, 498, 511, 513, Dusuqīych (order), 212 inhabitants (09
514,557,563,564, 567; Duweikāt (sub-tribe), Egyptians), 185,
administration, 243;l 609
186, 189, 194, 197,
and conscription, 243, Dwellings, 228, 229, 611, 199, 215, 235,513
566, 567 ; in history, 635, 644
religion, 215
156, 160, 168, 171; Dyes and dyeing, 284, slaves from, 634
industry, 502, 510; 287, 302, 306, 311, sultan of, 149
internal migration, 314, 354, 391, 548, taxation, 247, 248
183; religion, 204, 1 602
trade with, 278,
205, 217, 219-221;
279, 282, 285,
statistics, 342, 355,
288, 292,
392, 393, 496,553,554, Eagle, 108, 448
295, 298, 301,
579
Earthquakes, 537
302, 309, 312,
Drūz, Jebol ed. (or Easter, 226
315, 354, 390,
Ardh el-Bathanīyeh or Eastern Plateau, 20-23
454, 456, 457,
Jebel Haurān), 9, 21, Ebal, Mt.: see Suleimi 493, 494
104, 556, 558, 561, yeh, Jebel es-
Upper, 105
572, 593, 610: agri- Ed- : see specific name Egyptian Armies, 140,
culture, 578 ; climate, Edessa, 135, 138, 140, 142, 152, 153,
575-577; description, 144
163, 165-168,170,
563-567; inhabitants, Edinburgh Medical Mis 171, 173
557
sion, 209
Begs, 157
Kaza of (or Su- Edom, 469: ancient, i Casualties, 169
weida), 240
Delta, 444
Dry farming, 255, 488 | Education, 196, 198–204 Deserters, 172
Dubāb, Jebel, 613 Edward I of England, Fleet, 138, 167
Duck, 509, 596, 664: 150
Government, 171
wild, 108, 372, 543 Effendis, 250
Money, 319
Ducousso, G., 262-264, Eggs, 341, 493, 633, 663, Occupation, 392,
283, 284
1644
511
Dufleh, Nahr ed- (09 Egg-plant, 98, 339, 449, Posts, 471
Oleander river), 441, 451, 508, 547
Egyptians : see under
481, 483, 502, 526 Egypt, 358
Egypt
Duhi, Jebel : see Her agriculture, 258– Ehmeimeh, 'Ain el-, 598
mon, Little
260, 266 - 268, Ehreir, Wādi ele (or
Duhi, Nebi, 520
271
'Irāq), 561, 564, 570,
Dukhn, 97, 258
boundary (or fron-1 571, 574
Dukkan, 635
tier) of, 10, 439, Ehseyyeh, 'Ain, 593
Duleib, 'Ain ed-, 484
440, 666
Ehsūn, El-(or El-Husan,
Dūma, 385, 386, 419; climate, 29, 30 09 El-Quseir), 571
Kaza of, 240, 370, 394 communication Ekron, 118
Dummar, 418
with, 294, 642, El- : see specific name
Dunam, 255, 324
665
Elders, 242
Dunes, 463, 477, 478, in history (incl. Electric Light Compan-
481, 482, 531, 535, Egyptians), 109-1 ies, 298
664
111,113,114, 116- Electric Tramway Com-
Dupions, 284, 285
122, 129, 130, pany, Beirut, 198
636
ULU
684
INDEX
Elephants, 122, 153
inhabitants, 498 Ez- : see specific name
Elijah's Cave: see trade, 493
Ezāz, Battle of, 143
Khudhr, El-
water-supply, 483, 'Ezra, 563
Elji (El-Ji), 641
503, 526, 530, \ 'Ezra, Kaza of, 240
Ellerman Line of steam-
537, 545, 546 'Ezzīyeh, Wādi el-, 525,
ers, 294, 297
Esdūd, 433, 436
526, 528, 533, 536,
Elm, 599
Esdød, Jisr, 436, 437 . 538
Elviyé-z-mustaqilé, 238 'Esfiya : see 'Usufiya
Elyās, Qal'at, 581 Esh: see specific name
Emigration, 182, 185- | 'Eshsheh, Wādi, 520,523 T'aba vulgaris, 97
189, 284, 290, 343, Eslāmīyeh : see Sulei- Factories, 188, 276, 283,
355, 358, 392, 634 miyeh, Jebel es-
303
Emzeirīb, Wādi el-, 586 Eli see specific name Fādil, Bir, 504, 513
En- : see specific name Ethiopian Infantry, 142 Tādil, Wādi, 513
'Enab, 98
Eucalyptus, 106, 478, Fadl, Wädi : see ‘Ayūn,
Engines, 293
486, 647
Wādi el-
England, 37, 172, 188, Euphrates, R., 9, 10, 12, Fagus sylvatica, 100
210, 242, 536 : trade 13, 20, 116, 118, 123, Tāhil, 652, 659
with, 264, 267, 272, 183, 272 : valloy, 346, Fāhil (or Pella), 595
285, 292, 293, 295, 349, 353
Fāhil, Wādi, 658
305 : see also British Euphratesia, 110, 114, Fahl, village of, 587
and United Kingdom! 117, 118, 121, 122, Fakhr ed-Dīn, 156
Church of, 202, 206, 129, 130, 135, 138, Fakhr ed-Dīn, Castle of
209, 606
151, 154
405
English Breweries, 258 Europe, 109, 149, 151 (Falāh, Wädi (or Merj
Crusaders, 147, 148 149, 177, 190, 195, ez-Zorā'ah), 501-503,
Fleet, 157, 159
354, 492, 493 507, 511
Influence, 203
Central, 583
Falcon, 448
Language, 188, 198, 1
Fāliq, Basset el-: see
232
European Architecture, Ramadhân, Birket
Marines, 172
229
Tāliq, Nahrel., 435, 478,
Presbyterian Dress, 227
479, 483, 484, 488
Schools, 201
Factories, 276 Tāmīyeh : see Apamea
Shillings, 319
Fleets, 138
Faqāris, 586
'Ennüb, 101
Goods, 293
Faqīr, 223
Ephraim, 116, 118
Governments, 204 Fār, Wādi el-, 624, 625
Eqseir (or El-Quseir), 94 Implements, 254 Fār'ah, 'Ain el-, 448,
Es- : see specific name Influence, 232 462, 474, 484
Esāl, Seil, 615, 624, 626 Languages, 198 Pār'ah, Burj el-, 484
Esdraclon, Plain of (or | Powers, 236, 237, Tār'ah, Ghör el-, 498
Merj ibn 'Āmir), 15,
Fār'ah, Wādi el-, 17,
253, 427, 472, 473, Scenery, 583
430, 474, 476, 479,
475, 476, 480, 499, Settlements, 512 484, 486, 489, 653
500, 521, 522, 532 Europeans, 195, 196, Fārah, Wādi, 430, 529,
agriculture, 257, 231, 233-235, 281 539
265, 268, 487, Evaporation, 32-34, 47, Faras, Tell el-, 568
488, 544-546 49, 657
Fārisi, 99
area, 16
Evil eye, 225 : spirits, Farm buildings, 545
description of, 515-1 225°
Farming: see specific
518, 518-520 Exner, -, 92
districts
geology, 442, 537 Exports, 248, 289, 292- | Far'ün, Qanāt (Pha-
in history, 111, 146, 317: see also specific raoh's watercourse),
151, 162
districts
Wes
n
242
596
INDEX
685
rah
Tasā'il, 'Ain, 444
F'elwa, 244
Floods, 396, 397, 402,
Fasā'il, Plain of, 647 Feuds, 184, 230, 514 406, 407, 409, 570
Fasõri, Ras, 327 Fever, 337, 350, 351, Flora, 96-106 : see also
Fasting, 211, 213, 225, ; 371, 386, 468, 576 I specific districts and
226
Fezzes, 227, 306
flora
Fātimah, wife of 'Ali, Ticus carica, 99
Florence, Council of,
216
Ficus sycomorus, 99 205
Tatimite Dynasty, 215: Figs, 99, 104, 221, 253, Flour, 248, 257, 258,
see also Khalifs
260, 269, 270, 313, 276–278, 293, 296,
Tauna, 106-108: see! 373, 417, 431, 449, 302, 308, 311, 314,
also specific districts 451, 470, 489, 509, 458: European, 278
and fauna
541, 544, 546, 547, Flour-mills, 492, 549,
Fawwār, Neba' el-, 413 602, 629, 631, 642, 604 : see also Mills
Fawwār, Seil el-, 623 1 643
Flute, 231
Fawwārah, 'Ain, 595 Fījeh, 382, 416
Fodder, 99, 258, 259,
T'awwārah, Wädi, 594 Fijch, 'Ain, 416
268, 273, 274
Feast Days, 212, 217, Fijl, 98
Foeniculum piperilum,
218
Fikeh, 368, 371
100
Fedān (or Ifdān), Wādi, Filature, 284
Fogs, 31, 32, 38, 70, 71,
640, 662, 663
Filbert, 100
576
Feddān, 324
Finān (anc. Phunon), Foodstuffs : see under
Feifeh, El-, 663, 667 ! 640, 663
I specific foods
Feifeh, Seil el-, (or Nahr Fiq, 576
Fords, 401, 403, 406,
Tafileh), 639, 664 ! Fiqreh, Wādi: see Mar 407, 423, 439, 475,
Feitrūn, 408
530, 591-593, 598,
Tojjas, Wādi, 521-523, Firearms, Ottoman, 155 617, 618, 650-652,
528, 535, 538
Firewood, 321
655
Fellāhāt, 227
| Fischer, 428, 437, 439, Foreigners, 189, 192,
Fellahin, 176, 178–182, 1 448
194–196, 237, 245,
193, 194, 213, 226, Fish, 108, 223, 308, 400, 250, 281, 282 f., 290,
227, 231, 233, 274, 468, 539, 543, 562, 459, 496, 553
356, 461, 470, 506, 571, 588, 603, 630, Forests, 21, 104, 106,
545, 548, 551, 555, 641, 649, 654, 656 : | 35, 506, 521, 542-
571, 577, 578, 603– black, 400; coprolite, 544, 598-600
605, 611, 631, 632, 601 ; poisoning, 550; Fossiliferous strata, 369
634, 643, 644, 660,1 tax, 550
Fossils, 423, 536
663,667: half, 631,633 Fishing industry, 426, Fountains, 331, 527, 648
Felūj, 420
548-550
Fowls, 490, 509, 603,
Folūjeh, 437
Fityān, El-, Hill of, 633, 644, 663 : water,
Felūjeh, Plain of, 452
625
400; wild, 399, 487
Fennel, 100
Fiumaras, 364
Fox, 107, 448, 486, 641,
Fenugreek, 97
Flame - throwers, 152, 666: tawny, 542
Ferikhīych, 452
153
France, Louis VII of, 145
Ferries, 401, 402, 652 Flamingo, 108
Trade with, 259,
Ters), 500
Flax, 101, 269, 659
263, 265, 274,
Toshkhah, 'Ain el-, 448, Fleets, 121, 138, 139, 283, 293, 295,
653
157-159, 163, 167, 296, 298,300-302,
Toshkhah, Ras, 448 173
309, 312, 315,
Feshkhah, 'Ain, 656 Flies, 350, 400, 663
339, 494
Feshkhah, Ras, 656, Flint, 369, 372, 464, 502, Franciscans, 200, 204,
660
536, 638
209
Festivals, 210, 211, 222- | Flocks, 231, 252, 341, Tranj, 'Ain el-, 621
227, 231
371, 373
Frankfort, 202
686
INDEX
Frederick II, 149 Furniture making, 1001 wādi systems, 526-
Free Press, 198
Fustuq: see Pistachio 529
French College at Beirut, Nuts
water-supply, 537-
200
Fūwār, Wādi, 481
540, 543
Crusaders, 147, 150 Fūwārah, 531
Galilee, Lower, 517, 532,
Culture, 200, 202 Fuwweh, 101
534 : bills of, 520-523
Fleet, 167
water-supply,537, 538
Francs, 319
Galilee, Sea of: see
Gold, 319
Tiberias, L.
Government sub-| Gadara, : see Umm Keis Galilee, Upper, 106, 516,
sidy, 204
Gales : see Storms 517, 533, 534, 536 :
Invasion, 157-163 Galilee:
mountains of, 523-
Language, 198, 232 agriculture, 487, 1 526
Military instruc 543-548
Gall-nuts, 301
tors, 166
area, 515-516 Game, 507, 533
Missions, 200
building-stone, 288 Garlic, 98, 631
People, 159, 232, climate, 540, 541 Gas companies, 298
282, 553
coastline, 535, 536 Gaza (or Ghazzeh):
Shipping, 294, 300, communications, agriculture, 254,432,
317
650
433, 448–450,470
Frères des écoles chré communities and climate, 24, 27, 29,
tiennes, 200, 209
sects, 511, 554, 30, 44, 45, 52, 53-
Friends', 214
555
61, 64-83, 92:
Fringes, 222
dress, 227
key, 252
Frogs, 376
emigration, 186
District of, 450-452
Frost, 26, 469, 541, 575, fauna, 106, 107, flora, 447
577, 600
542, 543
fruit, 264, 271, 272
Fruit, 98, 99, 104, 231, fishing, 549, 550 in history, 111, 113
252, 339, 387, 388, flora, 541, 542
121, 122, 127,
449, 508, 533, 547, geology, 536, 537
139, 149, 160,
579,658: culture, 547, inhabitants, 498,
161, 163, 168,
602 ; trees, 340, 341, 552-555
174, 176
406 : see also under Jewish colonies, industry, 278, 284,
specific fruits
189, 190, 254
289, 453-455
Fu'arah, 596
land tenure, 250
Kaza of, 240, 428,
Tu'arah, 'Ain, 596
manufactures, 548, 458
Fuel, 99, 101–103, 269, 549
measures, 323
280, 506
mountains, 13, 15, pilgrims from, 639
Fuheis, 589, 605, 606
647
physical features,
Pūl, 97
minerals, 541
463, 464
Fūleh, El-, 158, 162, 376, natural products, Plains, 258, 471
545
541-543
population, 194, 460
Fūlīyeh, 654
physical features, trade, 295, 305, 456,
Fumel-Mīzāb, Jebel,363 427, 516–536
457
Funduq, “Ain el-, 415 plains, 532–535
vegetation, 440
Fuqū' Jebel (or Gilboa), pomegranates, 271 weights, 322
16, 116, 472, 473, 475, population, 552-554 | Gaza-Beersheba Road,
476, 497, 515, 518, rivers, 529,532 1 435; G.-Jaffa Wheel-
520, 526, 530, 532, stock-rearing, 548 road, 437; G.-Khān
546, 647
towns and villages, Yūnis Road, 435
Fureidīs, 511
553, 554
Gazelles, 107, 448, 486,
Fureidīs, Wādi el-, 481, trade, 494, 550-552 507, 630, 666
501, 502, 511
vintage, 260 Geese, 509
INDEX
687
Gennesaret, Plain of : Ghamīq, Wādi el-, 480, 431, 442, 472,
see Ghuweir, El-
501 -
520-522, 534,575,
Genoa, 138, 294, 493 Ghamkeh, Nahr, 331, 567, 646
Geology, 93-96 : see 422
rivers (wādis) and
also specific districts Ghamr, El-, 666
streams, 17, 466,
Geranium oil, 282 Ghamr, Wádi el-, 466, 517, 528, 581,
Gerizim, Mt., see Tör,
662
583,584,586,588-
Jebel et-
Ghanamāt, tribe, 634
591,595,598, 622,
German Colonies, 192, Ghār, 102, 279 : oil, 391 626, 639, 640
198, 254, 259, 449, Ghār, Wādi el-, 17, 430, water-supply, 443 :
450, 454, 493, 504, 461
for other ghors
512, 547
Gharandel, 'Ain, 666
see specific name
Colonists, 452, 489, Gharandel, Wādi, 640, Ghörānīyeh, Ei-, 652
497, 508
665
Ghörānīyeh, Jisr el-,
Consular Officials, Gharbi, 373, 505
650
297: Reports, Gharbi, Jebel el-, 357 Ghurāb, Seil, 624
299, 352
Ghārib, Naqb el-, 665 Ghurāb, Wādi el-, 437
Emperor ·Conrad, Ghassūl, Teil, 622 Ghuruq, Merj el-, 16,
125
Ghazāl, 'Ain, 511, 598 475, 480, 483, 488
Government, 204 Ghazāleh, Wädi el-, 571 Ghūteh, El-, 385
Immigrants, 232 Ghazan Khān, 152, 153 Ghuweir, “Ain, 653, 657
Iron foundry, 492 Ghazīr, 200
Ghuweir, El- (02 Plain
Language, 198 Ghaziyāleh (tribe), 6101 of Gennesaret), 523,
Officers, 171 Ghazwān, Wādi, 624 528, 529, 532, 534,
Shipping, 300, 317 |
535, 537, 539, 542,
Silver Coins, 319 Ghazzeh : see Gaza 547, 616, 654
Syrian Orphanage, | Ghazzeh, Wādi, 17, 428, Ghuweir, Wādi : see
455
429, 434-436, 463, Jedeid, Wādi
Templar colonies, 464-467
Ghuweir, Wādi (or Seil
192, 198, 204, Gheibis (sect), 216
ed-Dathneh), 637,639,
282, 512
Gl: see Sebe10
642
Germans, 147, 189, 192, Ghör, the (or Jordan Ghuweir, Wādi el-, 618
497, 512
Depression : see also Ghuweit, Wādi el-, 436
Germany, 192, 197, 210: Jordan, R., Sea of Ghuweiteh, Wādi el-, 619
trade with, 274, 282, Tiberias, and Dead | Giaur Dagh, 10, 14
285, 287, 293, 296, Sea), 645-661 Gilboa, Mt.: see Fuqū“,
300, 303, 309, 312, agriculture,448,490, Jebel
315
546,608, 658,659 Gilead, 179
Ghāb, El-, 350, 351, 353, climate, 49, 444, Gipsies (Nawār), 196
356, 400-402: plain 540, 543, 657, Glass industry, 289, 455
of, 18, 424
658
Glaisher, J., 92 .
Ghabāgheb, 560
fauna, 448
Glycyrrhiza glabra, 100
Ghābiyeh, Jebel-el-, 524, flora, 105
Goatherd, 504, 514
526
geology, 446, 537, Goats, 105, 107, 180,
Ghadeirāt, 'Ain, 467,
181, 225, 247, 273,
470
inhabitants, 194, 292, 341, 353, 367,
Ghadir el-Abyadh, 618
462, 489, 497, 389, 390, 430, 447,
Ghadha, 664, 667
555, 609, 659 453, 478, 490, 506,
Ghadir es-Sultan, 618
661
509, 513, 546, 548,
Ghadyān, 'Ain, 664, 666 mineral springs, 95 565, 579, 601, 603,
Ghafr, Wādi el-, 581, physical features, 609, 632, 633, 643,
588, 599
16,19, 21-23, 370, 644, 663: hair, 286
Ghajār, El-, 648
371, 427, 429-1 389, 548, 634, 644;
568
688
INDEX
H
milk, 273 ; skins, 274, Greenwich, 35, 46
277, 291, 305,
287, 288, 498
Gregorian Armenians, 557, 596 ; Haifa-
Gobat, Bishop, 202 207, 553
Der'a Railway,
Gök Su, 10
Grès, 284
95, 456, 492-494,
Golden Plain': see Grottoes of Je'īta, 408, 551, 552, 596,
Tõr'ān, Plain of
409
654; Haifa-Rafa-
Gooseberry, 99
Gumbāz, 285
Ludd Railway,
Gordon, H. Pirie, 322 Gunners, 158, 159
493, 495
Gore, Capt. W.Ormesby, Guns, 158, 159, 161-165, Town of: agricul-
541 .
174
ture, 490, 492 ;
Government Loans : see Gypsum, 96, 446, 614, climate, 24, 25,
Turkish
617, 629
27-29, 33, 44, 45,
Grain, 97, 304, 306, 449,
52–69, 74-82, 92,
493, 545, 551, 561,
Icey, 485; com-
562, 634, 666
munications, 344,
Granary, 635
481, 501, 513,
Granite, 466
Hāb, 143
519; education,
Grapes, 98, 246, 252, Habaqeh, Wādi, 587
203; in history,
253, 259, 260, 280- Habīs, Wādi el-, 621
160, 163, 166,
282, 449, 450-452, Hackberry, 102
172; industry,
454, 547, 602, 663 : Hadāniyeh, 628
276, 280, 491-
syrup (or dibs), 259 Haddad, Jebel el-, 637
493, 505, 506,
260, 280-282: see Haddad, Wādi el-, 588, 509, 510, 548;
also Vines
596
inhabitants and
Grass, 510, 641, 664: see Hadd edh-Dhībeh, Mt., population, 176,
also Pasturage
613
185, 192, 196,
Gravel, 646, 650, 652, Haddātha, 554
232, 496, 497,
Hadid, Jisr el-, 344, 356, 511; monastery
Greece, 294
401, 424
near, 499 ; physi.
Greek Catholic College, Hadīdeh, 332
cal features, 16,
203
Hadītheh, Ghör el-, 616, 434, 439, 442;
Christians : catho- 623, 624
shipping, 294,
lic, 198, 203, 243, Hadītheh, Seil el-, 623, 494, 305, 316,
459, 511, 553, 626
317 ; trade, 298,
554; orthodox, Hadshit, 411
300, 304 - 306,
243, 554, 643 Hafā'ir el-Hanakein, 625 456, 492 – 494,
Church : catholic, Hafeir, Jebel el-, 637
550-552 ; water-
208, 606; ortho- Hafeyyer, 385, 419
supply, 483, 484 ;
dox, 201-203,206, Hafīr (or El-'Auja),
weights, 321
208, 606
Kaza of, 240
Kaimmakam of, 512
Emperor, 140, 144 Hafīr, Wādi, 466
Kaza of, 239, 472,
Empire, 130 Hāfiz Pasha, 171
495, 496, 499,
Language, 206 Hafrah, Jebel, el-, 618
516
Mercenaries, 120 Haifa :
Hail, 31, 37, 68, 69, 446
122
District of: agri- Hail-storms, 628
Monastery, 432
culture, 259, 260, Hajal, 6411
Priests, 206
266, 271, 487- Hajānajeim, Jebel, 618
Silver Coins, 319
490, 492, 508, Hajar esh-Sheikh, 481
Warfare, 111
546; climate, Hajar melelci, 502
Greeks, 109, 121-123, 540; German Hajar Mūsa (Moses'
126-128, 130–133, 135, colonies, 192, 259, Štone), 94, 446
144, 145, 459
512; industry, | Hajar ramleh, 482, 505,
Greenstone, 369, 423
279; railways, 512
662
AN
INDEX
689
Hajar sultāni, 502
in history, 110, Hammūr, Wādi, 585
Hajar yābis, 502
117, 118, 132, Hamra, Darajet el-, 624
Hajeir, Wādi el, 529, 152, 153, 169; Hamra, Jebel, 466
539,541
industry, - 284, Hamra, Makhādet el-,
Hajj Road, 174, 420, 287, 288, 354 ;/ 652
556, 559, 560, 572, inhabitants and Hamra, Wādi el-, 474,
599, 613, 618-620,
population, 175, 574, 587
639, 641
178, 196; reli- Hamra soil, 253
Hajleh, Makhādet, 651 gion, 233; trade, Hamrānīyeh, 528
Hākim, Caliph, 219, 221 353, 354, 391; Hamraʼiyeh, El-, 584
Hakmūn, Qal'at, 360
water-supply, 399 Hamzah, 219, 221
Hala el-Qarān, Mt., 637 Hamād (or Syrian Hanakein, Wadi el-, 618
Halaqah, Jebel, 345–1 Desert), 10, 106, 556 625, 629
347
557, 580, 584, 600 Hand-looms, 286
Halāweh : see Sweet 610, 612, 628, 632: Hanifite School of law,
meats
Steppe, 22; Wester, ! 212
Halbūn, 383
570
Hanīsh, Wādi el-, 621
Halbūn, Wādi, 383 Hamādi (tribe), 660 Hann, J., 92
Stream, 383
Hamā'ideh (Hamīdeh), Hannāneh, 513
Haleb, see Aleppo
tribe, 184, 633
Harāfīs (tribe), 609
Halebiyeh, 9
Hamām, stream, 529,539 | Hārah, 236
Haleiqim, Jebel, 465 Hamām, Wādi el-, 523, Hārah, Tell el-, 560,
Halfa Grass, 510, 664 528, 534, 539
571
Halhūl, 429, 443, 448 Hamburg, 295, 493 Harāqla, Rās, 581
Halīb, Wädi, 436
Hamdūn (tribe), 555 | Harbaj, 527: springs of,
Halīmeh, halimet : see Hāmeh, 419
531
specific name, 381 Hāmi Qurseh, Tell, 568 Hardware, 306, 308, 311
Hallān ed-Dīk, Wādi, Hamīdeh: see Hamā' Hares, 107, 448, 468,
587
ideh (tribe)
507, 641
Halyün, 98
Hamidiyeh, Kaza of, i Haresteh, 419
Halzūn, Wādi el-, 517, 240, Ⓡ326, 341, 343, Harf, Deir el-, 407
527, 531, 533
345, 355"
Harf Rām cl-Kabsh,
Hama :
Hammām 'Ayūn el-, 380, 381
District of, 9, 14, 18, 585, 587 595, 597 Harī, 228
20,258, 423-425; | Hammām, Islet of, 441 Hārim, 145, 344, 352,
agriculture, 180, Hammām, Seil el-, 620
257, 259, 345, Hammām, Wādi el-, Kaza of, 239, 345
346, 350, 351, 584, 587, 590, 592, Harīq, Wādi el-, 382
352 ; climate, 595, 620
Harīr, Wādi el-, 377
350; inhabitants, Hammām Ibn Hammād, Harīs, 554
214, 343, 345 624, 626
Hārithīyeh, 530
Kaza of, 240, 341, Hammām Sheikh 'Isa, Harness, 548
345, 355, 356 401
| Harrān, 140, 143, 149
Plain of, 303 Hammām ez-Zerqa, 621, Harrows, 254
Sanjaq of, 219, 240, 626, 627
Hārūn (ór Aaron), 224
326, 345, 351, Hammāna, 365, 407 : Hārūn, 'Ain, 422
353, 370
valley, 406
Hārūn, Jebel, 640, 644
Town of, 326, 330, | Hammeh, El-, 571, 596, Harūsh, 'Ain, 419-420
335, 336, 345, 598
Hasa, Wādi el- (or Qus-
348: communi- Hammct Rīh el-Ghan- į seib, or En-Nuheir, or
cations, 331, 344 ; am, 596
El-Bir), 587, 595
education, 256 ; Hammet esh - Sheikh, Hasan Sabbāh, 214, 215
emigration, 182 ;! 596
Hasaneh (tribe), 179
SYRIA
X X
690
INDEX
Hasaniyeh (tribe), 5551 Sanjaq of, 182, 240, Hejāya (tribe), 633, 644
Hasāsah, Wādi, 461, 656 242, 243, 556, Hejaz, 556
Hasāsah, Mutukh, 461
558, 578, 579
Frontier, 556
Hāsbāni, Nahr, 11, 19, Haurāni, 256
Railway, 9, 11, 179,
371, 373, 395,- 539, Hauz, 102
260, 270, 277,
648, 649
Hawa, Bāb el-, 501
414,492, 556,582,
Hásbāni, Neba', 648 Hawa, Jõret el- 576
599, 600, 610,
Hāsbeya, 94, 219, 220, Hawar, 'Ain, 378, 415
618, 620, 625,
370, 375, 376, 392, Hawārith (tribe), 479 630, 636, 637,
393, 404, 648
498
640, 641, 643,
Kaza of, 240, 370 Hawārith, Wādi el-, 479 644, 665
Hashish, 101, 215 Hawīyeh, Wādi, 621
Road, 469
Hashīshet el-gili, 101 · Hawks, 108, 448, 664 Vilayet of, 10, 636
Hasrūn, 411
Hawthorn, 102, 104, 'Helbūn, Nahr, 417
Hāss, 348
447, 486, 507, 541, Helbūn, Wādi, 416
Hāss, Jebel el-, 346, 349, 599
Hellenistic Period, 121-
425
Hay, 259, 275; hay 123
Hasya, 379, 380
stacks, 578
Helu, Sheikh, 480
Hätim, 'Ain, 596
Hayti, 186
| Hem el-Belga, Depres-
Hattān, Wädi, 346 Hazel-nut, 100
sion of, 584
Hattin, 111, 147, 158, Hazweh, Ras, 523, 526, Hemp, 101, 215, 269,
522, 529, 538 : Horns 527
579
of, 537
Hebrew, Language, 196, Henbane, 100
Haur, 103
197, 203, 222 Henu, El-, 652
Haurān, District of, 556– People, 109, 115, Henu, Wādi, 501
579, 598, 600, 650 : 116. See also Henūd, Tell el, 529
agriculture, 253, 256,
Jews
Heraclius, Emperor,
257, 259, 261, 518, Hebron, 16, 95, 427, 429, 125-127
520, 545, 546, 577– 431 : agriculture, 448, Herajil, 408
579, 602; area, 558 ; | 449, 451, 631; clim- Herds, 231, 252, 341,
blackmail in, 177; ate, 24, 26-31, 38, 39, 373
climate, 575-577; 52-65, 68–71, 74-83, Heri, El-, 360
geology, 95, 278, 386, 92, Icey; industry, Heri, Wādi el-, 623 : see
559; industry, 277, 261, 280, 289, 447, also Jedeid, Wādi
279, 288, 577-579; 449, 451, 454, 455 ; Hermil Bridge, 398
inhabitants, 171, 179, population, 176, 183– Hermil, Nāhiyeh of, 359,
219, 605, 634; live 185, 194, 224, 460, 370
stock, 579; migra- | 497 ; trade, 457, 458 Hermil, Oasis of, 372
tion to, 183 ; physi- } Kaza of (or Khalil Hermon, Mt. (or Jebel
cal survey, 558-567; er-Rahmān), 240, esh-Sheikh), 11-13,18,
rivers and wādis, 570-
428, 458
20, 21, 364, 373,
575; roads, 567; Hebron - Beit Jibrin 378, 379, 414, 558–
sheep, 666; trade, Road, 436
560, 567, 574, 575,
304, 493, 577-579; Hedges, 103
637, 648, 650
water-supply, 560– Heidān, Seil (or Wādi account of, 374-377
562, 566, 577;| Wāleh), 612-615, 619, administration, 370
weights, 322
620, 625, 626, 628, 629 agriculture, 387
Haurān, Jebel: see Drūz, Heidar, Nebi, 527
eliniate, 540
Jebel ed-
Heidari (sect), 216
fauna, 106
Kaza of (09 Der'a), Heish, Jebel, 568
flora, 104
240, 254 | Heitalīyeh, 'Arāq el-, inhabitants, 219
Plain of, 21, 558 574
Hermon, Little (or Jebel
562
| Heitūreh, 93
Duhi), 520, 521, 532
INDEX
691
379
VU
Herod the Great, 123, Holy Land, 607
353, 372, 389, 390,
519, 615
Sepulchre, 226 453, 490, 509, 513,
Herons, 372
Week, 226
- 546, 548, 579, 603,
Herzl, Dr. Theodor, 191, Home Rule, 155
632, 633, 644, 666 :
202
| Homeimeh, 638, 642 | blood, 389; breeding,
Hesa, Seil (or Wādi) el-, Homs :
121, 181, 453
23, 96, 556, 557, 612 District of: agri. Horse-shoes, 634
614, 628, 630, 633, culture, 98, 259, Hosb, 'Ain, 642, 665,
636, 641, 653, 663 : 345, 350-352; 666
account of, 638, 639 population, 314, Hospitals, 242, 248
Hesa, Qal'at el-, 638
345 ; wādis, 424 House Tax: see Land
Hesbān, 582, 589, 600, Kaza of, 240, 341, and Building Tax
613, 620
355, 370
Houses, 228, 229, 288,
Hesbān, 'Ain, 597, 609 : Lake of, 18, 333, 512, 513
village of, 599
351, 352, 398 Hubeishiyeh, Wādi el-,
Hesbān, Wādi, 22, 556, Plain of, 18, 20, 525, 526,528, 533, 538
557, 583, 589, 609, 257, 303, 349, Huber,-, ' Province du
612, 616, 634, 647
369
Liban' map, 359
Heseiniyāt, Wādi, 590 Plateau, 370, 372, Hūleh Basin, 374, 542
Hesi, 'Ayūn el-, 444
District of, 258,
Hesi Teil el-, 436
Railway, 9, 300, 544, 547, 658
Hesi, Wādi el-, 433, 435
303
Lake (or Bahret el-
436
Sanjaq of, 191
Hūleh), 19, 111,
Heyāneh, Wādi el-, 466, Town of, 14, 326, 126, 146, 373,
662, 665
331-333, 362 : 376, 528, 529,
Hibiscus esculentus, 98, communications, 537, 539, 543,
547
325, 331, 344, 549, 550, 554,
Hides, 277, 298, 304, 399, 412, 425; 645, 647, 648,
307, 308, 311, 314
in history, 110, 650 : description,
Hijāneh, 414
114, 124, 132, 649
Hijāneh, Bahret el-, 11, 134, 139, 140, Marshes, 105, 108,
386, 414, 421, 559
152, 153, 164, 369, 542,558,
Hilbeh, 97
166, 169, 170, 576, 649
Hilderscheid, Heinrich, 172 ; industry Plain, 371, 373, 524,
92
254, 284–288, • 537, 548
Hilf, El- (tribe), 498
353, 354, 391; Valley, 646, 649
Hilfsverein der Deut measures, 324; Humeimāt, 629
schen Juden, 202
money, 320 ; | Humidity, relative, 44,
Hindāj, Wādi, 524, 525, population, 182, 45, 49, 64-66
526, 527-529, 539, 196, 233; water. Hummus, 97, 259
554
supply, 399; Humr, 'Ayūn, 629
Hippopotamus, 106
weights, 321 Humr, Wādi el-, 428,
Hirreh, Wādi el-, 474 Hondhol: see Colocynth 474
Hirsch, Baron, 190 Honey, 454, 579, 389 Hūnīn, 524, 529, 538
Hīsheh, El-, 641
Honeysuckle, 381 Hūnin, Jebel, 524, 525
Hisma, El-, 637, 642 Hordeum distichum, 97 | Huntington,-, 645
' Historical numbers, Hordeum vulgare, 97 Hūrāt, 400
112, 113, 135, 136, Hornbeam, 102, 104 Haryilleh, 415
146, 147, 160, 161, Horse-bean, 97, 450 Husein, Ras, 327
166-168, 173
Horsemen. See Cavalry | Husein Pasha, 170, 218
Hittites, 109, 113-115 Horses, 107, 119, 136, Husn, El., 332, 604-
Hiyār, Wādi, 587
137, 160, 180, 181, 606: see also Husn el-
Holly-oak, 543
1 247, 274, 275, 341,1 Akrad, Kaza of
X
X 2
692
INDEX
el-
Husn, Qal'at el- (or Husn Ijjās, 99
| Iram, 642
el-Akrād), 333, 336, Ijzim: see Iqzim ‘Irāq : see Ehreir, Wādi
338, 343, 412, 653: Ikhshid Family, 129
castle of, 148, 150, 331 | Iksāl, 518, 526
Irbid, 581,588, 595, 602,
Husn el-Akrād (or El- Ilex: see Oaks
604, 652: telegraph
Husn), Kaza of, 239, Ilghāzi, Emir of Mārdīn, line to, 592 : see also
326, 341, 343 : see also 141
Ajlūn, Kaza of
Husn, Qal'at el 'Illa, Neba' el-, 397 Irbid, Wādi, 588
Husn-z-keif, 266
'Imād ed-dīn Zanki, ata- Irish Presbyterian
Husn Range, 333
bek of Mosul, 141 ) Schools, 201
Husn-Remteh Road,573 Imām, 205, 214, 242 Iron, 93, 276, 293, 311,
Husūn, El-, 571
Imleih, Wādi: see 314, 369, 376, 502,
Huts, 228
Muleiheh
601: bars, 308;
Huwāsh, 400, 401 Immigration, 189-192, beams, 288; chrom-
Huwāsh, 'Ain el-, 401 459, 607
ate, 327; foundry,
Huwāt (tribe), 642, 667 Imnīf, Ras el-, 581, 586 492; girders, 293,
Huweitāt, Él- (tribe), Imports, 247, 248, 289– 308; mine, 505 ; ore,
642, 644
317: see also specific 392 ; pipes, 311;
Huweith, 'Ain, 401 districts
plates, 308 ; pyrites,
Hyenas, 448, 468, 486, 'Imrān (tribe), 642 369; safes, &c., 311;
641, 666 : striped, Incantations, 225
ware, 314
106, 542
India, 158, 187, 214, \ 'Iron Bridge', the, 170
Hyoscyamus aureus, 100 215, 269, 287, 293, Irrigation, 253–255, 261,
Hyssop, 100
302, 303
264, 268, 271, 351,
Indian elephants, 153 352, 358, 371, 381,
Indigo, 101, 287, 302, 399, 402, 405-410,
I
314, 321, 658, 663 412, 414-417, 438,
Ibdar, 581, 582, 596, Indulgence, doctrine of, 439, 449, 452, 470,
602
206
477, 478, 485, 490,
Ibex, 107, 447, 630, 666 Industrial training, 203 527, 545, 561, 585,
Ibhul, 103
Industry, 276–289: see 595, 597, 602, 615,
Ibl, 'Ain, 554
also specific districts 626,631, 649, 658,663:
Ibn “Āmir, Merj: see Infantry, 119-121, 128, channels, 532; plant,
Esdraelon, Plain of L 130, 131, 142, 143, 276, 545; pumps,
Ibn Hāni, Ras, 327 145–147, 152, 156 455. See also Canals
Ibrāhīm, “Ain, 422 Inhabitants, 175–235 : 'Isa Begli, 327
Ibrāhīm, Nahr, 361, 410, see also specific dis- Isaac, 218
411
tricts and nationalities Ishkar, Wādi el- : see
Ibrāhīm Pāsha, 163-174 Inheritance, 236,244,245 | Ashkar, Wādi el-
Ibsarr, Wādi, 588 Inlaid manufactures, Ishmael, 218
Ibtein Ghazāl, Wādi, l 454
Iskander, Fersh, 505
590
Insects, 108
Iskander, Jebel, 473
Ibzīq, Ras, 473, 480 Instruments, import of, Iskanderūn: see Alex-
Ichneumon, 107, 486 1 311
andretta
Idlib, 261, 268, 350, 352, Intestines, export of, Iskanderūneh, Nahr,
354
298, 310
435, 479, 483, 484,
Kaza of, 239, 257, Iochmus, General, 168, 488, 498
345, 351
| 174
Isifah (tribe), 609
Ifdān, Wādi: see Fedān, 'Igal (pron. ragāl), 227 Islām : see under Mo-
Wādi
Iglīm el-Bellân, 415 1 hammedanism
'Ifeishāt (tribe), 609 Iqzim (or Ijzim), 496, ) Islamic Languages, 198
Ifqaha (sub-tribe), 609 502, 505, 508, 512- Islands (Judaea coast-
Igneous rock, 379, 380 513: well of, 503 1 line), 441
INDEX
693
Ismāʻllīyeh (Ismailians) 1 504; communica- || 537, 556-579: area,
tribe, 204, 214, 215, tions, 344 (see also 558; agriculture, 275,
219, 325, 334, 336, below); education 577–579 ; cattle and
342, 343, 356
(schools), 197, 202, goats, 180; climate,
Israel, 116, 117, 222 203, 256 ; in history, 575-577; geology,
Issus, 121
110, 148-150, 158 568; industries, 577-
Isweitāt (tribe), 498 161, 166, 168, 172; 579; inhabitants, 191;
Italian Fleet, 138, 139 immigration, 189, 459; physical features, 559,
Government, 204 industry, 276, 278, 567-575; rivers and
Shipping, 294, 296, 279, 282, 288, 454, wādis, 570-575; trade,
300, 317
455 ; inhabitants and 577-579; water-
Silver Coins, 319 population, 176, 182,
supply, 560-562, 566,
Italians in Syria, 204 185, 196, 232, 460, 577
Italy, 147, 263, 265 : 497 ; irrigation, near, Plain of, 21, 374
trade with, 278, 283, 264, 268; measures, i Jā‘ūneh : see Rosh
285, 291-293, 295, 322, 324; money, Pinnāh
300, 303, 312, 315; 320; oranges, 264, Jaussen, -, 666
Turko-Italian War, 265, 452 ; palms near, Jawād, W., 622
296, 300, 494 n. 447; petroleum Jeba', 509, 511
Italy, Northern, 286 pumps near 254 ; Jebbül Göl (or Es-Sab-
Ithnasnaris of Persia, railway, 557; ship- kheh), 95, 349, 355,
214
ping, 316, 317, 492–1 425,426, 655, 663,
Izīra (sub-tribe) 610 494 ; trade, 290-292, 664, 667
Izmāl, Wādi : see 'Ayūn, 294–297, 304, 305, Jebel : see under specific
Wādi el-
307-309, 316, 317, name
456, 457, 492, 493; Jebel, El-, 557, 613
weights, 321
Jebel Shimʻān, Kaza of,
Kaza of (or Yāfa), 239
Jabbok, 22
240, 428, 458 Jebeleh, 266, 330, 337,
Jābiyeh, Tell el-, 560 Jaffa-Gaza road, 437; 340,421, 422; Kaza of,
Jackal, 107, 448, 468, J.-Haifa road,438,439, 239, 326
486, 641, 664
481, 513; J.-Jerusalem Jebeleh, Wādi el-, 571
Jacob, Castle, 146
road, 429, 438; J.- 1 Jedūr, 266
Jacobite Church, 207, Nāblus road, 479, 483 | Jedeid, 'Ain, 626, 628
208; Patriarch, 207 Jāhalin (tribe), 460, 461: Jedeid, Jebel el-, 637
Jacquard hand-looms, country of, 447 Jedeid, Wādi (or El-Heri
286
Jahra, 'Ain, 621
09 Ghuweir), 616, 622,
Jāʻez, Seil el-, 639 Jālūd, 'Ain, 151, 5321 623, 628, 629
Jafar, 618, 621, 632, 634 Nahr, 15, 19, 476, Jedeideh, 403, 586
Jafar, El-, Depression 477, 485, 515, Jedeideh, Sahel, 378
of 10, 23, 640, 644
520, 523, 538, | Jedeireh, Wādi el-, 615,
Ja'far Teyyār (or El 546,653: descrip- 625
Malik), 330, 337, 338
tion, 531; 532 Jedīd Jisr el-, 413
Ja'far the Winged, 218 Valley (anc. Jez. Jedra, Ras, 362
Jaffa, 433, 438, 487: reel), .15, 472, Jeib, Wādi el-, 466, 639
agricultural colonies 476, 515, 518-T 662
near, 190, 192,259,264, 520, 532, 537, | Jeidūr, 560
452 ; agriculture near, 544, 545, 653 | Jeineh Tell el-, 564
260, 271, 449-453; | Jam, 270
Jeʻīta, 408-410
coastline near, 440, Jamia', 513
Jel'ād, Jebel : see Ösha'
441; climate, 24, 29, Jamīd, Tell el., 94, 570 Jel'ād spring, 593
44, 45, 52–65, 68, 69, Jasper, 331
Jel'ād, Wādi (or Tāleb),
74-83, 92,' key, 445, Jaulān, District of, 369,1 593
694
INDEX
Jelamet el-Asāfni, 510-1 inhabitants, 462
178, 182, 183,
512
oranges, 264
185, 189, 190,
Jelamet el-Mansürah, Plain of, 19, 448, 192, 196, 211,
500, 510, 511
647, 651, 652, 226, 232, 459,
Jelant, 98
659, 660
460, 631; mar-
Jelbün, springs of, 530 river near, 653
kets, 453, 550 ;
Jelīt, 262
Jerjăr, 97
measures, 322,
Jemā'in, Kaza of, 239 Jermaq, Jebel el-, 15, 324; money,
Jemāl Pasha, 458
524-527,529,536, 542 319; pools at,
Jemmā'in: see Selfit Jermaq, Wādi, 405
431; religion,
Jemmeh Tell, 464 Jerūd Plain, 391, 419
200, 202, 206,
Jemrūreh, Wādi, 436 Jerusalem :
207, 209, 211,
Jendel, Qal'at, 375, 377, District of, agricul. 226 ; trade, 295,
419
ture, 267, 449, 323, 457, 458,
Jenīn, 472, 475, 488, 451; flora, 447; 602, 604 ; water-
491, 492, 494-497, marble, 96
supply, 443 ;
515, 518, 519; Kaza Kaza of (or El weights, 321, 322
of, 239, 472, 495
Quds), 240, 428, Serwān, Jebel, 620, 629
Jerāfi, Wādi el-, 466,
458
Jesuit College at Beirut,
468, 662, 665
Mufti of, 168 ·] 198–201, 204
Jerash, 572, 573, 581, Sanjaq of (09 El- Jesuits, 200, 209, 259
594, 598, 610: com-
Quds esh-Sherīf), Jetta, 480
munications, 607, 641, 186,211,238,241, Jewish
652, see also below: 428, 462; popu Agricultural
ford, 591-593; fruit lation, 458, 459
Schools, 203, 256
gardens, 602; inhabi Town of: climate, Calendar, 210, 234
tants 604,611; springs 24, 26-28, 30–33, Colonies, 179, 480,
in and near, 595
37-39, 39-44, 45-
545, 547: admi-
Jerash - ‘Ammān road, 47, 52, 53–83, 92, nistration, 242,
589, 592, 594, 598; key, 445, 504, 245, 250; agri-
J.-Salt road, 592, 593, 541; communica-
culture, 254-257,
595, 598
tions: 483, 616, 261, 264, 265,
Jerash, Wādi: see Deir, 652; (J.-Jaffa 272, 273, 450,
Wādi ed-
road) 429, 438; 452, 478, 487,
Jerboa, 666
(J.-Jerichoroad) 489, 544, 658 ;
Jerī'ah, Wādi, 589, 609 94, 430; (J.-Nāb-
industry, 259,
Jericho:
lus road) 437, 260, 281, 454,
agriculture near, 483; (J.-Ludd 493, 508 ; inhabi-
448
railway) 429, tants, 184, 185,
'Balm of Gilead', 437; education 233, 250, 459,
101
(schools,&c.),197, 486 (trees plant-
bridges near, 650
200, 202, 203; ed by), 497, 511,
climate, 24, 33, 45-
in history, 110, 512, 554
48, 52, 53, 58, 59, ill, 115, 123 Colonization Asso-
68, 69, 74–79, 91, 125, 127, 135, ciation, 190, 202
92, Icey, 657
137, 140, 144 Craftsmen , 454
communications,J.-
146, 148; immi Factories, 382
Jerusalem road, gration, 189,459; Festivals and Fast
94, 430; J.-Salt industry, 278, days, 210
road, 589
282, 285, 288, Immigrants, 189,
in history, 115
289, 454, 455; 232, 459
Moses' tomb near, inhabitants and Judges, 245
226
population, 175, Traders, 458
INDEX
695
Jews, 195, 232–234, 551: Jidru, 531, 546
515,528,531,532,
administration, 236, Jift, 280
570,585-588,590
237; beef eaten by, Jiftlik, 248-250, 550, 592. See also
633; education, 199, 659
Ghõr, the
202, 204; emigra- Jihān, R., 13, 14
Slopes of, 599
tion, 187; German, Jilu, 528
Upper, 528, 549,
202 ; in history, 118, Jindi, Wädi el-, 436, 569: valley, 15,
120, 122, 123, 124, 624
517, 524
127; land tenure, Jirm, 'Ain el-, 598: see Valley, 22, 39, 518,
250; languages of, also 'Ain el-Jirm
567, 580, 582,
109, 193, 195, 197, Jirm, el-Möz, Wādi: see 616; agriculture,
198; military service, Tīneh, Wādi 'Ain et-
253, 265, 268,
182, 250; native, 512; Jish, Plateau, 526, 537 : 1 269, 271, 490;
Polish, 227; religion, Springs of, 539
climate, 16, 21,
205, 209–211, 226 ; | Jisi : see under specific 24, 26, 27, 29,
sanctuaries, 178; name
34, 35, 45-48,
Spanish, 195, 553; Jisr, Wādi el- (or Wādi 52-71, 74–79,
statistics, 184 f., 189, Sartabeh), 587
252 ; fauna, 107,
342, 355, 393, 394, Jisr esh-Shughr, 18, 108, 274, 448;
459, 460, 496, 497, 326, 329, 334, flora, 105, 447 ;
552-554. See also 400, 401, 423
land tenure, 249;
Hebrew
Kaza of, 106, 239, trade, 495 ; tree-
Jezar, 98
326, 341-343, 345 less slopes, 599 ;
Jezreel, Plain of, 472, John, Emperor, 132
wādis, 515, 516,
521; Valley of, see Jonah's Pillar, 10
526, 534, 571,
Jalūd
Jordan:
586-589, 594;
Jezzār, Ahmed el-, 156 Basin, 520
water - supply,
161
Delta, 655
597; widening of,
Jezzin, 93, 213, 368, 388, East Jordan coun-
476
392, 404, 405 .
try, 12, 31, 37, West Jordan coun-
Kaza of, 241, 359, 93, 96, 140, 165, try, 11, 31, 602,
393
202, 213, 229, 605
Nahr, 364, 405
239, 257, 470, Jorfeh, Wadi el-, 622
Ji, El- : see Elji
616
Jormīyeh, 576
Jibāl, El- (Belqa), 613,
Gorge, 523
Josiah of Judah, 118
615, 623, 626
Lower, 428, 431, Jöz: see Walnuts
Jibāl, El-, (and Esh 447, 452, 622 ; Jõz, Khān el-, 423
Shera),557: area, 636; valley, 16, 95, Jözeleh, Wādi el-, 474,
communications, 641 * 448, 622
653
642; faurra, 641 ; Middle, 472, 528 Juár, 258
flora, 641; inhabi Mouth of, 660 Jubb‘Adin, 194, 196,
tants, 642–644 ; phy Plain, 520
383
sical features, 636– River, 13, 15,19, 22, Jubb Jenin, 403
640, 666
116,126, 145,427, Jubb Sureir, 383
Jibb, Ras el-, 501
522,527,529,558, Jubbet Asal, 382
Jiddah, 194
568,583,604,661; Jubeibeh, 'Ain, 623
Jidi 'Ain, 95, 432, 447, communications, Jubcibeh, Scil el-, 623
461, 653, 654, 519,590; descrip- Jubeihet cl-Kebireh,
657, 660
tion, 648-653; 584, 590
Plain of, 656
evaporation, 33; Jubeil, 148, 166, 172,
Springs of, 444, fish, 549; source, 360, 361, 411
461
371 ; tributaries, Jubeili, 266, 267.
Jidi, Wādi el-, 594, 595 376,395,474-477, Jūd, 95
696
INDEX
18
Judaea : administra- | Judeo-German (Yid- Karāwiyeh, 100
tion, 428 ; agriculture, dish), 197,553
Karaz, 98 i
448-454, 543; area, Judeo-Spanish (Ladino), Karez (or felúj), 420
428; climate, 444-1 197
Kārim, 'Ain, 451
446, 540; coastal Judges, 241, 243-245,
streams and western 249
Karshūni, 207
wādi basins, 434-439; Judicial system, 243 Kata, 641
coastline, 439-442; 245
Kattowitz, 190
commerce, 456–458; | Juhhāl, 220, 221 Kaukab, 'Ayūn el-, 538
communications, 584, Jujube, 101, 104
Kaukab el- Hawa, 521,
650; farming opera- | Jūlis, Sheikh 'Aqil of, 528
tions in, 452-454; 511, 554
Kazas, list of, 237–241
fauna, 447-448 ; flora; i Jumleh, Jebel, 525 Kebir, Nahr el-, 10, 13,
447; frontier, 472 ; Jummeiz, 99, 270
14, 325, 328, 329, 331,
general, 427-428; Jūn, 405, 415
332, 333, 338, 339,
geology, 369, 442-443; Jūn el-Khudhr (or St. ! 358, 360, 362, 366,
inhabitants, 458-462; Georges' Bay), 361, | 398, 421 ; description,
land tenure, 250 ; 408
412, 413, 422, 423
manufactures, 454- Jūneh, 409
Kefarát, El-, 571, 573,
456; minerals, 96, Jūneh Bay, 165, 172, 1 574, 580, 582, 595–
446–447; physical 206, 361
598, 600, 607
features, 429-442; Juneidīyeh, Ras el-, 501 | Keffīyeh, 227, 285
stock-rearing, 453– Juniper, 103, 379, 380, Kefr Abil, 586, 587
454; trade, 456-458;599, 641
| Kefr Asad, 611
wādis, 17; water- Junna, Jebel el-, 465 Kefr Birʻim, 544, 554
supply, 443-444 Jurd el-'Ulleiqah, 337. Kefr Hārib, 576
and Galilee, 517, Jūreh, 367
Kefr Hawar, 414
552
Jurf Abu ez-Zighān: Kefr Hüneh, 303, 404
and Samaria, 472, see Kefrein, Wādi Kefr Ja'iz, 602
473
Jurn, 503
Kefr Lahiye, 574
and Southern De- Jurn, 'Ayūn el- 587, 595 Kefr Lām, 504
sert 427-462 Jurūn, Wādi, 587 Kefr Qüq, 375, 378
Central Range or Jūsiyeh, 380
Kefr Sabt, 554
Ridge of, 429- Jūza, 624, 632
Kefr es-Sāmir, 561
431, 434, 444, 446
Kefr es-Sāmir, Wādi,501
Desert of, 16, 442,
Kefr Sõm, 574
443 : boundaries,
Kefrabbeh, 613, 615,
448,449 ; descrip. Ka'bīyeh (tribe), 498 621, 624, 630-632
tion, 431, 432 K 'ābneh (tribe), 460, Kefrabbeh, Wādi, 624
Highlands of, 19, 462
Kefrein, Tell el-, 589
107, 428, 472 · K'ābneh el-'Aujeh Kefrein, Wādi (or Jurf
Islands, 441 / (tribe), 660
· Abu ez-Zīghān), 588,
Maritime Plain, Kābri El-, 527, 538 589, 597, 622, 647
432, 433, 442, Kā'id (sub-tribe), 609 | Kefrinji, 585, 586, 595,
477
| Kaimmakam (or Qa'- 1 602
Mountains of, 13, 16 lim maqām), 237, 241, Kefrinji, Wādi (or Wādi
Shephelah, the, / 243, 247
‘Ajlūn), 22, 585, 586,
433-434, · 442, Kalamun, Jebel, 382 602, 604
444
Kalazi (sect), 216 Kefrīyeh, 94
· Western wādi ba Kamsa, 610
Keläbi, 99
sins, 434
Kan'ān, Jebel, 523, 524 Kelb, Nahr el- (09 Dog
Judah, 111, 116–119 Kara Su, R., 18, 401 River), 143, 172, 361,
Judaism, 203, 210 f. Karaites, 211
408-410
INDEX
697
S
530
294
Kelb, Ras el-, 361 Khā'ineh, Wādi el-, 624 | Kharri, El-, 622
Kelbīyeh (tribe), 330 | Khākhām-bashi, 211 Kharrūb, 101, 259; see
Keneyyiseh, Wādi el., Khalā'ileh (tribe), 610 | also under Carob
629
Khalasah, 463, 467, Kharrūbi, 270
Kenīseh, Jebel, 363, 364, 469
Kharūf, Jebel, 465
395, 406
Khālid, Wādi, 332, 362, \ Kharwa', 100
Kerak, Castle of, 139 1 412, 413
| Khashābeh, Wādi, 376
District of, 23, 224, Khālid ibn Walīd, 126 | Khashm, see specific
616, 629, 630, Khalīfah (Yezidi), 2231 name
634
Khalifate, Question of, Khashm, El- (or
Kaza of, 240 l 204, 212
| Khushm), 441, 499,
Sanjaq of, 191, 240, Khalifs, 110, 128-134, 510-512
462, 556, 636 155
Khashneh, Wādi el-, 474
Town of, 621, 633": ‘Abbasite, 129, 131, Khass, 98
communications, 205
Khaulch, 98
612; (K.-Hesbān Fatimite, 130, 219 Khaulch ed-dīb, 99
road) 600; (K. Omayyad, 129 Khawāja, 632, 634
Mādeba road) Khalil, Jebel el-, 16, 429 Khawâldeh (sub-tribe),
614, 620, 626; (K. Khalil, Wādi el-, 429,1 610
Qatrāneh road) 435, 481
Khederah, 480
618, 625, 629; | Khalīí er-Rahmān (or Khederah-Zimmārīn
(K. Sāfiyeh road),| Hebron), Kaza of, road, 480
630; fish sold in, 240, 428, 458
Khedivial Mail Line,
641; inhabitants, Khalladīyeh, 530
182, 184, 632, Khalladiyeh, Wādi el-, Kheim, 373
643, 644; phy 523, 533
Khirbeh, El-, 586
sical features, Khalleh, Wādi el-, 592 | Khirbet Abdeh, 471,
613, 614
Khalweh, 220
538
Wādi el-, 613, 614, Khalwet el-Biyādh, 220 Khirbet el-Barūd, Wādi,
626, 653, 655; Khān, 'Ain el-, 539
382
description, 621 Khān, Jisr el-, 532 Khirbet el-Basha, 584,
625
Khān 'Arūs, 384
598
• Weli of, 224 Khān Muzhir, 363 Khirbet Belāt, 525
Kerak, “Ardh el- : see Khān Tümān, 425 Khirbet ed-Dabsheh,
Belqa, Southern Khān Yünis, 111, 463, 524
Kerakīych (tribe), 633 470
Khirbet. ed-Dustrei, 501
Keram, “Ayūn el-, 594, | Khan Yūnis-Gaza load, Khirbet el-Foq'an, 583
597
435
Khirbet Gharandel, 639
Kerkereh, Wādi, 525, Khaneizīr, 581, 594 Khirbet Hāss, 348
528, 533
Khaneizīr, Seil, 639 Khirbet Jel'ād, 583, 593
Kersenneh, 97, 259, 275 Khans of Tartary, 151 Khirbet Jubb Ruheij,
Kersten, -, 621
Khanzīr, Ras el-, 14 524
Kerūm, Ras el-, see Khanzīreh, 615, 625, Khirbet el-Kefrein, 597
Carmel, Cape
630-632
Khirbet Khuldeh, 584.
Kesrawān, 206, 213, Khanzīreh, Jebel, 523 Khirbet Khuweis, 446
Kaza of, 241, 359, Kharasān, Wādi, 594 Khirbet Mahana, 599
393, 410
Kharazeh, Wādi el-, 619 Khirbet el-Menārah, 524
Ketāt, Ardh el-, 617
Khirbet Nāʻūr, 589, 597
Khabb, 563
Khardeli Jisr, 403-405 Khirbet Qarhátha, 527
Khabiri, 114, 115 Kharismian Turks, 149, Khirbet Rushmiya, 504
Khadhr: see Khudhr, 151
Khirbet es-Samra, 610
El-
Kharpūt, 288
Khirbet Sār, 584
Khadhr, Wädi el-, 585 Kharrād, Wādi, 379 Khirbet Selem, 525
K2
698
INDEX
Khishlchăsh, 100 | Kõm Yājūz, 582, 583, 335, 337, 421; in
Khitmeh, Jebel, 374, 609, 610
history, 132 ; in-
384, 385
Konieh, 166, 171, 172
dustry, 283, 340,
Khitmiye, 100
Koran, 214, 219, 220, 342; minerals, 94,
Khiyar, 98
229, 236
96, 338
Khiyāreh, Ardh el-, 559 Kösa, 98
Kaza of, 239, 262,
Khiyāreh, Jebel el-, 559 Kosseima (or Qoseimeh), 266, 326
Khõr el-Hīsheh, 638 465, 467, 471; K. Plain of, 329
Khör el-Mezār, 621 Akaba road, 466, 469! Sanjaq of, 239, 326,
Khreibeh, El-, 498, 511, Kostlivy, -, 192
341, 343
513
Krugler, H., 92
Town of, 325 : com
Khudheireh, 106, 497 Krūmān, Rás, 523
munications, 327,
Khudheireh, Wädi el-, Kubūsh, 99
344, 422; (L.-
430, 480
Küchük Chai, 401
Aleppo road)
Khudhr, El- (or Khadhr: Ku'eilbeh, Wādi el-, 139; (L.-Jisr esh-
Elijah's Cave), 513 1 571, 573, 574
Shughr road) 94;
Khuldeh, El-, 261 Kufr, El-, 564, 566, 567 (L.-Tripoli road)
Khulagu, 151 f. Kūrah, El., 261, 267, 423; education,
Khureibeh, 405: ruins 580, 600, 613, 201; in history,
of, 573
630, 634
140; money, 320;
Khureibeh, Nahr, 412 District of, 595
population, 176,
Khureibeh, Wādi 'Ain Kaza of, 241, 266, 182; trade, 292;
el-, 573
359, 390
weights, 321
Khureisheh (tribe), 633 Plateau, 620 Lados, Ras el-, 360
Khūri, 207, 511
Kūrāni, 266
Lady's fingers, 98
Khusheibeh, Wādi, 642, Kurd Dagh Plateau, 20, Lagoons, 531, 534
665
345, 424
Lakes, 366, 376, 378,
Khushmi : see Khashm Kurdish, 197
398–401, 420, 421,
Khuwweh, 177, 608, 643
Kurdistan, 155, 196 ,425, 426, 483, 591,
Kibbad, 98
Kurds, 134, 171, 178, 646
Kidron Valley, 430 195, 196, 204, 222, Lamb skins, 274
Kiepert, -, 382, 400 342, 553, 607
Lämel School, 202
Kīlch, 'Ain el-, 596 |Kurmul: see Carmel Lamps, 455
Killiz, 10, 195, 261, 268, Kushān, 250
Land: and Building
272, 279, 287
Kutlu Shāh, 153
Tax (Wergho), 245–
Kaza of, 239, 257 Kuwaik Su, 346, 425 ; 247
Kindergartens, 197 Valley of, 273
Tenure, 180, 181,
Kinnereth, 256
Kuweyyeh, 571
231, 232, 248–251
Kishk, Tell el-, 525
Value, 232
Kishon, River, 515, 529
Language, 196–199 : see
Kisra, 524
L
also specific languages
Kisweh, 111, 414, 415 La' bāni, Wādi, 639 and districts
Kitāb, 'Ain, 596
Labour, female, 283, Latin Church, 208, 459,
Kitböga, 151
285: organized, 188 496, 497, 553, 606 : see
Kitchener, Lord, 663 Labradorite, 559
also Roman Church
Kite, 108, 487
Lace, 298
Latins : see Crusaders
Kitlán, 101
Ladino (language), 197 Lātrūn, El-, 451: cli-
Kleber,, 158, 162 Lādiqīyeh :
mato, 24, 25, 31, 52-
Knights : see Cavalry District of, 10, 14, 83, 86, 92, Icey
Knights Hospitallers,
196, 328; agricul- | Laurel, 102
144, 148, 149
ture, 260, 267, Laurus nobilis, 102
Templars, 144
269, 339-341 ; Laurustinus, 600
Knives, 548
hills, 330, 334, | Laya, 253, 423, 516,519,
INDEX
699
537, 559, 560, 562, | in, 156, 219; edu- 1 488, 493, 508, 534,
568, 569, 615
cation, 200, 201; 544, 545, 547, 601
Law, 212, 236, 237, 243 emigration, 182, Lentisk, 542
245
186, 188; fodder, Leo XIII, Pope, 200
Lawrence, Col., 468, 471 273; a health Leopard hunting (or
Lazarists, 200, 209
resort, 358; in Chetah), 106, 507,
Le Strange, Guy, 592,
history, 138; im- 542
Lead, 96
migration, 189; Lettuce, 98, 223
Leases, 245
industry, 263, Levant, the, 105, 358,
Leather, 287, 293, 298, 278,281-285,602; 454, 455, 493
301, 306, 310, 311, language, 198; Levitical law of purity,
313, 314: tanning, minerals, 93; 211
455
population and Liban, Province du, Map
Lebanon :
inhabitants, 175, by Huber, 359
Cedars of, 103, 363
176, 178, 205, Libb, 621, 622
District of: in 358, 392 – 394 ; Libb, Plateau of, 615
· history, 113, 160, livestock, 389 ; | Libbeh, Wādi el-, 586
165–168, 172; in
religion, 156, 209, Libnān, Jebel : see
dustry, 279
213, 219; roads, Lebanon
Mountains of : see 358; taxation, Lift, 97
Range, below
245 ; trade, 298 Lighthouse, 327
Mutesarrifliq: see Southern, 93, 94, Lighting, 242
Sanjaq below
219
Lignite. 369, 392
Northern, 93, 94, Leben, 274
Lime-burning, 509
266
Leben, Neba' el-, 408 Lime-kilns, 506, 507
Oak, 102, 104 l Leben, Wādi el-, 408 Limes, 288, 458, 629
Pine, 104, 507 Lebweh, 372, 397 Limestone, 253, 288,
Province of : see Lebweh, 'Ain, 397
330, 331, 333, 334,
Sanjaq, below Lebweh, Nahr, 397 346, 348, 349, 365-
Range of, 13-15, 18, Leddān' (09 Edh-Dhān), 369, 371, 374, 375,
325, 328, 330, 648
377, 379, 380, 383,
332, 333, 373, Leeches, 108, 376, 487 395, 396, 417, 423,
397, 516, 517 : Lees, Robinson, 593 429–431, 434, 446,
area, 358, 359 ; Legal damages, 245 464466, 473, 483,
climate, 29, 34, Leimūn, Wādi el-, 547 503, 505, 506, 522,
36, 38, 358, 386 ; | Leinūn hamidh, 98 535, 537, 543, 559,
communications, Leimūn helu, 98
568, 572, 613, 616,
364; fauna, 106- Leja, El., 21, 556, 558– 622, 627, 652, 662 :
108; flora, 99,104- 561, 578 : description, bituminous, 94; ceno-
106,390; geology, 562, 563
manian, 442, 443, 536,
361, 368, 369 ; in Lejjūn, 480, 483, 531, 647 ; crystallinc, 502 ;
history, 117, 139,629, 633 : 'Roman senonian, 536, 647 ;
156, 171; lakes, camp, 625; springs unhewn, 512
366; physical fea- 1 of, 483, 530, 018, 619, Lintel, 222
tures, 360–368; 625; stream, 530 L ions, 106
rivers, 395-413; Lemon, 98, 103, 252, Liquorice, 100, 272, 301,
water supply,365, 292, 301, 307, 310, 306, 310, 313, 339,
387
313, 341, 360, 449, 340 : factories, 303
Sanjaq of, 238, 239, 489, 509, 544, 547, Lisān Bay, 615, 624
241–243, 370 : 571 : sweet, 98; trees, Lisān, El-, 614, 616, 617,
agriculture, 261, 265
626, 629, 654, 656 :
262, 267, 270, 339; Lentils, 97, 252, 259, description, 655
386–388; druses 274, 323, 339, 450, i Lītāni, Nahr (or Nahr
700
INDEX
Lye, 602
20 254,
651
538
el-Qāsimīyeh), 11, 13, 1 (L.-Jerusalem) 429, Madawwereh, 'Ain, 534,
15, 16, 18, 19, 213, 437, (L.-Rafa-Haifa) | 539
358, 362, 363, 368, 493, 495
Madd ed-Deir, 'Ain, 479
371-373, 378, 395, Lujuj, 'Ain, 372 Madd ed-Deir, Tell, 479
405, 427, 438, 439, Lupines, 97, 259, 274, Madder, 101
516, 524-526, 528, 307, 322, 323, 508 Mādeba, 179, 183, 461,
529, 533, 536, 539, Lūq, 102
583, 613, 616, 626,
542, 648 : description, Lussān, Jebel, 465, 471 628, 630, 632, 634 :
402-404; source of, Luwa, Wādi, 560, 562, M.-Kerak road, 614,
371, 397
564
620, 626
Literature, 198, 199 Lyde,-, 325, 330, 336 Madeirej, Jebel, 637
Liturgies, 208
Madheifi, Jebel, 465
Liverpool, 297, 456 Lynch, W. F., 47, 650, Madi, 'Ain el-, 538
Live-stock, 252, 254,
Madi, Wādi el-, 521, 528,
273-275, 301, 341,
352, 353, 388-390,||
M
Madra, Wādi el-, 466
453, 454, 490, 491, Ma’, Wādi el-, 526, 528, Madwar, Jebel Abu, 473
509, 548, 557, 579,1 544
Mafidh Jözeleh, 652
602, 634 : taxation, | Ma‘āmeltein, 360 Mafraq, El-, 597
245, 247
Ma'āmeltein, Ras, 361 Mafrian, 207
Liwa: see Sanjaqs Ma'ān, 10, 194, 634, 637, Maghār, Jebel, 619
Liyātīneh, El-(tribe),644 638, 641,665: descrip- Plain of, 544
Lizāb, 103, 641
tion, 642; M.-Akaba Maghāreh, Jebel, 17,
Lizards, 108, 487
road, 640
465
Loam, 475, 488
Kaza of, 240
Wādi el-, 382, 499–
Loans : see Turkish
Sanjaq of, 240
501
Local government, 241 Ma'areh, 382, 383 Maghāreh, Neba', 408
Locust bean, 509 Ma'aret el-Bashkurdi, Maghāret er-Rahīb, 398
Locust tree : see Carob | 381 : Jebel, 381 Maghāret el-Wardeh, 93,
Locusts, 351, 453, 635 Ma'aret en-Nuʻmān, 350, 601
London, climate, 33, 39 ; 352, 356, 426
Maghārīb el-Khör, 637
trade with, 297
Kaza of, 239, 345, Magnesia, sulphate of,
London Society for Pro-
351
195
moting Christianity | Ma‘asami, 262
Magnesium chlorides,
among the Jews, 202, 1 Ma‘āzeh (half - fellahin 95, 656 : sålts, 443
209
tribe), 633
| Mahābileh, 330
Lotus, 101, 106, 534 | Macadam, natural, 364, Mahālah, Plain of, 609
Louis VII, 145
379
Mahālibeh, Qal'at el-,
Louis IX, 150
McAndrews, Forbes &
Löz : see Almonds
Co., 272
Mahalleh, 236, 242
Lözi : see Apricots | Macaroni, 257, 277, 278 Mahawat, Wādi, 94,
Lubban, 428
Maccabean Family, the, 430, 446
Lūbiyeh, 526 : Plain of, | 123
Manlūl (land), 249
162
Victories, 210 Mahmūd II, Sultan, 163
Lübiyeh (bean), 98 ! Macedonia, 267
Mahraqah, 499, 501, 504
Lucerne, 97, 275, 579 Macgregor,—, 649 | Mahraqah, Bir el-, 504
Lucky days, 224-225 Machaerus : see Mek- Mā'in, 613, 614, 621,
Ludd, 433, 438,530, 537: āwar, Khirbet el- ! 623, 628, 632
agriculture, 260, 261, Machinery, 276, 278, Mais blanc, 258
· 449, 452 ; industry, 279, 308, 311: agri- Maize, 97, 105, 257, 258,
280, 282, 454 ; inhabi- ' cultural, 293
323, 534, 547, 578,
tants, 194, 460; rail. | Mackie, G. M., 262, 289 579, 601, 659, 663 :
ways (L.-Afūleh) 484, Madawwareh, El., 637 1 oil, 279
o's
INDEX
701
Majerba, 93
| Manzikert, 133
Castle of (= Qal'at
Majmū', the, 216 Manzil, 513, 611
el-Marqab), 148,
Majrūn, Jebel, 465 Manzileh, 513, 514
327–329, 335, 337
Malchädet: see specific Manzilet: see specific Kaza of (or Bāni-
nanie
name
yās), 239, 326-
Makhnaf, Wādi el-, 382 | Maple, 101, 104, 543 Marrah(orFiqreh),Wādi,
Makhrūd, Bluff of, 17, Maqam, 223, 513
466,467, 469, 471, 665
475
Maqārim, 95, 570, 601 Marriage, 211, 220, 223,
Makhrūqah, Wadi el-: Magāsed, Wādi el-, 623, 236, 244, 245
see Abu Zeyyād, Wādi626
Marrows, 98, 547
Makmal, Jebel, 363 | Maqāti' 'Athlīt, 505 Marseilles, 294, 295, 390,
Malctubji, 241
| Mağla', Bir el-, 504 | 493
Māl, Wädi cl-, 382 Maqsūr, Jisr el-, 401 Marsh Mallow, 100
Malak Tā’ūs, 222 Maqsūrah, 419, 420 Marshes, 253, 351, 400,
Malaria, 497, 540, 646, Mar Elyās Bridge, 409 | 425, 426, 478, 479,
657
Mār Mūsa el-Habashi, 481, 483, 485, 487,
Malchite Church, 208 382
, 498, 531, 534, 543.
Malhah, El-, 505 Mār Sāba, 96, 432, 462 646, 649
Mālih, “Ain el-, 474 Mār Serkīs, Neba', 411 Mārūn, 205
Malih, Wādi el-, 474, Már Töbīya, Wādi, 382 Mārūn, Saint, 205
476, 480, 484, 485, Mār Ya'qūb, 360 Mārūn er-Ras, 529
622
Marraba 417
Marzipan, 271
Māliheh, Jebel el-, 624 Maʻraba, Nahr, 383 Ma‘sa, 403
Māliheh, Wādi el-, 621, Maʻraba, Wādi, 385, Masabb, Wādi el-, 574
622, 647
386, 413; description, Masada : see Sebbeh
Malik, El-: see Ja'far 416, 417
Masāʻīd (tribe), 498, 660
Teyyār
Maʻrabūn, 402
Masammat, Naqb el-,
Malik, Wādi el-, 521, Mar'ash, 18, 201, 258 626
522, 527, 533, 538 : Sanjaq of, 10, 12, Mashālkha (tribe), 660
description, 530, 531 | 238
Mashqal, Jebel el-, 618
Malik Shāh, Sultan, 134 Marble, 96, 541
Mas-hūr, Neba' el-, 412
Maʻliya, 524
Mardin, 208: Emir of, Ma'sir, Jebel, 363
Ma'lul, 537
140
Masjid, 513
Ma'lūla, 194, 196, 269, Margarine, 492
Maslūbīyeh, El-,613, 623
382-384
Maritime Plain, 107, Masons, 288
Jebel, 382, 384, 385/ 108, 432, 442,517: see Masrārah, Wādi el-, 501
Mamluk Dynasties, 197 | also Southern Desert Mastabah, 228
Sultans, 148, 151- Maritime Range, 14-17, Masterman, Dr., 552,
155
370
553, 555, 649
Mamluks, 150, 156, 168 Marittima Italiana, Masíūd, Wädi, 575
Ma'na, 'the Meaning', ' Steamship Company, Masyād, 196, 228, 343,
217
294
423, 424
Manāsīr (sub-tribe), 609 Markab, Ras el-, 440 Masyād, Jebel, 336
Manchester, 455 Marl, 330, 360, 366, 614, Masyād, Qal'at, 330,
Manganese, 93
L 617, 645, 646
333, 336
Mangu Timur, 152 Maronite Church, 205- Mat-making, 510, 548
Māni', Jebel el-, 414, 207: College, 203 Matābin, Wādi el-, 501
559
Maronites, 168, 171, 186, Matkh Burāq, 425, 426,
Manjād, Qalʼat, 330, 200, 203, 243, 393, 564
333, 336
496, 497, 198, 552, Matrān (plur. Matāri-
Mansürah, 490, 576
554
reh), 207
Manteh, Tell el-, 608 Margab, 14, 150, 214, Matwar, 335
Manure, 254, 261, 308
422
Matwi, Wādi, 483
702
INDEX
Maudūd: see Sharaf ed- | Meidān, Wādi, 420, 590 , Menādhireh, El-,271,571
Daula Maudūd Meirūba, 172, 173, 408 Menādhireh, Sheri'et
Maulawīyeh, 212
Meirān, 539
el-: see Yarmūk, Nahr
Mayein, Bir, 470 Meirūn, Jebel, 526 Menā‘iah, Wādi, 664
Mazār, 223, 224
Meirūn, Plain of, 526 Menākh, Wādi el-, 437
Measures, 322–324 Meirān, Wādi, 529 Menārah, El-, 525, 581
Mecca, 194, 211, 212, Meis ( = hackberry), 102 Mendah, 595 -
226, 227, 344, 358, Meis, 214,524 : Plain of, Menin, 382
613, 634, 636
537
Menin, Nahr, 417
Medābegh, Seil el-, 621, Meisareh, Jebel, 583 Menīn, Wādi, 383
622
Meiseh, Él-, 613, 621 Mentha sativa, 100
Medā'in Sālih, 634 Mejāliyeh (clan), 633 | Menüsh, 285
Meddān, Wādi el-, 572 | Mejdel, 522, 529, 535, Meʻrād, 595
Medes, 118
653, 654: agriculture, Me'rād, El-,580,598,599
Medicago sativa, 97 433, 450, 452, 547; Merchants, travelling,
Medical Schools, 200, industry, 284, 455; 632, 634
201, 204
population, 460 Merènāyim, 'Ain, 623
Medicinal plants, 100 Mejdel, Jisr el-, 424 Mereitbeh, Ghör el-, 617
Medina, 212, 227, 636 Mejdel esh-Shems, 375, Merj: see under specific
Mediterranean Pilot, vol. 376
name
V., 92
Mejdel ‘Anjar, 373 Merjet “Ain en-Nusûr,
Mediterranean Sea, 9, Mejma', Wādi, 433, 436 | 380
· 10, 19, 22, 24, 28, 34, Mekāwar, 614, 626, 627, ! Merjet el-Barada, 371
344, 357, 427, 428,1 629, 631
Merqüfé : see Wagf
436, 442, 462, 472, Mekāwar, Khirbet el Merrill,-, 562
499, 515, 518, 523, (ruins of Herod's Ma- Mersed, Ras, 656
526, 528, 534, 544, chaerus), 615
Mersina, 215, 290
568, 570, 588, 649, Melas, 285
Merzebeh, Wādi, 466
650, 653, 654, 665 Meleih, Bir, 666
Mesāri, ‘Ain el-, 572
Medlars, 99, 509
Meleih, Jebel, 624 Mesāteb, Wādi el-, 621
Medwar Női, 594, 597 Mell, 102
Meseitbeh, Ghör el-, 614,
Mefjir, 'Ain el., 468 Meleleh, 96
624
Mefjir, Nahr el-, 435, Meleki, 288
Meshabbeh, Wādi, 623
475, 477, 483, 486, Melfüf, 97
Meshatta, 628
526 : description, Melhamīyeh, climate, Meshghareh, 368, 371 :
479-481
24, 27, 32, 45-48, 52-1 springs of, 403
Mefjir el- Qibli, El-, 479 | 61, 64, 65, 68, 69, 74- Meshneqeh, El-, Hill,
Mefshūkh, Nahr, 527, 79, 91, 92, key
615
533, 538 in
Melia Azedarach, 101 Meshra' en-Nasrānīyeh,
Megheisel, Ghor el-, 617, Mellāhah, 506
1 591, 592
Mellāhah, 'Ain el-, 549, Meskeneh, 344, 352, 353
Megheisel, Seil el-, 623, • 550, 649, 659
Mesmīyeh, 562
626
Mellălah, Wādi el-, 501 Mesopotamia, 10, 109,
Megiddo, 113, 118 Mellül, 102
110, 115 118, 121,
Mehājein, Jebel el-, 623 Melons, 271, 339, 433, 129, 133, 134, 137,
Mehakim - ¿ - nizāmīyé, 450, 452, 456, 457, 141, 144, 155, 158,
237, 244, 245
478, 487, 488, 494, 273, 279, 344, 358,
Mehemet ‘Ali: see Mo 544, 547: musk, 99;
hammed ‘Ali
seeds, 456; Syrian, Mesrīyeh, 285
Mehemet Pasha (1), 169, 271, water, 99, 307, Messageries Maritimes,
170
388, 451, 508, 579, Steamship Company,
Mehemet Pasha (2), 169, 663
294
170
Membij, Kaza of, 239 Metābeh, Tell el-, 622

624
390
INDEX
703
407
Metal souvenirs, 458 Military History, 109–1 Mists, 48, 575
Metal work, 455
174
Mitwi, Wādi el-, 594
Metāwileh (Shi'ite sect), Military Service, 182, Mitylene, 279, 454
156, 157, 160, 186, 187, 212, 243, 245, 250, Mizzeh, 288
204, 205, 212, 216–1 392
Moab, 179, 469,615, 616,
218, 372, 393, 547, Milk, 273
638, 639, 643
554 : account of, 213, Milk, Nahr el-, 422
Plateau of, 22, 556,
214
Millet, 97, 258, 488, 534, 597, 636
Metawāli, 243
547
Moabites, 115
Métayers, 249, 250 Milling machinery, 276 Mohammed, 128, 211,
Meten, 213, 283, 392 · Mills, motor, 277: oil- 216-220
Kaza of, 241, 359, engine, 549; saw, Mohammed 'Abd el-
366, 393
604 ; steam, 277, 278, Jabbār Kheiri, 203
M.-Lebanon road, 509, 549; water, 277, Mohammed (Mehemet)
405-410, 417, 418, ‘Ali, 163–174, 197, 199
Meten, Ras el-, 406
484, 509, 538, 539, Mohammedanism : see
Meteorological Report, 564, 571, 573, 586, Moslem
· Survey Department, I 588, 589, 591, 596, Mõjib, Bāb el-, 620
Ministry of Finance, 604; winch, 509; Mõjib, Seil el- (Wādi
Egypt, 92
wind, 509
Mõjib), 23, 612-616,
Meteorological Stations, Millstones, 278, 551, 563 623, 626, 628, 629,
positions of, 34, 38, Mimosite, 614
634, 639, 653: des-
39, 45, 48, 92
Mīneh, El., 327, 336, i cription, 618-620
Metropolitans, 207 . | 360, 616, 624
Mõjib, Wādi : see Mõjib,
Metrūkeh, 248, 249 Minerals, 93–96, 248, Seil el.
Mewāt, 248, 249
338: see also specific Môjib - Wāleh, water -
Mexico, 185, 186
districts and minerals | course of, 583
Meyyiteh, 'Ain el-, 481, Mines, 168
Monasteries, 327, 432,
532
Minet Abu Zabūra, 479, 462, 499, 500, 505,
Mezār, 511
488, 494
Mezār, Wādi el- : see Minet el- Kaban, 327 Money: see Currency
Shārūt, Wādi
Mīnet el-Qal'ah, 440 Money-changers, 319;
Mezebbel, Wādi el-, 618 Mīnet el-Qasab, 326, 328 lenders, 232, 577, 605
Mezra', El., 596, 622, Minet Rūbīn, 437 Mongol Sovereigns, 215
626, 631
Minqa‘ah, Seil el-, 623 | Monks, 207
Mezra', Ghör el-, 614, Mint, 100
Monogamy, 232
617, 634
Miocene rock, 647 Monopolies, 248
Mezr'ah, Khirbet el-, 530 Miqtaleh, 501
Mont Royal (Shõbek),
Mezzāweh canal, 418 | Miğwas, Wādi el-, 586 1 139
Mezzeh, 418
Miqweh Israel, 203, 256 Moon-worship, 216
Mezzeh, Qalabāt el-, Mirage, 469
| Mordecai, 210
374, 377
Mirdās, 133
Morocco, 634
Middin, 621, 625, 632 Mīrīyih Land: see Mulk Mortar, 288
Midianites, 115
Land
Morus alba, 99
Mihrāb, 513
Mishmish: see Apricots | Morus nigra, 99
Milghān, Jebel, 637 Mishmish Kelābi, 270 Moses (or Mūsa), 224
Milh, Tell el-, 470 Mission laïque française, Moses, Feast of, 226
Milh, Wādi el-, 471, 498-1 La, 200
Moses' Stone, 94, 446
501, 514, 531, 590 Missionaires d'Afrique, Moslem. Arabs, 604,
Military equipment, 209
605
tactics, and weapons, Missionaries or Missions, Army, 153
111-144 passim, 150, 189, 196, 198–201, Calendar, 225, 234
154, 163, 166
209, 210
Colleges, 203
;
508
704
INDEX
Moslem Conquest, 125, i Motors, 293, 308 : irriga- | Muleiheh (or Imleih),
128
tion, 296
Wādi, 436, 464
Dress, 227
Moulinage, 284
Mules, 107, 217, 274,
Education, 199 Mountains : see under 275, 341, 353, 389,
Fasts and Feasts, specific districts and 390, 453, 455, 490,
217, 218, 226 | names
491, 509, 548, 579,
Fleet, 138
Moyet-Dustrei, estuary 631, 632, 644, 655
Inhabitants, 193, of, 501
Mullc (Mīrīyeh) Land,
205, 274, 608 : Moyet Zeizān, 572 248–251
administration, Moz, 99
Mūma, 'Ain, 629
236, 241-243; Mu'adhdhamīyeh, 415 Muneitoral, Jebel, 139
cmigration, 186; Muballen, 550
366, 408, 410
in history, 126, Mud-flats, 664
Municipal councils, 242
127, 141, 142, Mudheifein, Wādi, 23 Munitions, 158, 160, 163
144-146,148–150, Mudheiqeh, Wādi el-, Muntār 'Omeri, 581
152, 171; social 619
Muqatta', Nahr el-, 13,
conditions, 232- Mudhiq Göl, 426
16, 106, 501, 503, 515,
234; statistics, Mudhiq, Nahr el-, 328 518-523, 526, 527,
204, 342, 343, Mudhiq, Qal'at el-, 326, 532, 533, 535, 537,
355, 392-394, 330, 347, 400
538, 543, 545 : de-
459, 460, 496, Mudii, 238, 241-243 Iscription, 529-531
497, 552–554, Mudīrīyeh : see Nāhiyés Murabba', Wādi, 586
579; taxation, Mülinen, von, 481, 510, Murphay, Captain, 567
246 ; trade, 458, 513
Murrah, El-, 466
551
Mufti, 168, 241, 244 Mūsa (Moses), 224
Labour, 180 Mughār, 437
Mūsa, 'Ain, 640
Law, 236
Mughāyir, 573
Mūsa, 'Ayun, 622, 626,
Pilgrimages, &c., Muhabkhīyeh, El-, 375 628. See 'Ayūn Mūsa,
Muhāsebēji, 241
Wādi.
Prohibition of wine, Muhtedi: see Umtedeh Mūsa, Wādi, 644
508
Muhtedi, Wādi, 640, 664 Musakhamīn, Wādi,
Religion, 126, 128, Mujahīyeh, 530
382, 384, 385
155, 198, 203, Mujāmi, Jisr el-, 650, Mushā land, 250
204, 211-216, 651
| Mushaqqah, Jebel el-,
220, 221, 224, Mūkabrīt, Nahr el-, 419525, 536, 609
225, 227, 229, Mukhālid, 488, 498 Musheish, Wādi el-, 618
235, 236, 325 Mukheibeh, El-, 596 Mushī : see Mutesarrif
Schools, 199 Mukheires Seil el-, 618, Mushrakāni, 256
Texts, 198
619, 625, 630, 634 Musht, 549
Moslemīych, 256 Mukhneh, Sahel el-, 475, Music, 231
Mosques, 513
476, 483, 488
Musil, —, 435, 461, 471,
Mosquitoes, 108, 337, Mukhtar, 242, 247, 512 - 617, 633, 637, 639,
350, 400, 448, 468, Mukhtāra, 405
640, 642, 664
663
Mukhneh, Plain of, 488 Musmīyeh, Kaza òf, 240
Moss Line of Steamers, Mukrabah, 605
Musqiyeh, Jebel, 363
294, 297
Mulberries, 104, 186, Musrāreh (or Bārideh),
Mosul, 222
331, 339, 365, 373, Wadi (Judaea), 438,
Emir of, 136, 140 387, 389, 390, 406, 439
Rulers of, 141
509, 544, 547: account Musrārch, Wādi (Car-
Möt, Nahr el-, ' River of of, 262–264 ; fig, see mel), 510
Death', 407, 408 Sycomore; leaves, Mustard, 100
Mother of Pearl, 289, 273; purple, 99; Musurr, Wädi, 436
306, 455, 458
white, 97, 390, 449 Mu'tah, 224
513
INDEX
705
O
Mutawwi, 610
1 nāhiyeh), 237, 238, 24, 27, 28, 52–65, 68,
Mūteh, 632
241, 242, 359
69, 74-83, 92, key,
Muteiri’īn (sub-tribe), Nahleh, 379, 380
540; communica-
609
Nahr : see under specific tions, 543 ; fish, 550 ;
Mutesarrif (or mushīr), name
in history, 148, 162,
243, 359
Na’ib (or qādhi), 241, industry, 548, 549;
Mutton, 633
244
inhabitants, 182, 553 ;
Mutukh Hasāsah, 461 Nā'im, Bir en-, 625
springs at, 538
Muweileh, 463, 467
Najās, 99
Dames de, 200
Muweileh, Wādi, 640 Nakū, Plain of, 572
Kaza of (01 Nāsirah),
Muweili, Wādi el, 530 Na'mein, Nahr, 523, 239, 516, 552
Muzeirīb, 572, 607 1526, 527, 531-533,1 Range, 518, 521,
Myrobalan, 221
535, 538, 543, 545
522, 526, 536
Myrtle, 338, 363, 401, Nana', 100
Nazerini, 193, 215
542, 543 : see Rīha, Napier, Commodore (Sir) Neba', En-, spring, 538
Jebel -
Charles, 167, 172, 173 Neba, En- (02 Nebo),
Napoleon, 157-168 | mamelon of, 616
Naqb : see under specific Neba', 'Ain en-, 411,503
N
name
Neba', Ras en-, 502
Nabateans, 123, 124 Naqb Namleh, 642 Neba', Ras en-, spring of,
Nāblus, 16, 438, 605 : Naqb el-Gharīb, 469 538
agriculture round, 267, Naqb et Qasabeh, 639 Neba' 'Auba, 539
269, 488, 489; clim- Naqb el-Musammat, 619 Neba' el-Arba'in, 367
ate, 485; communica- Naqb es-Sefei, 469 Neba' el-'Āsi, 368
tions, 474, 476, 652, Nācūrah, Rasen- Neba' et-Tāsi, 404
(N.-Jaffa road), 479, ("Ladder of Tyre'), Nebi ‘Aweideh, 524
483, (N.-Jerusalem 15,517, 525, 528, 532, Nebi Ayyūb, Tell, 348
road), 437, 483, (N. 533, 535, 536
Nebi Barūh, 381
Salt road), 584 ; in- Nār, Wādi en- ( Valley Nebi Duhi, 518
dustry, 261, 262, 279, of Fire '), 17, 430, 445, Nebi Hūd, 594
454, 491, 492, 548, 462
Nebi Heidar, 523, 524,
602, 631; inhabitants, Naranj: see Abu sfeir 527
176, 183, 193, 496, Narghileh, 267
Nebi Matta, 330, 333,
497; sewerage, 483 ; Nāri, 253
337
trade, 493,494; water- Nasab, Wādi en-, 587 Nebi Mitta, 330
supply, 482; wells Nāsir, Wādi en-, 330, Nebi Mindau Tell, 398
· near, 482
332, 412
Nebi Mūsa, 94, 226, 446,
Kaza of, 239, 472, Nasr : see Nuseir, 215 660
Nasrānīyeh, 593 Nebi Rubil, 337
Sanjaq of (or Belqa), Nasturtium officinale, 97 | Nebi Rūbin, 437
239, 472, 495, Nasūr, Wādi en-, 366, Nebi Sa'in, 521, 522
496, 498
367
Nebi Samwil, 16
Wādi (0% Wādi esh- Natūr, Ras en-, 360 Nebi Shīt, 337
Sha'ir), 17, 473- | Naʻūr, 609
Nebi Yūnis, 330, 337
476, 479, 482, Nāʻūr, Wādi, 588, 589 Nebk, 379, 384
483, 488, 489 Nāʻūrah, 399, 450, 452, Kaza of, 240, 370
Nabg, 101
513
Nebo : see Neba, En-
Nada, Ras Abu en-, 501 Nawa, 560, 574
Nebuchadnezzar, 118
Nadhir, Khashm en-, Nawār, 196
Necomian limestone,
481
Nawratzki, 264, 268 502
Nafkh, Jebel en-, 465 Nazareth, 178, 192, 261, Nectarine, 99
Nafkh, Wadi en-, 466 L 518, 522, 528, 542, Nefei'at (tribe), 498
Nahiyés (mudīrīyeh and l 544, 546 : climate, Negeb, 213, 429
SYRIA
Yу

495
ou
706
INDEX
Negroes, 194, 608, 634 | Nuqrat. el-Beidha, 629 ; Olives, 99, 104, 246, 252,
Nejd, 636
Nur ed-dīn Mahmūd, i 253, 255, 260-262,
Nejil, Wādi en-, 434,437 144-148
274, 310, 339, 340,
Nejileh, Tell en-, 436 Nuseir (dimin. of Nasr), 347, 348, 352, 360,
Nekhl, climate, 48-50, 215
362, 373, 387, 388,
52-65, 74–83, 92, key Nuseirīyeh : see Ansari 390, 411, 449, 487,
Nestorian Church, 207, yeh
534, 544, 546, 571,
208
Nusrah, Wādi, 438 579, 631 : groves, 390,
Nets, Fishing, 550 Nuts, 100, 252, 272, 273, 431, 447, 450, 488,
Nettle Tree, 102, 541 298, 310
489, 523, 534, 543,
Neuhardthof, 512
547, 548, 574, 602,
New Zealand, 185,
643; kernels, 310;
New York, State of, 200
oil, 262, 265, 278-280,
Newcastle, 297
Oaks, 106, 331, 338, 366, 296, 304, 307, 308,
Newcombe, Lieut.-Col., 376, 378, 379, 403, 310, 313, 321, 341,
( 471
408, 423, 447, 477, 342, 354, 390, 391,
Nezzāzeh, 503
543, 544, 569, 571, 454, 491, 493, 544,
Nickel, 96
583, 599, 629, 638, 551, 579, 602; oil
Nīha, Jebel, 363
641 : deciduous, 486, presses, 511, 548; oil
Nijdi, 581
507; dwarf, 430, 541, soap factories, 354 ;
Nil, 101
562; evergreen (09 | wild, 338, 541; wood,
Nile Mud, 442
Tlex), 102, 104, 447, 289, 455, 458
Nimeireh, Seil en-, 615, 486, 506, 513, 565, 1. Okbor, Jebel, 613
624–626
593, 599 ; forests, 104, 'Omar ez-zāhir : see
Nimr (sub-tribe), 609 521, 570; Lebanon, Zāhir
Nimrīn, 522
102, 104 ; Portuguese, Omar, Mosque of, 226
Nimrin, Jebel, 522, 526 102, 104; scrub, 102; 1 Ommayad, First, 205
Nimrin, Tell, 590
Valonia, 102, 104 Onions, 98, 272, 487,
Nimrin, Wädi (or Wādi Oases, 372, 624, 626, 488, 508, 631 : wild,
Sha'īb), 527, 574, 589, 656, 657, 663, 664 546
590, 597, 599, 602
Onobrychis sativa, 97
Nineveh, 118
Odessa, 292, 295 : Com- Ophthalmia, 337, 386
Nizib, 166, 171, 172 mittee, 190, 197; Oppenheim's Map, 359
Nizāmīyé courts, 237, Steamship Co., 294 l Opuntia Ficus-Indica,
244, 245
Oesterreichischer Lloyd, *99
Noah (of Kerak), 224 Steamship Co., 294 Oral Tradition, 211
Nõleh, 385
Oil, 276, 282, 322, 446, Oranges, 98, 103, 246,
Nomads, 179–181, 193, 447 : -cake, 602; 252-255, 264, 265,
213, 223, 353, 366, | edible, 342, 491 ; pres 292, 297, 301, 303,
371, 460-462, 470, I ses, 279, 454, 508, 510;; 304, 307, 313, 341,
513, 514, 579, 608, wells, 601; see also 360, 411, 450, 452,
610
under specific oils 456, 457, 478, 487,
Northern Syria, 167, Oleander, R., see Dufleh, 509, 544 : bitter, 98;
168, 250, 395-426 ] Nahr ed-
blossom, perfume of,
Nubian flora, 105 Oleanders, 329, 338, 401, 282; boxes, 296 ;
Nūei'ameh, 'Ain en-, 444 423, 424, 474, 486, cultivation, 433, 439,
Nu'eimāt (sub-tribe), 502, 534, 542, 561, 452; export, 294, 295;
609, 633
564, 572, 589, 600, Jaffa, 271 ; Mandarin,
Nuheir; Wādi en- : see 625, 630, 641, 646, 98, 103 ; Seville, 98
Hasa, Wädi el-
649, 654
Orchards, 145, 376, 378,
Nugrah, 611 .
Oliphant, Lawrence, 506, 380, 450, 526, 533,
Nuqrah, En-, 561, 572, 600, 603, 611
591, 631
577
| Olivine, 559
| 'Oreimeh, 534
Oats
INDEX
707
'Oreimeh, Qal'at el-, 331 Constitution, 187 i sical features, 19,515–
Oriental wares and Empire, 197, 215, 517, 616; religion,
fabrics, 186
219, 236, 237, 209, 212, 233
Origanum, 100
290, 295, 318, Eastern, 250
Origanun Maru, 100
392, 606
Exploration Fund,
Ormesby Gore, 491, 552 Government, 157, 39, 552 : map,
Orontes, River (or Nahr 158, 164, 177, 437, 439, 479
el-'Urunt 0% el-'Asi), 191, 198, 205, Northern, 132, 157
10, 13, 14, 18, 20, 326, 206, 207, 211, Rivers and springs,
328, 332, 333, 335, 212, 229, 243, 16, 529,532
337, 341, 348, 349, 283, 325, 382, Southern, 146, 238,
359, 368, 370, 372, 605-607
282
395, 421 : account of, Law, 233 : Courts, Western, 106, 175,
397-402; fish, 108, 236
176, 182, 201,
400; in history, 117, Régie, 340
544, 642
139; irrigation, 351, Régime, 249, 319, i See also Holy Land
352, 399; poplars, 358
Palms, 103, 105, 433,
346; source, 371, 397; Subjects, 175, 236, 444, 447, 468, 486,
tributaries, 423, 424
242, 459
531, 596, 616, 627,
Valley, 10, 132, 178, Sultans, 163, 212 642, 664, 667 : date,
179, 253, 273, 325, Turks: see Turks 450, 470, 509, 629 :
329, 333, 334, 341, and Turkish see also Dates
353, 421: account, Outlawry, 184
Palmer,—, 363 -
344-356; agriculture, Ovens, 635
Palmyra, 9, 95, 124, 355,
351-354; area, 344, Owls, 664
397, 425
345; climate, 350, 351; Oxen, 107, 181, 254, 390, 'Pan, Cave of, 376,
hygiene, 350, 351, 451, 453, 490, 491, 648
industries, 354, 355 ; 509, 548, 577, 603 : Pan-Islamic Movement,
inhabitants, 355, 356; red, 478 ; white, 453 212
physical survey, 345–
Paneion, 122
350 ; relief, 345–350 ;
Panicum miliaceum, 97,
water - supply, 344,
258
349, 352
Pacific Islands, 185 Pantheism : see Sufic
Orphanages, 248 Pack-saddles, 455, 548 Panther, 641, 666
Orthodox Church, 206 Palestine (or Southern Panther-cat, 507
Greeks, 459, 496, Syria): agriculture, Papaver somniferum, 100
497, 553
254, 257, 259, 263, Paper, 311
Syrians, 496, 552 265, 268, 270-273, Papyrus, 105, 376, 400,
Oryx, 107
452-454 ; area, 9, 12; 481, 542, 649
Ösha', Jebel (or Jebel boundaries, 11, 376, | Parsley, 98
Jel'ād), 22, 556, 581, 427; climate, 29, 35, Parthia, 122, 124
582, 584, 593, 599, 540; education, 200- | Parthian Empire, 122
609, 610
202, fauna, 106, 107, Invasion, 123
Osmān Pasha, 167, 172 542; flora, 104, 105 ; Parthians, 123
Osmānīyeh College, Bei in history, 110–174 Partridges, 108, 448,
rut, 204
passim; industry, 603, 630
Ostrya carpinifolia, 102 260, 264, 278, 281, Pashaliks, 156
Otter, 107, 542
449; inhabitants, Passes, 665, 666; see
Ottoman:
179, 181, 184, 185, also Naqb
Armies, 163, 166, 186, 189–192, 195, Passover, Sacrifice of,
170
227, 497, 552, 554; 210, 222, 226, 233
Bank, 319
language, 197, 198; Pasturage, 105, 254, 273,
Conquest, 206 minerals, 94, 96 ; phy- / 274, 372, 373, 389,
Y y 2
708
INDEX
449-451, 526, 532, Phoenician Coast, 114 Police, 243
557, 558, 560, 562, Coast Towns, 116- Poll-tax, 206
578,583,584, 603, 632 118
Polygamy, 183, 223
Pax Romana, 123
Princedoms, 109 Pomegranate (or Rum-
Payas, 264
Towns, 120-123 man), 99, 271, 449,
Peaches, 99, 104, 271, Phosphates, 96, 446 450,“ 547, 571, 602,
449, 509, 547, 602, Phunon: see Finān 642
642
Phylacteries, 222 Pompey's Invasion, 123
Pears, 99, 104, 271, 449, Phylloxera, 260
Pools, 253, 538, 559 :
509, 544: Wild, 99 Physical features, 12–23: subterranean, 503
Peas, 97, 310, 323, 351, see also specific dis- | Pope, the, 135, 206, 208
508, 545, 579
tricts
Poplars, 105, 346, 377,
Peasants, 176
Pigeons, 448, 603, 630, 381, 417, 425, 447,
Pelicans, 108, 543
641
599, 641, 664 : black,
Pella : see Fähil | Pigs, 247, 389, 509 : see 103; Euphrates, 103,
Pentateuch, 222
also Swine
629; pyramidal, 103 ;
Pentecost, 210 . Pilgrimages, 145, 148, silver, 386 ; white,
Peppers, 547
211, 212, 216, 225, 103, 542
Persia, 124, 128, 155, 226, 513
Poppy, 100
195, 196, 207, 214, Pilgrims, 297, 459, 592, Population': see Inhabi-
215, 267
1613, 639
tants
Persian Gulf, 24
Pines, 338, 365, 366, Populus alba, 103
Invaders, 124
423, 447, 507, 599 : Populus Euphratica, 103
Language, 197 Aleppo, 103, 104, 106; | Populus nigra, 103
. Period, 120, 121 Lebanon, 104; Stone, Populus pyramidalis,
War, 127
103
103
Persians, 120, 121, 125, Pinus Halepensis, 103, Porcupines, 107, 448,
195, 196, 512, 553 599
486
Persimmon, 99
Pinus Pinea, 103, 447, Porphyry, 369, 466
Pethah Tiqwāh, 189 507
Port Said, 494
Petra, 123, 469, 640, Pisa, 138
Portalis, M, Nicolas,
641-643, 665 . Pistachio Nuts, 100, 104, 282
Petroleum, 94, 293, 296, 1 272, 301, 313, 599 ; | Porte, the, 187, 410
298, 306, 308, 311, plantations, 384 | Porter, -, 382, 566,
314: pumps, 254 Pistacia mutica, 101, 567
Pharaoh Necho, 111 641
Post, Dr. G. E., 96, 97,
Pharaoh's watercourse, Pistacia Terebinthus, 330, 333, 363, 382,
596
101: var. Palaestina, 445, 513, 658
Pharmacy, 201
101
Potatoes, 98, 272
Phaseolus vulgaris, 98 Plague, 160, 163 Pot-holes, 536
Philip of France, 147 Plane trees, 102, 378, Potter's Wheel, 289
Philip of Macedon, 121 384, 403, 423, 542, | Pottery, 276, 288, 289,
Philippines, 187
629 : oriental, 599 455-457
Philistia, Plain of, or Platanus Orientalis, 102 | Poultry, 341, 353, 389,
Philistine Plain, 17, Pliny, 193, 215
456, 486
111, 432-434, 444 Ploughing, 254, 273, Powder, 160, 446
Philistine Cities, 117 l 603, 632, 644
Prayer, 213, 216 : beads,
Philistines, 115, 116, Ploughshares, 548. 289; -niche, 513
194
Plums, 98, 104, 602 : Pre-Cambrian Rock, 614
Phocas, Nicephorus,sour, 99, 104
| Precipitation, 27–32, 36,
131, 132
Poetry, 231
37, 39, 42, 43, 45, 47,
Phoenicia, 113, 114, Point Molyneux, 655 49, 60–64, 485: see
122
| Poland, 459, 553 -1 also Rainfall, &c.,
INDEX
709
Presbyterian Board of Qadmūs, 214, 335–337, Qarāwa, 475, 489
Missions of the United 343
Qardāhah, 330, 335
States, 200
Qadmūs, Qalʼat, 335 Qarein, Jebel el-, 613,
Church of the Uni-Qāf, Qalʼat el-, 336 1617, 624
ted States, 201, Qafqafa, Jebel, 582, 594, i Dārein, Wādi el-, 382
209
610
Qareinet ez-Zeyyāt, Mt.,
Schools, 201 Qā'im maqam : see! 637
Pride of India, 101
Kaimmakam
Qareya, El-, climate,
Priests, 206, 207,223,242 Qaiqob, 101
24, 26, 30, 31, 38, 39,
Prince Line of Steam-Qaisārīyeh (or Caesarea), 52-84, 92, key
ships, 294, 297
124, 125, 127, 147, Qarmathians, 129, 221
Printing, 198, 289
149,156, 157,441,477, i Qarn, Jebel el-, 385
Protestant Churches, 479-481, 486 ; inhabi-Qarn, Wadi el-, 213, 374,
209, 606
tants, 488, 498; trade, ! 377, 378, 415, 524-
Missions, 209
494 ; Q.-Tantūrah 526, 529, 533, 538,
Societies, 199
track, 481
543; account, 527,
Protestants, 209, 210, Qaisārīyeh, Ardh el-, 624
528
223, 459, 496, 553 Qaisite Tribe, 227 Qarn Hattin, 522
Provisions, 160, 174: Qal'ah, Deir el-, 407 Qarn Hennāwi, 523, 524
tinned, 308
Qal'ah plateau, 521 Qarn Sartabeh, 17, 430,
Prunus domestica, 98 Qal'ah, Rūm : see Rūm647
Prunus usingi, 99, 104 Qal'ah
Qarn Sauda : see under
Prussia, 172, 243 Qalamūn, 360
Timarūn, Jebel
Prussian Silesia, 190 Qalamūn, Jebel, 374, Qarnabīt, 97
Ptolemy I, 121
382-384
Qarnet el-Weiriq, 381
Public Debt, 246 Qalansaweh, Wādi, 479 | Qarqar, 117, 118
Pudding-stone, 331 Qalʼat : see under speci-Qarūn Jisr, 403, 404
Pumpkins, 98, 544
fic name
Qaryatein, 382, 384,
Pumps, 264, 452, 504 | Qalʼat el-Malik, Bir, 504385
Purgatory, Doctrine of, Qalʼat er-Rabūd, 586 Qasab, 'Ain el-, 596
206
Qal'at ez-Zerqa, 590- Qasab mass, 101
Purim, 210
593, 598
Qasab, Mīnet el-,326,328
Pyrus communis, 99 Qaleit, Wādi, 574, 597 Qasab, Wādi el-, 161
Pyrus Syriaca, 99 Qamh, 97
Qasabeh, Naqb el-, 639
'Qamh, Belād el-, 558 | Qaseib, 'Ain el-, 666
Qanmūn, 100
Qasimīyeh, Nahr cl- :
Qamr ed-dīn (Apricot | see Lītāni, Nahr
Qa“ (flat ground), 666 Paste), 270, 298, 310 Qasr Hajleh, climate,
Qa“ (village), 380, 397 Qamū'at cd-Durziyeh, 24, 45-48, 52-55, 58-
Qabbar, 98
: 474, 501
65, 92, Icey
Qabu, 382
Qānah, Wādi, 438, 474, Qasr Rabbeh, 633
Qabu, El-, 596
476
Qasr Rāksa, 581
Qabu, Halīmet el-, Qanawāt, 564, 567 Qasrcin, Seil el-, 639
381, 382
canal, 418
Qassaba, 242
Qadeis, 'Ain, 467 Qanawāt, Wādi el-, 562, Qassābah, 'Ayūn, 444
Qadesh, 114
564
Qassīs, Tell el-, 530,531
Qadhi : see Nā’ib Qandil, Wādi, 327 Qastal, 179, 183, 384
Qādhi, Seil cl-, 622 Qaneyyeh, Wādi, 590, Qasyūn, Jebel, 384, 417
Qadhi, Tell el-, 376, 648 594
Qatana, 374, 377, 419
Qādirīyeh Order, 212 Qannūbīn, 206
| Dateifeh, 385 ; Plain of,
Qadīsha, Nahr (or Nahr Qa'qa'īyeh, Jisr, 403,
385
Abu 'Ali), 206, 360, 404, 529
Qāti', 160
365; account,411,412 Qāqün, 496
Qatrah, 260, 437


710
INDEX
6
Qatrāneh, - 619, 625 ;| Quds, El-, Kaza of: see | Rabāh, Wādi, 438
· Q.-Kerak road, 618, Jerusalem, K:za of Rabāʻi, Naqb er-, 642
625, 629
Quds esh-Sherīf, El-, Rabbanites, 211
Qattār, Wādi, 593
Sanjaq of: see Jeru Rabbeh, Er-, 617, 623,
Qattīneh, Bahret, 398 salem, Sanjaq of 626, 633
Qawwal, 223
Quds, Jebel el-, 16, 429 | Rabbeh, Qasr, 633
Qazalni (tribe), 498 Quds, Neba“ el-, 397 Rabbi, 210, 211
Qazwin, 214
Quercus Agilops, 102 Rab-mug, 120
Qedeirāt (tribe), 462 Quercus Cerris, 102 Rab-shake, 120
Qedreyyāt, El-, 637 Quercus cocciferci, 102, Race and language,
Qeimūn, Tell, 483, 518
599
192-199
Qelt, ‘Ain el-, 444, 461, Quercus Ilex, 102 Radish, 98
462
Quercus Libani, 102 Rafah, 10, 111, 118, 122,
Qelt, Wādi el-, 17, 430– Quercus Look, 102
440, · 450, 462–464,
432, 448, 462, 653 Quercus Luisitanica, 102
470, 471: R.-Ludd-
Qenān Abu Jidyān, 613, Quince, 99, 449, 509 | Haifa, 493, 495
621
Quleib, Teil el-, 564, 565 | Rafīʻah, Wādi, 593
Qenān Qadeib, 617, 622, Qumrán, Wādi, 447, 448 | Rafīd, 574
624
| Quneiterah, El., 376, Raheibeh, 467, 471
Qenān el-Qarn, 637
559, 569, 576, 578, | Raheibeh (Damascus
Qerāhi, Seil el-, 663, 607
Plain), 419
664
Kaza of 240, 370 Rāhūb, 573
Qfül, Wādi: see Darb Qura‘a, Halīmet, 381
Rāhūb, Wādi er-, 573
el-Eqfül
Qurein, Qalʼat el-, 149, Raids, 177-181, 634
Qibli, 505
527
Rails, 293, 304
Qiblīyeh, Bahret el-,386, Qurnub, 469
Railways, 183, 276, 290,
416, 418, 420, 421 Qurreis,.Halīmet, 381 291, 293, 298, 300,
Qilāwūn, Sultan, 152 Quseir, 369, 370
301-303, 305, 314,
Qili : see Alkali Quseir, El- (or Eqseir),
331, 344, 350, 358,
Qinnab, 101
94
493-495, 505, 557,
Qirāta, 562
Quseir, El- (0% El 596, 599: see also
Qolqās, 98
Ehsūn), 571
under Hejaz
Qoseimeh : see Kosscima Quseir, El- (or Qal'at ez-
Qosileh, 97
Zau), 334
39, 42–43, 45, 47, 49,
Qotlib, 102
Quseir, 'Ain el-, 385, 419
60-64, 177, 252, 254,
Qoz ‘Ain Hosb, 469 Quseir, Jebel, 329, 338,
255, 259, 350, 365,
Qsāra, climate, 24, 52-1 340, 401, 423, 424
371, 378, 445, 446,
69, 74–79, 92, Icey Qusqus, 521
453, 469, 485, 504,
Quail, 108, 448
Qusseib, Wādi: see 505, 540, 576, 577,
Quarantine station, 5921 Hasa, Wādi el-
628, 631
Quarries, 392, 455, 482, Qutāt, 97
Raisins, 259, 280-282,
505, 510
307, 310, 313, 388,
Quarterly Journal of the Quin, 101
454, 458, 579, 602
Scottish Nieteorological Qutni, 285
Rāja (tribe), 660
Society, 92
Qutah, 99
Rāja, 'Ain er-, 483
Quartz, 331, 536 Quttein, 270
Rājib, 93, 585, 595, 601,
Qubāb, 438
652
Qubātiyeh, 491
Rājib, Wādi, 585, 586,
Qubbet 'Abd es-Seyyid,
602, 660
622
Ra'an, Ain, 596
Rakhleh, 377
Qubbct cl-'Asāfīr, 385 Rabadīyeh, Wādi, 523, Rām, Birket er-, 376
Qubbet Bābūtch, 347 527, 528, 534, 537 Ramadhān, Birket (Bas-
Qubeibeh, 448
539
1 set el-Fāliq), 478, 487

B
INDEX
711
Ramān, Wādi, 466 Remteh, 572, 573 Robbery, 230-231
Rāmeh, 262, 271, 542, | Rent, 232
Rock pigeon, 448
547, 554; plain of, Rephaim, 192
Rock salt, 656
532, 534, 544
Reptiles, 108, 448, 487 Roebuck, 507
Rameil, Wādi er-, 620 | Reservoirs, 443, 539, Roman Bridge, 648
559, 561, 566, 625
Calendar, 208
Rāmin, 483
Reshad, 97
Camp, 625
Ramleh, 111, 140, 146, Resin, 94
160, 161, 192; agri Restān, 399, 423
hoods, 200
culture, 260, 261, 270, Retama Rotam, 102
Church, 199, 203,
433, 438; industry, Revolution of 1908, 236 205, 208, 209
282, 449, 451, 454; Rhus Coriaria, 102
Empire, 665
population, 460 | Ribes Orientale, 99
Fort, 665
Rapids, 651
Ribleh, 333, 349, 372, |
Roads, 376, 563,
340, 352-354
Rice, 97, 98, 105, 258, 593, 617, 641, 642
Kaza of, 239
293, 296, 298, 306, Romans, 109, 122–125,
Ras : see specific name 308, 311, 314, 658, 137-141, 148–150,
Ras, Beit er-, 573
659
192
Ras Ail, Mt., 637 Richard I, King, 147, Romanus, 132
Ras Ba'albek, 371
148
Rome, 122, 168, 186,
Ras el-Marqab, 593 Ricinus communis, 100 206
Rope, 269, 289
660
Rosa Damascena, 100
Rashdān, Wādi, 587 Rīha, Jebel (01 Jebel ez- Rosaries, 455
Rashein, Nahr, 411 Zāwiyeh 0r Jebel el- Roses, 100, 403
Rāsheya, 219, 371, 372, Arba‘in), 178, 345- | Rosh Pinnāh (or Jā'
375, 377, 378,
348, 356
ūneh), 544
Kaza of, 240, 370, Rihāb, 582
Rothschild, Baron
393
Rīhān, Jebel, ( Myrtle Edmond de, 190, 281
Rāsheyat el-Fukhkhār, mountain '), 266, 363, Rothschild, Evelina de,
375
366, 368, 405 .
202
Ratam, 102, 468
Rings, 289
Röz, Wādi er-, 480
Ratam, Wādi, 590 Rishāsh, Basset er-, 480 Rubble, 229
Rats, 453
Rīsheh, Jebel el-, 665 ) Rubia tinctoria, 101
Rayāk, 291; railway, | Rīshet el-Hawar, 665 | Rūbin, Mīnet, 440
300, 302
Rīshi, Wädi, 501 Rūbin, Nahr, 17, 429,
Reaping hooks, 254 Rīshăn le-Sīyān, 189, 435, 437-440
Red Sea, 9, 10, 12, 20, 260, 281
Rubus caesius, 99
462
| Ritter, Carl, 517
Rubweh, 416, 418, 419
Reed-huts, 549
Rivers, 13, 277; Nor- Rudhdha', 486
Reeds, 229, 399, 624, thern Syria, 395–426 : Rugs, 285
627, 635, 646, 649, see also specific river's Rūhah, Belād er-, 473,
657, 664
Riyāshi, Wadi er-, 594, 474, 481-483, 486,
Reeling (Tirage), 284 1 610
498, 499, 503
Régie des tabacs de Riyyeh, 'Ain er-, 626 | Ruhrah, 503
☺empire olloman, 246, Riz, 97
Ruined Sites (or Ruins),
248, 266
Roads, 139, 241, 242, 347, 348, 471, 511,
Rchāb, Seil er-, 640 364,384, 551; Roman
Reineh, 538
376, 563, 593, 617, 564, 566, 569, 571,
Religion, 199, 200, 204-| 641, 642
573, 577, 583, 584,
227, 233: see also Robinson, Edw., 333, 593, 596, 598, 617,
specific districts 1 398, 434, 438
627, 632, 639
712
INDEX
Rūj, Er-, 426, 347
Shipping, 294, 303,, Safed el-Battikh, 528
Rujm el-Bahr, 655
326
Saffron, 98
Rujm el-Meqeita', 617 Russians, 202
Sāfi, Ghör es-, 96
Rūm Qal'ah, 9, 10, 272 Russo-Turkish War, 606 Sāfi, Tell es-, 436
Kaza of, 239 Rustem Pasha Bridge, Sālīta, Kaza of, 239,
Rumania, 189, 195, 293, 407, 409
326, 341, 343
295
Ruwad (09 Arwad Town of, 148, 331,
Rumeileh, Ras, 362 Island), 327, 336, 422
337, 338, 422
Rumeimin, 593, 598, Ruweibeh, Wādi, 96 Sāfīta, Burj : see under
· 605, 606
Ruweileh (tribe), 179, Safītā, Qal'at
Rumeimin,' Wādi er-, | 213, 610
Sāfīta, Qalʼat (or Burj
583, 593, 598, 620, Rye, 258
Sāfita), 336
629
Sāfiyeh,' Es-, 615, 617,
Rumeish, 538, 554
624, 626, 629, 631,
Rūmi, 257
663, 666, 667; S.-
Rūmi Road, 407 | Sa‘ādi, “Ayūn es-, 530
Kerak road, 630
Rummān: see Pome Sabbath, ž10, 222 Sāfiyeh, Tell es-, 139
granate
Sabīneh, Nahr, 420 Sage, 105
Rummān, 593, 598, 610 Sabkheh, Es- see Jeb Sahabeh, Wādi, 594
Rummān, Wādi er-, 584, būl Göl
Saharīj, Jebel es-, 613
593, 598
Sabkcheh(t): see specific Sahel : see under specific
Rummāneh, Jisr er-, 402! nanze
name
Rummāneh, Wādi, 522 Sacrifice, 223, 225, 226 Sahem, 574, 607
Ruppin, A, 184, 189, Sa'd, Wādi, 523
Sāhib, 'Ain, 416
240, 252, 255,257, Sāddeh, Seil es-, 622 Sahn, 'Ain es-, 596
259, 262–264, 266, Saddlers, 289
Sahra, Es-, 374, 377,
268, 277, 279-283, Sa'dīyeh (order), 212 382, 383, 384, 417, 419
286, 287, 290, 318, Sadr el-Wciriq, 381 Sahrij, Wādi, 379, 381
323, 458, 459, 460, Sadūr el-Magħār, Wādi, Sahyün, 139, 266, 338,
495-497, 552, 553 621
340, 341
Ruqqād, Jisr er-, 574 Sa‘eidi (tribe), 498, 605 Kaza of (or Bāb
Ruqqād, Nahr er-, 567, Sāfa, Nahr es-, 406
Enneh), 239, 326
569, 574-576
Safed, Kaza of, 239, 516, Qalʼat, 334, 335
Ruqqād, Wādi er-, 560, 541, 552
Saida (09 Sidon), 344,
571
Mountain mass of, 357, 362, 366, 405 ;
Rusheidāt (sub-tribe), 523
agriculture, 260, 262,
610
Town of, 529; agri 264, 265, 267, 270;
Rushes, 597
culture, 261, 262, currency, 320; educa-
Rushmiya, 'Ain, 504
544, 547; cli tion, 201, 214; geo-
Rushmiya, Wādi, 501, mate, 541; com logy, 96; in history,
505
munications, 524, 148-150, 156, 157,
Russia, 157, 172, 189, 527, 534, 551; 165-167, 172 ; irriga-
195, 197, 203, 242, education, 202 ; tion, 404, 406
293, 295, 296, 309, fish, 550 ; geo Kaza of, 239, 266,
459, 553, 606
logy, 94, 536, 359, 387, 388,
Russian Fleet, 157
537; in history, 390, 393
Gold, 319
148, 157; in Sa'ideh, 'Ain, 619
Government, 190
habitants, 176, Saʻideh, Wādi, 619
Jewish (Soap) Com-
184, 206, 227, Sa'īdīyān (tribo), 471,
pany, 492
552–554; manu-l 644, 667
Monastery, 432
factures, 548; Saidnāya, 383
Pilgrims, 297
trade, 551; water- Saidnāya, Sahel, 382,
Pogroms, 191
supply 539 1 383, 385, 391
INDEX
713
Sailors, 158
(S.-Jerusalem road), Samhāt, 538
Sainfoin, 97
652, (S.-Nāblus road) Sāmieh, 'Ain, 444
St. George, Russian 474, 584, 652; geo- Sammīyeh, 505
monastery of, 432 logy, 601; industry, Samra soil, 253
St. George's Bay, 361, 280, 602-604 ; inhabi- Samwil, Nebi, 429
408
tants, 179, 182, 183, Sanamein, 111, 571
St. George's College, 202 230, 604-606, 609 ; 1 'Sanctity ’, 178
St. John's bread, 101 trade, 457
Sand, 253, 288, 361, 362, .
St. Joseph, Sisters of, Kaza of, 240
646 ; banks, 404, 406,
200, 209
Sanjaq of, 240 407; dunes, 505, 664 ;
St. Joseph, University Salt (mineral), 95, 290, shifting, 664; storm,
of, 198, 199
352, 355, 455, 456, 126, 127
St. Vincent de Paul,! 485,505,506,629,655, Sandstone, 369, 376,
Sisters of, 209
664 ; lakes, 349, 426; 379, 380, 396, 465,
Saints, 218
revenue, 245
482, 591, 622, 625,
Sakhr, 'Ayūn es-, 571 Saltpetre, 563
627, 637, 662, 663
Sakhtiyāń, 287
Samar, 574, 597
Sanitation, 242
Sākib, 585
Samar, 'Ain, 596 Sanjaq (image), 222
Salāh ed-dīn Yusuf (or Samar, Wādi, 571, 574 Sanjaqs, 237–241
Saladin), 111, 144 Samaria, 17, 189: agri- Sannin, Jobel, 93, 363,
148, 150, 158; his culturë,487-491; area, 364, 366, 368, 371,
grandson, 151
472; central ridge, 395, 403, 406, 408
Salā’itah (or Es-Slit) 434; climate, 485,540; Sannin, Wädi, 93, 392
tribe, 634
communications, 650; Sant, 101
Salamūni, 256
dress, 227; fauna, 107, Sant, Es-, Plain of, 434
Salib, Nahr cs-, 408, 410 486, 487, flora, 485, Sant, Wādi es-, 125,
Salīb, Wādi es-, 408 486 ; geology, 482; 436, 447
Salicornia fruticosa, 101| highlands, 19, 653; in Sapping (military), 120
Sālih (sub-tribe), 609 history, 120, 127; in- Saqārah, Seil, 623, 627
Sālihīyeh, 163, 196, 416, dustries, 454, 487-492; Saqreh, Wādi es-, 622
419
inhabitants anrl popu- Sarabīs, Wādi, 585
Sālim, 476, 488
lation, 180, 183, 190, Sarafend, 214
Saline, 563 ; mud, 664 ; | 495-498, 659; manu- Sarafend, Ras, 362
plants, 105
factures, 491, 492; Sarāqa, 'Ain, 624
Salix alba, 102
minerals, 442, 485 ; Sarār, 'Ain es-, 539
Salix Babylonica, 103 mountains, 13, 16; Sarār, Wādi es-, 17, 429,
Salix nigricans, 103 natural products,485- 433, 435, 437
Salkhad, 564, 565, 572, 487; physical features, Sareimeh, 'Ain es-, 380
593 : castle of, 565 427,472-481,515-518; Sarfah, Jebel es-, 613
Kaza of, 240
plains, 432, 475-478; Sarghāya, 378, 402 :
Salmān the Persian, 216 railways, 493–495; Plain of, 378
Salt (place-name), 597, religion, 222,496; sct- Sarghāya, Wādi, 402,
599, 600 ; agriculture, tled people,497; stock-! 403
602; communica rearing, 490, 491; Sarj Abu Halāq, Ridge,
tions, 581, 590, (S. trade, 456, 492-495, 622
‘Allān road) 583, S. 552; water-supply, Sarmūj, Wādi, 96
‘Ammān road) 548, 443, 482-485
Sarona, 192; climate,
(S. - Irbid telegraph | Samaritans, 193, 198, 24, 28, 32, 44, 45, 52-
linc) 592, (S.- Jerash! 222, 226, 227, 496, 79, 90, 92, key
road) 589, 592, 593,/ 497
Sarrūt, 610
595, 598, (S.-Jericho Samarra, 214
Sartabch, Wādi: see
road) 589, (S.-Jisr ed. Samāweh, Jebel, 465 Jisr, Wādi el-
Dāmich road) 590, Sāmek, 609
Saru, 103
Lg HIV
714
INDEX
Sarūj, Nahr, 423, 424 Seir, Wādi es-, 618 Senūsīyeh (order), 212
Sa‘sa', 414, 415
Seisebān, Ghõr es-, 589 Sephardim, 195
Sauda, Makhādet ‘Ain Selāta, Ras, 360
Serai Square, 418
es-, 652
Seleikhāt, Wādi (or El- Sergius, 125
Saul, 116
'Asi), 586
Sericin, 284
Sausages, 298
Selim I, 155
Sericulture : see Silk
Sawā'ir (tribe), 609 Selem, Khirbet, 525, Serīyeh, 352, 353
Sawārhereh (tribe), 660 554
Sermada Plain, 347, 352
Scammony, 388
Selemīyeh, 152, 256, Servizi Marittimi Steam-
Scandinavian boats, 297 345, 348–350, 352, ship Co., 294
Scaphisoon Capoëla, 603, 353, 355, 424
Sesame (or Simsim), 97,
630
Kaza of, 240, 355. 105, 252, 253, 265,
Schantung, 285
Seleucids, 121-123 266, 282, 292, 295,
Schools, 201, 202, 204, Seleucus, 121, 122
307, 323, 339, 35),
256, 512, 606
Selfit (or Jemmā'in), 388, 450-452, 478,
Schulman, Leon, 283 L 239, 483, 495, 496 487-489, 493, 508,
Schumacher, G., 94, 569, Selhab, Wādi, 474, 475, 544, 545, 579, 602;
592, 600, 601, 660 480
oil, 265, 282, 307, 454,
Schwöbel, -, 462 Selīhah, Wādi es-, 593, 492, 544, 602 ; seeds,
Scorpions, 108, 487, 666 598
313, 548, 551
Scotch Presbyterian Seljūq Turks, 134 Sesamum Indicum, 97
Schools, 201
Sellameh, Plain of, 523 Seti I, 114
Scotland, 210
Sellāneh, Wādi, 539 Sève, Joseph, 166
Commission of the Selmān, Wādi, 429, 434, Sewing machines, 306
General Assembly
438
Seyāgha, Jebel, 616
of the Church of, Selqi, Wādi, 463
Seyyāh, 'Ain es-, 503
184
Selūqiyeh, Wādi, 524-Seyyal, 102
United Free Church 526, 529
Seyyāl, Wādi cs-, 430,
of, 209
Semak, Tell es-, 442
Scrub, 542, 641, 657, | Semak, Wādi es-, 568, Sferjel, 99
667
| 569, 653
Sha'ārah, Plateau of,
Seba, Burj es., 360 Semakh, 551, 654
522
Seba, Wādi es-, 464 Semakīyeh (tribe), 555 Shādili, 212
Sebastiyeh, 473, 483 Seem (ghi), 274, 353, | Shadliliyeh (order), 212
Sebāneich, 98
390, 551"
Shadoofs, 444
Sebbeh (Masada), 94, Semen gharib, 354 Shāghūr, Esh-, 523
95, 656
Semen hadīdi, 353 Shāghūr Range, 522,
Sebbeh, Wādi, 94 Semmāk, Es-, 589
523, 526, 533, 542
Sebsabīyeh, Wādi es-, Semmū', 587
Shaʻīb, Wādi: see Nim-
622
Semmū', Wādi, 587 rīn, Wādi
Seeds, 97, 301
Semnīyin, (tribe) 498 Sha'īr, 97
Sefei, Naqb es-, 665 Semū'a, 443
Sha'ir, Wādi esh- : see
Sefei, Seil es-, 619 Sena melli, 100
Nablus, Wādi
Sefei, Wādi cs-, 618 Sena saʻīdi, 100
Shalk el-bent, 266, 340
Seffūrīyeh, 146, 147, 538 Senefheh, 638, 643 Sha‘lān (sub-tribe), 610
Scheil, Wādi, 587 | Seneisil, Wādi es-, 587 | Shām (Damascus), Kaza
Seif ed-din ‘Ali, 129, 130 Senīneh, Wādi, es-, 6211 of : see Damascus
Seif cd-dīn Qutuz, 151 Senna, 100
Shām, Wādi: see Sūą,
Seijar, Qal'at cs-, 18, Sennacherib, 118
Wādi es-
335, 341, 399, 423 Senonian limestone, 613, Shăm Sherīf (Damascus)
Seil: see specific name 647; Senonian strata, Sanjaq of: see Da-
Scil el-Hammeh, Wādi, 482, 483, 502, 546,1 mascus
587
601, 614
Shamāli (sect), 216
INDEX
715
347
Shammār, Jobel, 636 Shehir, 242
| Shoqīf, Qal'at esh-, 368,
Shammās, 207
Sheifūn, 97
403
Shanīti, 265
Sheikh, Jebel csh- : see Sheqīf Arnün, 139, 148,
Shanaq, Bir, 435
Hermon, Mount L 150 .
Shanaq, Wādi, 464 Sheikh Ahmed 'Abbās, Sheqif Tīrun, 139
Shaq‘ah, Ras, 360
204
Shera, Esh- (or (?) Esh-
Shaqq cl- Bāred, Nahr, Sheikh 'Ajlīn, 444
Sher'ah), see Jibāl, El-
574
Sheikh el-'Ajūz, Jisr, 423 Shera, Jebel esh-, 23,
Shaqqāq, Wādi esh-, 481 Sheikh Barakāt, Jebel, | 638, 640
Shaqqārah, Tell esh-,
Sher'ah, Esh-, see Jibāl,
564
Sheikh Daʻūd, Makhā El-
Sha‘rci, 368
det, 652
Sherārāt (tribe), 213
Sharaf ed-Daula Mau- Sheikh Hassan, 444 Sherbet, 270
- dūd, emir of Mosul, Sheikh Husein, Jisr esh-, Sherbīn, 103
140, 141
650
Sheri, Bir esh-, 594, 597
Shaʻreh, Esh-, 367, 562, Sheikh Ibrāq, 498, 513 Sheri, Wādi esh-, 594
569
Sheikh el-Islām, 243, 244 | Sheri'ah (law), 236, 237,
Shaʻret el-Ba'albek, 367 Sheikh Iskander, Jebel, 243-245
Sharon, Plain of, 17, 482
Sheri'ah (place name),
432, 433, 473, 174, Sheikh Mahmud el 464
477, 481, 487, 494, 'Ulleiqah, Esh-, 337 Sherī‘ah, Tell esh-, 435
519
Sheikh Miskīn, 240, 571 Sherī'ah, Wādi esh-, 433,
Sharqi, Jebel esh-, 11, She kh of the Faith, 217/ 435, 436, 464, 570,
262, 269, 270, 374, Sheikh Sa'd, Kaza of, 571, 573–575, 580, 596
378, 380, 383, 416 ; 240
Sherī'et el-Menādhireh,
account of, 379-382 | Sheikh Tūmān, Tell, 348 580, 582, 602, 604
Sharqīyeh, see sirocco Sheikhān, 222
Shermeh, Wādi esh- :
Sharqīyeh, Bahret esh-, | Sheikhs, 223, 243, 471 see Abyadh, Ghadir el-
386, 419, 420
Sheizar, 132, 153
Sherrār, Wādi esh-,521,
Sharqīyeh, Wādi, 436 Shejereh, 526
528
Shārūt, Wādi (or el- Shejeret el-Arba'īn, 513 Shibith, 100
Mezār), 587
Shejeret esh-Shabūl, 573 | Shields, 119
Shawal, Wādi Abu, 587 Shellaf moy, 513
Shihān, 598, 633
Shebīt, Jebel, 346 Shellal, 464, 467 Shīhān, Jebel, 23, 612,
Shebrūh, Wādi, 408 Shellāl, Wādi esh-, 438, 614, 629, 633
Sheep, 104, 107, 108, 464
Shīhān, Tell esh-, 564,
181, 217, 225, 247, Shellalch, 498, 502, 504, | 598
273, 274, 292, 300, 511, 513
Sbiʻism, 215
301, 313, 341, 353, Shellaleh, Wādi esh-, Shi'ites, 204, 212, 214
366, 367, 389, 390, 509, 558, 570, 572, | Shingle, 650
430, 451, 453, 461, 573, 581, 582
Shipping, 294-317, 456,
478, 490, 509, 546, Shemandūr, 98
492, 494, 551 : see
548,579, 601, 603,609, i Shems, 'Ain 437
also specific districts
632, 633, 643, 644, Shemsin, 403
Ships, 164, 165, 168,
663, 666 : folds, 560; | Shemsīyeh, 333
172, 296, 303: see
milk, 273 ; skins, 274, Shemustar, 359
also Fleets
288
Sheneiqiyin (tribe), 609 | Shita, Wādi esh-, 589
Shefa 'Amr, 523, 533 Shephelah, the, 17, 433, Shittim wood, 102
Shefa, Jebel esh-, 618, 434, 442, 444
Shõbek, 139, 637-639,
Sheqeiq, Seil esh-, 623 1 641, 642: tribes of
Shchāb, Toll esh-, 572 Sheqif, 266, 267 1 644
Shehāb, Wādi Tell esh-, Sheqīf, Belád esh-, 547 Shoes, 274, 548 : native,
572
Sheqīf, Jebel esh-, 380 1 287, 288, 302

620
716
INDEX
Jisr
Shomar, Wādi, 572,587,1 314; industry, 175, 1. Sitt; Wādi es-, 530, 621,
588
339, 340, 392, mate- 629
Shomarīyeh, Wādi esh-,| rial, 298, production, Sitt Khadhreh, Es-, 513
501, 503
547, 658; raw, 282- Siwās, 288
Shops, 188
284, 292, 297, 298, Sīyr (tribe), 660
Shrines, 218, 225
302, 310, 311, 314, Skandarāni silk thread,
Shrubs, 101, 105, 544, 321, 388; reeling, 284
564
263; stuffs, 354 ; | Skins, 274, 288, 293,
Shtora, 368, 387
thread, 276, 283, 284, 301, 306, 310, 313
Shub'ah, 375
285; waste, 297; Slag, 559
Shūbāsh, Wādi, 474,532 weaving, 455 ;-worms, Slaughter-houses, 242
Shubbeh Tell, 564
99, 104, 263, 509; Slave-merchants, 634
Shūf, Kaza of, 241, 243,1 yarn, 284
Slavery, 244
261, 359, 390, 393 Siloam Pool, 447
Slaves, 231, 634, 635
Shughr, esh-, 139, 170 | Silpius, Mt., 329, Sleet, 469
Shughr, Jisr esh- : see | Silt, 649
Slit, Es- : see Salā'itah
Silver : see Money Smith, G. Adam, 430,
Shughr, Qalʼat esh-, 334, Simmaq, 102
444,543, 544, 556, 646,
424
Simsim : see Sesame 651
Shughr el-Qadīm, 334 | Sinai, 49, 105, 107, 467, Smith, Sir S., 157-159
Shuhbah, 567
471, 642, 666 : North, Smiths, 289
Shumār, 100
48, 665; Peninsula, Smyrna, 279, 296, 354
Shūneh, 588
17, 465
Snakes, 108, 376, 448,
Shunnār, 641
Sinapis alba, 100
487, 666
Shuqeifāt, Seil esh-, 619 Sinapis arvensis, 100 Snaubar, Nahr, 328,
Shuweifāt, 390
Sindiyān, 102
422
Shuweikeh, 436
Sindiyāneh, Wādi es-, Snauban” “น2012, 108 -
Sickles, 548
481, 502, 503
Snaubar berri, 103
Sideir, Wādi es-, 447, Singapore, 185
Snipe, 543, 664
619, 624
Singing-birds, 108 Snow, 31, 37, 44, 72–73,
Sidon : see Saida Sinjil, 428, 443 .
364-366, 371, 375,
Sidr, 101
Sinks ', 366, 367, 396, 1 446, 541, 576, 577,
Sidreh, Wādi, 590
397
600
Siege engines, 137 Sinn, Nahr es-, 422 Soap, 262, 276, 278-280,
Siege-towers, 120 Siglāb, Wādi, 586, 587 292, 296, 303, 307,
Sifsāf, 102
Sir, 365, 412
310, 311, 313, 342,
Sifsāf, Wādi, 368 Sīr, 'Ain es-, 589
391, 493, 602: ex-
Sih, Jebel es-, 521 Sīr, Wādi es-, 588, 589, ports, 294, 295 ;
Sikkeh, Wādi es-, 437, 604, 609, 611
maunfacture, 279,
Sirhān, Wādi, 618, 629 280, 342, 391, 454,
Silesia, Prussian, 190 Sirocco (or sharqiyeh), 491, 492
Sīlet edh-Dhahr, 488, 26, 34, 350, 432, 445, Sõbaleh, Jebel, 637
491
504, 505, 541
Social conditions, 227-
Silicated calc, 369 Sirr, 469
235
Silk, 248, 276, 277, 303, Sīru, Es-, 580, 581, 595, Société du tombac, 248
340, 354, 406, 579 : 600
Soda plant: see Alkali
cocoons, 246, 252, 262- Sīs, (Cilicia), 207 Sodium, 443, 656
264, 282–284, 292, Sitt, 'Ain es-, 540 Sours de Charité, 200,
297, 298, 301, 304, Sitt, Jebel es- (or Car 606
310, 313, 321, 340, melheim), 500, 501, Sours de St. Joseph, 200
388 ; fabrics, 285, 311; 504, 507, 508, 510, Sours de St. Vincent de
factories, 282–284, 512: see also Carme- Paul, 200
298, 392 ; goods, 302, lite
| Soie grège, 284
451
INDEX
:717
Soil, 252, 253
Stockings, 286
! (or Eslāmīyeh, or
Solanum melongena, 98 | Stock-Farming: see Ebal), 16, 473, 475
Solomon, 116
specific districts Sulphur, 93, 95, 446,
Sõm, 588, 599
Stone, 228, 288,446,485: 627, 629
Sommar, 664
building, 288, 505; Sultān, Ghadir es-, 618
Sorgho, Sorghum, 97, cutting, 288, 455 ; Sultān, Tell es-, 437
258
sacred, 225
Sultāni, Wādi es-, 618
Southern Desert, 462- | Storax, 102, 507, 541, Sumach, 102, 384, 507,
471: area, 462 ; 574, 599
542, 543, 579, 602
central range, 465– Storks, 108, 372 Sun-worship, 216
467; climate, 468, Storming-ladders, 120 Sunnites, 204, 212, 214,
469; coast, 462, 463; Storms, 30–32, 38, 45, 227, 554
communications, 469, 48, 72–73, 371, 570, Sūq, 285
470; fauna and flora, 573, 600, 654, 656 Sūğ, Khān es-, 648
468; inhabitants, | Story telling, 231 Sūğ, Wādi es- (or Shām,
460, 470, 471; mari- / Stoves, 296
Wādi), 585
time plain, 449, 451, Straw, chopped, 275, Sūq el-Khān, 94
452, 463–465; water 604
Sūq Wādi Barada, 416
supply, 463, 467,468 Strawberry, 99
Suqfīyeh, Jebel es-, 384,
Souvenirs, 295, 307, Strawberry tree : 'see 385
458
Arbutus
Suqūri, Wādi es-, 618
Spanish Jews, 195 Stringed instruments, Sūr: see Tyre
Spears, 119
231
Sūr, Wādi es-, 434, 436
Specie, 313, 314 Styrax, 104
Sūri (Olive), 262
Spells, 225
Styrax officinale, 102 Sūrīyà (Syria), Vilayet
Spiders, 487
Subbeh, Halīmet, 381 of, 238
Spinach, 98
Subbeir, 99
Suwān, 502
Spinning industry, 282- | Subterranean canals, Suwānīyeh, 609
284
420; pools, 503 ; Suweida, Kaza of, see
Spirits, 225, 295, 307, streams, 396
Drūz, Jebel ed-, Kaza
* 310
Sudan, 194, 608
of
Springs, 365, 367, 382, Suez, Gulf of, 471 Suweida, Wādi, 564
385, 396, 398, 403, Sūf, 572, 580, 585, 586, Suweidīyeh, 339, 401
406, 407, 443, 461, 594, 595, 598, 599 Suweileh : see Beni Sel'a
474, 477, 479, 481- Sūfara, Wādi, 586 Suweimeh, 'Ain, 623
483, 488, 489, 530– Suffār, Merj Es-, 111, Suweinīt, Wādi, 430
532, 534, 538, 539, 126, 144, 153
Suweit Es-, 580
543, 546, 560-562, | Sufic pantheism, 213 Swabians, 512
564, 565, 569, 571 Sugar, 293, 298, 302, Swamps, 478, 519, 532,
573, 588-590, 593, 306, 308, 311, 314, 6462
620, 622, 625-628, 548 ; cane, 101, 103, Sweden, 210
641, 649, 653, 657, 105, 269, 452, 477, Sweetmeats (or halā-
659, 666: hot, 485, 490,658,659; factory, weh), 265, 270, 282,
571, 587, 596-598, 439
548
621, 623, 624, 626, Sukereir, Nahr, 435- | Swine, 107, 274, 381 :
627, 632 ; mineral, 95, 437, 440
wild, 421; see also
380, 474, 632, 654; Sukhūr (tribe), 660
Pigs
surface, 503
Sukhūr El-Ghör (tribe), Swiss Francs, 319
Squill, 100
660
Switzerland, 286
Stalactites, 502
Suleimān Pasha (Joseph Swords, 141, 142
Starch, 257, 277, 278 Sève), 166, 167, 172- Sycomore (or Mulberry
Steel, 311
174
Tig), 270, 434, 447,
Stink-stone, 455
Suleimīyeh, Jebel es- 486, 542, 543, 629
718
INDEX
SYRIA : boundaries, 9-1 mate, 24, 32, 45-48, , Tarfa, 102, 468
23; climate, 24-92; 52, 65, 68-71, 74-79, Tarfāwīyāt, Wādi et-,
coast towns, 44, 45, 91, 92, Icey
619
134, 138, 165, 166, Tabl, Wadi et-, 501 Tar'in, 615, 632
168, 182, 196, 232 ; Tables, 289
Tariqah, 212
minerals, flora, and Tabor, Mount: see Tor, Tarsus, 215
fauna, 93-108; mili- Jebel et-
Tartar invasions, 110,
tary history, 109–174; Tābun, 635
151-154
inhabitants, 175–235;Tadmor, 91, 355, 391 Tartars, 156
Turkish administra- | Tafileh, 638, 639, 642 Tartarus, H.M.S., 330
tion, 236-251; agri- | Kaza of, 240, 642 Tartary, Khans of, 151
culture, 252-275; in- Tafileh, Nahr: see Tartūs, 327-330, 333,
dustry and trade, 276– Feifeh, Seil el-
336, 360, 421, 422
317; currency,weights, Taher : see Zāhir, ‘Omar Tatar, Wādi et-, 501
&c., 318-324.
ez-
Tatli Göl, 426
Tribal Handbook of Tahrīrāt mudīri, 241 Tanqeh (sub-tribe), 634
Syria, 660 Tābūnet Abu Nūr, 481 Taurus, Range, 10
W.O. maps, 330, Tahūnet baghl, 509 Tawāhin, Wādi et-
335, 336, 359, 367, Takhkemoni School, 203 (Wādi “Ahmūd) 524,
382, 400; Reports, Talʻat Mūsa, 381
525, 529, 539
332
Talc, 279
Tawāhīn, Wādi et-
Syrian Ash, 104
Tāleb, Wādi : see Jel'ād / (Wādi Jerash), 594
Bear, 106, 542 Tallājah Ibn Hallăwi, Tawāhīn, Wādi et-(near
Catholic Church, Tell, 380
Teketteh), 594
208
Talmud, 211
Tawil, Jebel et-, 9
Churches, 199 Talmud Tõrāh, Schools, Tawileh, ‘Ain et-, 572
Desert, 106
202
Taxation, 155, 165, 181,
Emigrants, 290 Talus, 465
182, 220, 231, 232,
Evangelical Church, Tamarisks, 102, 105, 241, 242, 243, 245–
209
447, 468, 481, 599, 248, 281, 283, 339,
Exploitation Com 625, 646, 657, 664 T 340, 550, 605
pany, 95, 601 Tamarix Jordanis, 447 Tayyibeh, Et-,448, 582,
Jacobites, 459 Tamerlane (Timur lenk), ! 587, 601, 652
Orthodox Church, 153
Tayyibeh, Wādiet-,580,
Tancred, 157
587, 588
Syrien als Wirtschafts- Tanks, 443
Teachers' Union, 197
gebiet, 495 n.
Tanneries, 276
Teidūn, 623
Tanning, 101, 102, 271, Teim, Wādi et-, 219,
287, 288, 507
:
373, 374, 648
T
Tannūr, 610
Teir, Ras et-, 361
Ta‘āmireh (tribe), 460 Tantūr, 96
Teir Shīhah, 538
461, 660
Tantūrah, 163, 440, 441, Teis, Wādi 'Ain et-, 586
Ta‘annak, 113
481, 492, 494, 496, Telcke : see Telclcīyeh
Tabagh, 101
500, 503
Teketteh, 594
Tābah, 10, 664
Tantūrah, Bir et-, 503 Telclcīyeh, 213
Tābah, 'Ain, 664, 666 Tāqeh 'Ain et-, 400 Tekkiyeh, 415
Tabarīya : see Tiberias Tāqeh, Bahret et-, 400 | Telāh, 639
Tabaʻūn, ‘Ain, 532 Taqīyah, 221
Telāh, Seil et-, 639
Tabbān, Wādi et-, 466 | Tarabul, Jebel, 359, 360, Telāh, Wadi et-, '662
Tabernacles, 210
365
Telegraph lines, 590,
Tābghah, 534, 547, 549, Tarābulus, Kaza and 592
551, 654
Sanjaq. of : see Tripoli Tell : see specific name
Tābghah 'Ain et-, cli- | Tāreh Ramān, 465 Tell, Et-, 417, 549
606
INDEX
719
Tell el-Khalīfeh, Nahr, 1 ret Tabarīya or Sea ofl (02 Wādi Jirm el-
413
Galilee), 19, 21, 256, 1 Mõz), 587, 595
Tell Nimrīn, 589
517, 519, 522, 523, Tīreh (0Tíret el-Löz),
Tell esh- Shehālleh,
524, 534, 535, 537, 478, 482, 496, 500-
Wādi (or Wādi Zei 547, 551, 558, 567, 503, 508-513
zūn), 561, 570, 575 645, 647, 649–651 : Tīreh, Bir 'Ain et-, 503
Temperature, 25-27, 35, account, 653, 654; Tīret el-Löz: see Tīreh
38, 40-42, 44, 46, 48, climate, 32, 34; fauna, Tithe, 245–246
52-58, 252, 485, 576, 108, 542; fever, 576; Titun, 101
601
fish and fishing, 543, Tobacco, 101, 187, 221,
Templar Colonies, 192, 549, 550 ; in history, 252, 266, 267, 276,
204, 282, 512
111, 140, 145–148, 290, 292, 306, 308,
Templars, 192
157 ; Jewish colonies 310, 311, 314, 325,
Temple, the, 211
near, 545; wādis 338-340, 352, 380,
Temple sect, 192
draining into, 528, 388, 470, 487, 488,
Temples, 375, 566
529, 569
544, 547, 551, 574,
Tents, 228, 286, 549 Tiberias, Town of, 522, 579, 601, 631, 658,
Teqū, 461
547 : climate, 24, 27, 663: chewing, 272 ;
Terābīn (tribe), 471 30, 35, 45-48, 52-69, tax, 245, 246, 248
Terebinths, 101, 104, | 74–79, 90, 92, key, Tomatoes, 98, 339, 449,
434, 447, 486, 507, 540; hot baths of, 95; 451, 508, 547
541, 542, 562, 571, in history, 132, 140; | Tombs of the forty
574, 580, 599, 629, inhabitants, 178, 184, martyrs !, 422
641
185, 554, 605; stock- Tonnage, 296, 300
Tereimsi, Bahret el-, 399 rearing, 548
Toprakale Railway, 301
Terraces, 254, 260, 471, Tibn, 275, 604
Tör, Jebel et- (09 Mount
543
Tibn, Makhādet Wādi! Gerizim), 16, 222, 473,
Tewei, W. et-, 619, 621 et-, 652
474, 476, 479
Textile industries, 276, Tibneh, 582, 595, 598
284287, 293, 298, Tibneh, Wādi, 597, 598 Tabor), 15, 106, 158,
300, 301, 313
Tibnin, 148, 526, 528, 162, 518, 522, 525,
Teyāhah (tribe), 462, 1529, 554
528, 530, 542, 545
471
Tiffah, 99
Tõra Canal, 419
Thamad, Wādieth-,620, | Tiglath Pileser (IV), 117 | Tõr‘ān, Jebel, 15, 522 :
625
Tigranes, King, 123 Plain of, 522, 532, 533,
Thenyet Abu “Ata, Tigris, River, 117, 140 534, 537; Range, 522,
Jebel, 385
Tiles, 288, 455
533
Theodore, 125
Timarūn, Jebel (01 Qarn Tourists, 289, 290, 459
Thistles, 381, 547
Sauda), 363
Towers, sepulchral, 566
Thorn-bush, 646
Timbek, 101, 248, 267, Towns, 175 f.
Thorns, 381
290
Townsfolk, 176–179,
Thothmes III, 111, 113, Timber, 101-103, 228,1 182 f., 232 f., 235
114
229, 288, 293, 296, Träb el-merāmil, 502
Threshing, 254, 384, 631, 308, 311, 542, 604, Trābeh, 'Ain, 653, 657
644
641
Trade, 289-317, 456–
Throwing (process), 284 Timur lenk (01 Tamer 588, 492-495, 550-
Thunderstorms, 30, 31, lane), 153
552, 577, 599, 632
| 37, 43, 45, 70, 71, 446 | Tam, 99
Tram companies, 298
Thyme, 100
Tīn, Wādi et-, 474, 479 | Tramways Libanais,
Thymus Syriacus, 100 Tīneh, Et-, 337
407-409
Tiberias (or Tabarīya), Tīneh, “Ain et-, 94, 384, Transmigration, doct-
Kaza of, 239, 516, 552/ 539, 590
rine of, 217, 220, 221
Tiberias, Lake (09 Bah- Tineh, Wādi 'Ain et- | Transvaal, 185
נו

720
INDEX
O
Transylvania, 293 Tristram, H. B., 542, i Officers, 171
Trap (rock), 330, 331, 583, 600, 603, 628
Official Reports,
333, 336 361,366,369, Trout, 603
175, 181, 292,
537
Tsil, 560
297, 299, 552
Trees, 97-106, 253, 486, Tūbās, 473, 485, 652 Paper Money, 319
544, 562 : venerated, Tuffāni, 262
Policy, 180
225, 513
Tughtakin, of Damas Ports, 304
Tribal feuds, 230, 644 cus, 140
Regulars, 170, 173
revenge, 221 Tujjār, Khān et-, 538 Rule, 191, 196, 266,
Tribes: see Bedouin Tūl Keram (or Beni
603
Tribunals, 243, 244
Saʻb), Kaza of, Sultans, 133
Trieste, 294, 295, 493
239, 472, 495
Tobacco, 267
Trietsch, D., 185, 459, Town of, 479, 483, Troops, 131, 151,
460, 553
484, 494-496 : 169, 170, 172
Trifolium Alexandri- || railway, 493-495 See also Ottoman
num, 97
Tulūl ed-Dahab, 584, | Turkmānīyeh, Makhā-
Tripoli (or Tarābulus), 591, 592, 595
det et-, 652
Kaza of, 239, 262, Tūm, 98
Turkmānīyeh(tribe),498
359,387, 390, 393 Tūmāt Niha, 363, 371 Turko-Italian War, 296,
Sanjaq of, 239, 326, Tumm, Et-, 650
300, 494
342, 388
Tumm, Bāb et-, 574 Turkomans, 195-197,
Town of, 359, 360, Tumra, Makhādet et-, | 342, 355, 356, 554,
365, 412: agri-1 652
607
culture, 260, 264, Tumreh, Ras, 523 Turkopoles, 143, 147
265, 272; com- Turbān, Wādi, 640 | Turks, 131, 133, 134,
munications, 331, Turkey, 157, 292, 293, 149, 162, 165–167,
344,357,(T.-Homs 295, 296, 298, 301 171, 172, 192, 195,
chaussée) 399, 303, 309, 312, 315, 197, 219, 238, 249,
412, (T.-Lādiqi- | 319, 320, 457
250, 567, 607: Otto-
yeh road) 423; Turkeys, 509
man, 109, 153–164,
currency, 320 ; | Turkish Administration, 172, 195; Young, 197
education, 201 ; | 236-251, 264, 428, Turmus, 97
in history, 109, 556
Turnip, 97
127, 130, 132–135, Army, 157, 159, Turonian Limestone,
140, 144, 145, 167, 171, 174 613
147, 148, 150, Authorities, 213 Turpentine tree, 104
156, 165-167, Classification, 297 Turrah, 573
169, 173; geo Commanders, 166, Turtan, 120
logy, 361, 362 ;
Turtle doves, 630
industry, 279, Conquest, 133-136, Tūt, 99
280, 340, 391; 141, 142
Tūt Shāmi, 99
inhabitants, 176, Deserters, 172, 301 Tutush, 134
182; measures, Fleet, 158, 163 Typhus, 592
322, 324; rail Garrison, 642 Tyre (or Sūr), Kaza of,
way, 291, 298, Government, 184, 239, 388,516, 552
300, 303, 412, 191, 199, 245, Ladder of, 15, 535 :
413; religion, 248, 254, 273, see Nāqūrah,
205; shipping, 452
Ras en
305, 316, 317; Interests, 606
Plain of, 15, 517,
trade, 291, 294, Land Measure, 324 525, 528, 532,
298, 300, 303, Loans, 290
533
304; water Mint, 318
Town of, 206, 260,
supply, 411
Officials, 242, 246
266, 344, 357,
170
INDEX
721
404, 528, 533, United Armenians, 208, Venice, 138, 294
536, 544, 547, 459, 553
Venison, 630
548, 551 : in United Greeks, 208, 459, Vetches, 97, 105, 252,
history, 121, 138, 496, 497, 552
259, 274
139, 147, 148 ; United Kingdom, 29, Vicia Ervilia, 97
inhabitants, 553, 32, 38, 292, 293, 295– Vicia Faba, 97
554; water-sup 296, 300, 302, 303, Vicia sativci, 97
ply, 539
309, 312, 315, 340, Vienna, 191
457, 494. See also Vigna sinensis, 98
England and British Vignes, -, 617, 661
United States, 185–188, Villagers, 176
"Ubeidīyeh (tribe), 660 210, 272, 298, 302 : | Villages, 176
Udeihi, 425
Consular Reports, 297, Vilayets (or wilāyah),
Ukhyar, Tell, 380
299; Presbyterian 237–241
"Ulema, 199
Church of, 209 Vincho, 285
“Ulleiq, 99
United Syrians, 208, Vines, 104, 186, 255,
“Ulleigah, 'Ain el-, 5971 459, 553
259, 341, 348, 365,
“Ulleiqah, Wādi el-, 574, Unlucky Days, 224-225 368, 387, 388, 431,
597
Uggal, 220, 221
449, 489, 508, 544,
Umm el-Badan, Wādi, Urdeh, Basin of, 423 565, 571, 578: vine-
448
'Urfa, Sanjaq of, 10, 12, yards, 255, 373, 376,
Umm Bagheq, 444 | 238, 239, 269
380, 384, 544, 546,
Umm Bagheq, Wādi, Urginea Scilla, 100 565, 602, 631; see also
430–432, 461, 655 | 'Urq es-sūs, 100
Grapes
Umm el-Fahm, 482, 496 Urtās, 437
Viper, Horned, 666
Umm Hallūf, Wādi, 470 Usdum, Jebel, 94, 95, Volcanic gorge, 645 :
Umm Keis (Gadara), 656
mounds, 559; peaks,
183, 581, 582, 588, 'Useimer, Wādi, 618 568, 569; rock, 543,
595, 596, 598, 602, Ushnān, 101
615, 647; tufa, 482
605
“Ushr, 105, 664
Volcanoes, 537, 560, 562
Umm Kiteh, 617, 622, Usquf (plur. Asāgifen), Von Moltke, 171
624
207
Vultures, 448, 468, 487
Umm el-Kharaq, 'Ain, 'Usufiya (or Esfiya), 496,
596
498, 500, 501, 503,
Umm el-Kharrūbeh, 508-512
Ras, 647
'Usufiya, 'Ain, 503
| Wādi : see specific name
Umm el-Meyādin, 572 Usury : see Money Wādi el-'Ajam, Kaza
Umm Qabr, Ras, 525 lenders
of, 240, 370: see also
Umm Qal'ah, 623 Uz7, 338
'Ajam, Wādi el-
Umm Qaleib, Wādi, 616
Wāfiyeh, El-, 627
Umm es-Semmāk, 584
Waheib (tribe), 555
Umm es-Senāsil, 501
Wal, 507
Umm esh-Shuqaf, 'Ain, Vali, 237, 241, 242, 359 Wāleh, 'Ain, 624
503
Valley of Fire, 445 Wāleh Gorge, 618
Umm Sidreh, Makhā. Van de Velde, -, 382, Wāleh, Wadi el-, see
det, 652
652
Heidān, Seil
Umm et-Tūt, 481 Vegetables, 97-98, 231, Wāli : see Vali
Umm ez-Zeināt, 496, 246, 252, 272, 321, Walnuts (on jõz), 100,
508, 510
339, 387, 388, 433, 104, 272, 306, 377,
Umtedeh (? Muhtedi), 449-452, 470, 487 384, 417, 447, 449,
643
489, 508, 533, 544, 544, 599, 600
Uniate Churches, 207, 545, 547, 579, 631, Waqf, 248, 249, 250,
208
643, 658
513
W
SYRIA
Z Z
722
INDEX
+
Waqqās, 'Ayūn, 5391 641, 642, 644, 664,Women, 233-234
Waqqās, Wădi el-, 539 | 666: bituminous, Wood, Levant Papers
Ward, 100
629; sacred, 225, 471 III, 173
Ward, 'Ayūn el. (or El Wergho, 245-247 | Woodlands, 526, 629
Bass), 530, 531 Wheat, 97, 252, 253, Wood pigeons, 448
Ward, Wādi el., 437 256-258, 278, 298, Woods, 338, 346, 376,
Warrān, Wādi, 573, 582, 305, 306, 310, 322, 447, 570, 574, 615,
601
323, 339, 352, 380, 638
Wata el-Burj, Plateau, 387, 388, 449-452, | Wood-work, 454
366
456, 457, 470, 487- | Wool, 248, 274, 276, 277,
Watā‘at el-Khatālīn. 489, 493, 194, 508, 292, 297, 301, 304-
lake, 591
534, 544, 545, 547, 306, 310, 311, 313,
Waterfalls, 532, 640 558-560, 566, 577, 352, 353, 388, 389,
Water-fowl, 108, 421, 578, 579, 591, 456, 457, 579, 634
426, 596
602, 630, 631, 643, Woollen articles, 311 :
Waterholes, 484, 503, 646, 663
fabrics, 285 ; goods,
539, 594, 597, 625 Whirlwinds, 371
302, 306, 314; stuffs,
Water-melons, 99, 307, ( White Cape, 525
303; yarns, 302, 311,
388, 451, 508, 579, Wilayah: see Vilayets 314
663
Wild Boar, 486
Woolley, —, 468, 471
Water mills: see Mills Wild-cat, 107, 507, 641, Wrass, 549
Water, perennial, 489 666
Wright, -, 655
Water-skins, 455 Wild ducks, 108, 372, | Würtemberg, 192, 512
Water snakes, 376
543
Wuld ‘Ali (tribe), 179,
Water supply, 177-179, Wild fauna, 106, 107 180
242, 277, 396, 415, Wild fowl, 399, 487 Wustāni, Jebel, 345, 347,
416, 666 : see also Wild swine, 421
426
under specific districts Wilhelm II, Kaiser, 192 Wustīyeh, El-, 580, 581,
Water-wheels, 399, 452 Wilhelma, 70-73, 92, 192 595, 599, 600, 605
Watta Canal, 409 | Willows. 102. 105. 399.
Wax, 389, 454, 579 447, 542, 561, 589,
Wazīyeh, Wādi el-, 527 599, 600, 646 : black,
Weakley, E., 261-263, 103; weeping, 103 ; | Yābis, Wādi el-, 22, 580,
268, 269, 278, 280, | white 102
586, 587
286, 288, 319, 321, | Wills, 244
Yabrūd, 379, 381-384
322, 339, 342, 352- Winds, 24, 25, 32, 38, 39, Yādhūn, Khirbet el-,
354, 390,392, 658 44, 45, 48, 49, 74-91, 525, 526
Weasels, 107, 486, 542 350, 365, 469, 505, Yāfa, Kaza of: see Jaffa
Weaving, 284, 286, 354, | 575, 576, 600, 629 Yafūfeh, Wādi, 378,
391, 455
Windmills : see Mills 379, 402
Weevil, 339
Wind storms, 656 Yafūfeh, Nahr, 403
Weibeh, 'Ain el-, 642, Wind strength, 32 Yafūri, Merj el-, 376
663, 666
Wine, 216, 218, 232, 259, Yahmūr, 94, 403
Weights, 320-322
260, 276, 280-282, Yājūr, 509, 510, 514
Weirs, 401, 402, 406 290, 307, 310, 322, Yājūz, 584, 592, 599
Weiriq, Wādi el-, 382 ;/ 341, 458, 493, 494 : Yājūz, 'Ain, 590, 597
Sadr el-, 381
bottles, 492; cellars, Yamūneh, 367, 368
Weli, 223, 224
190; export, 295; Yamūneh, Bahret, 366
Weli Sheikh 'Ali, 334 making, 281, 454, 508; | Yanbū' Spring, 443
Welīyeh, 224
presses, 190, 507, 508, | Ya'qūb el-Fādil (tribe),
Wells, 382, 425, 443, 511
660
444, 467, 482-484, Wolves, 107, 468, 486, Yarmūk, 271, 558, 561,
487, 503, 504, 538, 641, 666
580, 585, 588, 660
INDEX
723
Yarmūk, Nahr (or Sherī. , Zammārānī, Halīmet, 441, 477, 481, 483,
fet el-Menādhireh), 381
486, 490, 498, 499,
19, 21, 94, 126-128, Zammārāni, Wādi, 382 502, 511, 526
556, 557, 558, 567, Zanki, 144-148
(E. of Jordan) 22,
568, 570, 572, 576, Zaqgün, 101, 105
556, 580 – 585,
580, 582,596,600-602, Zāra, Ez-, 627, 632 : 590-595,597,599–
606, 610, 647, 650, hot springs of, 615 ; 602, 604, 607,
653, 658: account, Plain of, 615, 616, 623 | 608, 610, 615,
570-572
Zaʻrūr, 102
616, 623, 653,
Yarns, 293, 298, 300, Za‘rūr, Wādi, 381
660
302, 303, 306
Zaʻtar, 100
Zerqa, Nahr ez-, (An-
Yārūn, 526
Zau, Qalʼat ez- (or El- sarīyeh), 338, 423
Yārūth, Wādi el-, 623
| Zerqa, Seil ez-, 664
Yāsīd, 479, 480
Zāwiyeh, 213
Zerga Māʻin, 271, 614,
Yāsūf, 483
Zāwiyeh, Jebel ez- : see 630
Ya'ter, 554
Rīħa, Jebel
| Zerqa Mā'in, Wādi (or
Yāziji, father and son, Zāwiyet el-Gharbīyeh, Callirhoë), 23, 95,
198
Ez-, 568-570
582, 613-616, 623,
Yebnah, 139, 437 Zāwiyet esh-Sharqiyeh, 627, 628, 633, 634,
Yellow berries, 301
Ez-, 568, 570
653: account, 620,
Yemen, 195
Zea Mays, 97
621
Yemenite tribe, 227 Zebdāni, 378, 415 Zerrā', 398
Yezid Canal, 419
Kaza of, 240 Zerrā'i, 505
Yezīdis, 204, 222-223, Jebel, 374, 377–379 Zeyyātīn, Wādi ez-, 571,
Yiddish, 197, 553
Plain of, 378, 379,1 574
Yitm, Wādi, 23, 469, 387, 415
Zgharta, 365, 411
640, 665
Zebla, Wādi, 520 Zikeron Ya'aqõb, 189,
Yūnta, 377, 378
Zeheir, Ghör ez-, 617, 260, 281
Yusuf Effendi, 98, 265 625
Zimmārīn, 480, 481, 496,
Yuttă, 448
Zeidi ?, Ez-: see 'Āhireh, 497, 502, 508, 511
El-
Zinzilukht, 101
Zeidi, Wādi ez- (or Zionist movement, 191
Z
‘Aweiret Zeizūn), 561, Ziyāreh, 330, 334, 336,
Zabbūd, 609
565, 572
1337
Zabirāni, Nahr: see Zeimer, Wādi, 479 Ziyāreh, Ras, 327
Awaj, Nahr el-
Zeitschrift des Deutschen Ziza, 183
Za'farān, 98
Palästina-Vereins, 92 Zīza, Seil ez-, 626
Zahalteh, 'Ain, 406 Zeitün, 99
Zizyphus Lotus, 101
Zahar, Wādi, 588, 595, Zeizūn, ‘Aweiret : see Zizyphus Spina-Christi,
603, 604
Zeidi, Wādi ez-
101
Zahar el-'Aqabeh, 599 Zeizūn, Wādi: see Tell | Zizyphus vulgaris, 101
Zar'ah, Tell, 595
esh-Shehālleh, Wādi Zöbar, Jebel, 637
Zaharāni, Nahr ez-, 404, Zengharīyeh (tribe), 555 Zöl, Darb ez-, 463
405
Zenobia, Queen, 124 Zõr, The, 442, 476, 645,
Zāhir, Omar ez-(or Daher Zerā'ah, Merj ez- : see 646, 650, 658
01 Taher), 156–157
Zor, Sanjaq of, 238
Zahleh, 167, 173, 176, Zer'in, 515, 518, 520, Zūb, Tell ez-, 564
178, 182, 203, 288, 526, 532 : wheat, 256 Zubeid (tribe), 555
359, 362, 368, 371, Zerqa, 585, 588, 594 Zumleh, Jebel ez-, 572
372, 387, 388, 403, Zerqa, 'Ain ez-: 397,423, Zuweireh, Ras, 465
550: Kaza of, 241, 359 503, 598, 621, 628 Zuweireh, Wādi, 381,
Zahr en-Nasāra, 605 Zerqa, Nahr ez- (Sama- ' 430, 461
Zāleh, 565
ria), 17, 106, 435, Zuweireh Pass, 469

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