The whole of the Christian community of
Soueida, with the Greek priest at their head, had lately arrived, so
that Aaere has now become one of the most populous villages in this
district. The high estimation in which the Sheikh is held arises from
his great hospitality, and the justice and mildness with which he treats
the peasants, upwards of forty of whom he feeds daily, besides
strangers, who are continually passing here in their way to the Bedouin
encampments; the coffee pot is always boiling in the Menzoul or
stranger's room. He may now, in fact, be called the Druse chief of the
Haouran, though that title belongs in strictness to his father-in-law,
Hossein Ibn Hamdan, the Sheikh of Soueida. In the mosque of Aaere, a low
vaulted building, I copied the following inscription from a stone in the
wall:
[Greek].
BOSZRA.
[p.226]April 27th.--I now thought that I might visit Boszra, which I had
found it prudent to avoid in my former tour. Shybely gave me one of his
men as a guide, and we followed the road which I have already described,
as far as Shmerrin. At a quarter of an hour beyond Shmerrin, we passed
the Wady Rakeik [Arabic].
Boszra [Arabic], is situated in the open plain, two hours distant from
Aaere and is at present the last inhabited place in the south-east
extremity of the Haouran; it was formerly the capital of Arabia
Provincia, and is now, including its ruins, the largest town in the
Haouran.
