DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.36287#0030
8
TOPOGRAPHY OF NORTPIERN CENTRAL SYRIA
attendants found a small and almost obliterated inscription. It was the first discovery
made by the Expedition. The ruined castle itself was sufficiently well known to the
western world before our visit to Harim.
At half-past two in the afternoon we started up the steep hillside toward the south-
east on a path that followed an exceedingly irregular course among great rocks that
jutted up before us at every step. Our sure-footed little horses, which measured only
about iqjT hands in height, went over or around them with little difficulty, though
their pace was necessarily slow. The caravan was far ahead, for it did not wait
for us to finish the work at the castle. The distance to the summit of the Djebel il-
Ala is only about three miles, but it took an hour and a quarter to reach it. Benabil,
the first town we reached, is about 1600 feet above Harim or about 1830 feet
above sea-level. From the northern edge of the mountain a splendid view may be
had over the plain toward the Amanus range, and right and left along the valley,
toward Antioch on the one hand and the Kurd mountains and Armenia on the other.
The axis of the Djebel il-A'la lies almost due north and south. On its elongated
summit, which extends some ten miles south from Benabil, are many ruined towns.
It was here that the work of the Expedition really began, and our introduction to the
region was most impressive. The inhabitants of Benabil received us cordially. They
were few in number and were the first people we met who belong to the remarkable
Druse sect, most of whom live in southern Syria, in the Hauran and in the Lebanon
range. Our new friends took pleasure in showing us the ancient buildings in and near
which they lived, and we spent an hour examining these structures and the few inscrip-
tions over doorways or on stones lying on the ground. We soon went on again by a
path that leads past several more ruined villages and goes near the steep eastern slope
of the mountain, from which one looks out over the lower Djebel Barisha. After riding
less than an hour we reached our third camping-place, just outside the village of Kalb
Lauzeh and in the shadow of the ruin of a beautiful church of early times,— a ruin that
is well known to students of architecture from de Vogue's drawings and description.
The village is inhabited by about 150 Druses.
From an eminence near the camping-ground, which is about 2170 feet above the
sea, one can readily discern twelve ruined towns or small groups of ruined buildings,
all within a few miles of that point, and we learned, this first day in the mountains, that
many more were hidden from view in little depressions and valleys. We thus at once
recognized the magnitude of the work we had taken up. Before that it had been only
a matter of surmise. The Comte Melchior dc Vogue, now the Marquis de Vogue,
whose work describing the journey he made through Syria in 1861-2 had inspired our
Expedition, informed Mr. Butler that besides the ruins discovered by himself there
were some that he had been unable to visit for lack of time. But we were not pre-
pared to find so large a number of them standing in so perfect a state of preservation
TOPOGRAPHY OF NORTPIERN CENTRAL SYRIA
attendants found a small and almost obliterated inscription. It was the first discovery
made by the Expedition. The ruined castle itself was sufficiently well known to the
western world before our visit to Harim.
At half-past two in the afternoon we started up the steep hillside toward the south-
east on a path that followed an exceedingly irregular course among great rocks that
jutted up before us at every step. Our sure-footed little horses, which measured only
about iqjT hands in height, went over or around them with little difficulty, though
their pace was necessarily slow. The caravan was far ahead, for it did not wait
for us to finish the work at the castle. The distance to the summit of the Djebel il-
Ala is only about three miles, but it took an hour and a quarter to reach it. Benabil,
the first town we reached, is about 1600 feet above Harim or about 1830 feet
above sea-level. From the northern edge of the mountain a splendid view may be
had over the plain toward the Amanus range, and right and left along the valley,
toward Antioch on the one hand and the Kurd mountains and Armenia on the other.
The axis of the Djebel il-A'la lies almost due north and south. On its elongated
summit, which extends some ten miles south from Benabil, are many ruined towns.
It was here that the work of the Expedition really began, and our introduction to the
region was most impressive. The inhabitants of Benabil received us cordially. They
were few in number and were the first people we met who belong to the remarkable
Druse sect, most of whom live in southern Syria, in the Hauran and in the Lebanon
range. Our new friends took pleasure in showing us the ancient buildings in and near
which they lived, and we spent an hour examining these structures and the few inscrip-
tions over doorways or on stones lying on the ground. We soon went on again by a
path that leads past several more ruined villages and goes near the steep eastern slope
of the mountain, from which one looks out over the lower Djebel Barisha. After riding
less than an hour we reached our third camping-place, just outside the village of Kalb
Lauzeh and in the shadow of the ruin of a beautiful church of early times,— a ruin that
is well known to students of architecture from de Vogue's drawings and description.
The village is inhabited by about 150 Druses.
From an eminence near the camping-ground, which is about 2170 feet above the
sea, one can readily discern twelve ruined towns or small groups of ruined buildings,
all within a few miles of that point, and we learned, this first day in the mountains, that
many more were hidden from view in little depressions and valleys. We thus at once
recognized the magnitude of the work we had taken up. Before that it had been only
a matter of surmise. The Comte Melchior dc Vogue, now the Marquis de Vogue,
whose work describing the journey he made through Syria in 1861-2 had inspired our
Expedition, informed Mr. Butler that besides the ruins discovered by himself there
were some that he had been unable to visit for lack of time. But we were not pre-
pared to find so large a number of them standing in so perfect a state of preservation