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"You go first," I replied. "You most need to know." 'March 8. Terrible feet. Got to Chagan Hauran. 'March 14. Boyinto accompanied me to Chagan Balgas with his pony. Saw him sitting as long as I was in sight. Feet bad. 'March 21. Left Pei Kuan at 4 A.M. Dark and snow. Terrible march over slippery stones. Nan Kou at 7 A.M. No donkey on such a snowy day. Hired the next twenty-seven li.
Sir Henry had telegraphed to know what it all meant. As Richard had still a fortnight's leave on hand, he thought he would use it by going to return the visit of the Druzes, who had paid us many friendly visits during our two years' sojourn at Damascus, and had asked Richard to come and see them in the Hauran. He called upon the Wali before his departure, and told him of his projected visit.
The Wadi Hauran, a large ravine reaching back into the desert for a hundred and fifty miles, became a boiling torrent. When we crossed over, it was as dry as a bone. A heavy lorry on which an anti-aircraft gun was mounted had been swirled away and smashed to bits. The ration question had been difficult all along, but now any further supply was temporarily out of the question.
North of Gilead and the Yarmuk was the volcanic plateau of Bashan, Ziri-Basana, or "the Plain of Bashan," as it is termed in the cuneiform tablets of Tel el-Amarna. Bashan was included in the Haurân, the name of which we first meet with on the monuments of the Assyrian king Assur-bani-pal. The gardens of Damascus lie 2260 feet above the sea.
But it would seem, at the same time, that his conquests were very incomplete; they did not include Judaea or Philistia, Idumaea, or the tribes of the Hauran; and they left untouched the greater number of the Phoenician cities.
The following morning we spent in visiting the village schools and stables, and in listening to the Sitt's grievances, on which she waxed eloquent. At night we had a great dinner, and after dinner there were dancing and war-songs between the Druzes of the Lebanon and the Druzes of the Hauran. They also performed pantomimes and sang and recited tales of love and war until far into the night.
And this shall be the border of the land toward the north side, from the great sea, the way of Hethlon, as men go to Zedad; Hamath, Berothah, Sibraim, which is between the border of Damascus and the border of Hamath; Hazarhatticon, which is by the coast of Hauran. And the border from the sea shall be Hazarenan, the border of Damascus, and the north northward, and the border of Hamath.
The rocks of S. Chamas that look down on this peaceful sheet of water, rarely traversed by a sail, are riddled with caves, still inhabited, as they were when Herodotus wrote 450 years before the Christian era. The following account of an underground town in Palestine is from the pen of Consul Wetzstein, and describes one in the Hauran.
Burckhardt remained at Aleppo from September, 1809, to February, 1812, pursuing his studies of Syrian manners and customs, and of the language of the country, with but one interruption, a six months' excursion to Damascus, Palmyra, and the Hauran, a country which had hitherto been visited by Seetzen only.
During these travels Burton and Drake made some valuable discoveries and saw many extraordinary peoples, though none more extraordinary than the lazy and filthy Troglodytes of the Hauran, who shared the pre-historic caves with their cows and sheep, and fed on mallows just as their forefathers are represented as having done in the vivid thirtieth chapter of Job, and in the pages of Agatharchides.
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