DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.45588#0007
404
Division II Section A Part 7
be trusted to climb. A dweller from within is the only sure guide to a place of entry
and the only safe path-finder when once the rim has been passed. The openings in
the rude natural fortifications are few, and almost all of them will be found to have
been cut or broken through by the ancients. The roads from point to point within
were all of them laid out by the original inhabitants, or at least by very early settlers,
and were in part actually built over the more difficult routes. In Roman days two
straight roads were constructed across the lava waste; of these I shall speak later;
but ordinarily the paths follow the lines of least resistance, and often, in order to reach
a point in plain view a mile or less away, one must be guided over a devious course
two or three miles long.
I estimate that the more nearly level stretches of the Ledja are from seven to ten
metres higher than the general level of the country around about; but the traveller is
seldom conscious of being in a level spot, and his outlook is usually shut in by high
waves of cracked and broken basalt that rise from five to seven metres above his head.
In order to secure an extended view he must climb over the rough rocks and crevasses
to the crest of some basalt wave, and then he will see only the crests of other waves
for miles around, and the peaks of the Hauran mountains or the snow-capped crest
of Mt. Hermon in the dim distance. The prospect is in any case uncompromisingly
wild and desolate. Wierd and strange phenomena of volcanic action are in evidence on
every side; here the hot lava stream was arrested and stiffened in its onward rush,
and became seamed and gashed with deep fissures as it cooled, there it spread out in
vast pools in which myriads of giant bubbles formed, raised up no doubt by mighty
pressures of steam from below. As the great bubbles became cold, they contracted
and cracked, and the lava, in many instances, broke into pieces shaped like the
truncated pyramids used in the construction of a dome of stone. There are hundreds
of these symmetrical domes, large and small, with walls from 80 cm. to 1.50 m. in
thickness, their crowns fallen in, presenting perfect models for the dome builder. Yet
one should note that the builders of the region did not erect domes of cut stone, as
the architects of Northern Syria did, and the models, so well supplied by nature in this
awful upheaval, went unheeded during the periods of dome-building in the Hauran. In
other cases the bubbles took an oblong shape, like the hull of a ship turned bottom
upward; these cracked in saw-like fissures along the keel, exposing dark caverns within.
Here and there over the wide expanse of lava fields a small volcano broke forth, throwing
up a cone of cinders and scoriae, one of which — Tell Ammar — is over 40 metres high.
But now and again, as he traverses the dismal and barren waste unrelieved by any
verdure of shrub or tree, over-awed by these manifestations of angry nature in her most
frightful aspect, the traveller unexpectedly comes upon secluded vales, — those patches
of foam on the troubled waters as they appeared when sighted from the far off moun-
tains ·—, and, for the first time, realizes why man has ever been tempted to fix his
home in this black, forbidding, piece of inferno bereft of none of its horrors but its
demons and its heat. Here are small flat spaces, like troughs between the waves,
covered with fine, fertile, soil which bears harvests of uncommon richness. The smallest
patch of earth is sown with wheat, or rye, or barley, and the villages, all marking the
sites of ancient towns, are planted upon the rocks somewhere near the middle of a
group of these cultivable valleys, and beside an ancient spring or well. Close to some
of the villages are little groves of olives, and, here and there, are small vineyards of
Division II Section A Part 7
be trusted to climb. A dweller from within is the only sure guide to a place of entry
and the only safe path-finder when once the rim has been passed. The openings in
the rude natural fortifications are few, and almost all of them will be found to have
been cut or broken through by the ancients. The roads from point to point within
were all of them laid out by the original inhabitants, or at least by very early settlers,
and were in part actually built over the more difficult routes. In Roman days two
straight roads were constructed across the lava waste; of these I shall speak later;
but ordinarily the paths follow the lines of least resistance, and often, in order to reach
a point in plain view a mile or less away, one must be guided over a devious course
two or three miles long.
I estimate that the more nearly level stretches of the Ledja are from seven to ten
metres higher than the general level of the country around about; but the traveller is
seldom conscious of being in a level spot, and his outlook is usually shut in by high
waves of cracked and broken basalt that rise from five to seven metres above his head.
In order to secure an extended view he must climb over the rough rocks and crevasses
to the crest of some basalt wave, and then he will see only the crests of other waves
for miles around, and the peaks of the Hauran mountains or the snow-capped crest
of Mt. Hermon in the dim distance. The prospect is in any case uncompromisingly
wild and desolate. Wierd and strange phenomena of volcanic action are in evidence on
every side; here the hot lava stream was arrested and stiffened in its onward rush,
and became seamed and gashed with deep fissures as it cooled, there it spread out in
vast pools in which myriads of giant bubbles formed, raised up no doubt by mighty
pressures of steam from below. As the great bubbles became cold, they contracted
and cracked, and the lava, in many instances, broke into pieces shaped like the
truncated pyramids used in the construction of a dome of stone. There are hundreds
of these symmetrical domes, large and small, with walls from 80 cm. to 1.50 m. in
thickness, their crowns fallen in, presenting perfect models for the dome builder. Yet
one should note that the builders of the region did not erect domes of cut stone, as
the architects of Northern Syria did, and the models, so well supplied by nature in this
awful upheaval, went unheeded during the periods of dome-building in the Hauran. In
other cases the bubbles took an oblong shape, like the hull of a ship turned bottom
upward; these cracked in saw-like fissures along the keel, exposing dark caverns within.
Here and there over the wide expanse of lava fields a small volcano broke forth, throwing
up a cone of cinders and scoriae, one of which — Tell Ammar — is over 40 metres high.
But now and again, as he traverses the dismal and barren waste unrelieved by any
verdure of shrub or tree, over-awed by these manifestations of angry nature in her most
frightful aspect, the traveller unexpectedly comes upon secluded vales, — those patches
of foam on the troubled waters as they appeared when sighted from the far off moun-
tains ·—, and, for the first time, realizes why man has ever been tempted to fix his
home in this black, forbidding, piece of inferno bereft of none of its horrors but its
demons and its heat. Here are small flat spaces, like troughs between the waves,
covered with fine, fertile, soil which bears harvests of uncommon richness. The smallest
patch of earth is sown with wheat, or rye, or barley, and the villages, all marking the
sites of ancient towns, are planted upon the rocks somewhere near the middle of a
group of these cultivable valleys, and beside an ancient spring or well. Close to some
of the villages are little groves of olives, and, here and there, are small vineyards of