There are several
fragments of columns of one foot and of one foot and a half in diameter.
In two different places a short column was standing in the centre of a
round paved area of about ten feet in diameter. There is likewise a deep
well, walled in, but now dry.
The country around these ruins is very capable of cultivation.
SOURCES OF THE JORDAN
[p.42]Near the lower city are groups of olive trees. Pieces of feldspath
of various colours are scattered about in great quantities upon the
chalky rock of this mountain. I found in going up a species of locust
with six very long legs, and a slender body of about four inches in
length. My guide told me that this insect was called [This is the
abbreviation of - [Arabic].] [Arabic] Salli al-nabi, i.e. "pray to the
Prophet."
I descended the mountain in the direction towards the source of the
Jordan, and passed, at the foot of it, the miserable village of Kerwaya.
Behind the mountain of Bostra is another, still higher, called Djebel
Meroura Djoubba. At one hour E. from Kerwaye, in the Houle, is the tomb
of a Turkish Sheikh, with a few houses near it, called Kubbet el Arbai-
in w-el-Ghadjar [Arabic].
The greater part of the fertile plain of the Houle is uncultivated; the
Arabs El Faddel, El Naim, and the Turkmans pasture their cattle here.
