Om Ezzeitoun is inhabited by thirty or forty families. It appears, by the extent of its ruins, to have been formerly a town of some note. I here copied several inscriptions.
Upon a broken stone in the wall of a public building over the great reservoir of the town, was the following:
The only ancient building of any consequence is a small temple, of which an arch of the interior, and the gate, only remain; on each side of the latter are niches, between which and the gate are these inscriptions:
The two last syllables are on the frame within which the inscription is engraved.
Upon a stone lying on the ground near the temple is the following:
Upon a long narrow stone in the wall of a court-yard near the temple:
I had intended to sleep at Om Ezzeitoun, but I found the Druses very ill-disposed towards me. It was generally reported that I had discovered a treasure in 1810 at Shohba, near this place, and it was supposed that I had now returned to carry off what I had then left behind. I had to combat against this story at almost every place, but I was nowhere so rudely received as at this village, where I escaped ill treatment only by assuming a very imposing air, and threatening with many oaths, that if I lost a single hair of my beard, the Pasha would levy an avania of many purses on the village. I had with me an old passport from Soleiman Pasha, who, though no longer governor of Damascus, had been charged pro tempore with the government till the arrival of the new Pasha, who was expected from Constantinople. Soleiman had retired to his former government at Acre, but his Mutsellim at Damascus very kindly granted me strong letters of recommendation to all the authorities of the country, which were of great use to me in the course of my journey.
I left Om Ezzeitoun late in the evening, to proceed toward the mountain of Haouran. Our road lay on the N. side of Tel Shiehhan,
[p.221]close to which runs the Ledja; and the Wady Lowa descends the mountain on the west side of it. We proceeded in the direction of Soueida, and in an hour and a quarter from the village stopped, after sunset, at an encampment of the Djebel Haouran Arabs. My companion, and a guide whom I had engaged at Om Ezzeitoun, persuaded me to appear before the Arabs as a soldier belonging to the government, in order to get a good supper, of which we were in great want, that of the preceding night, at the saltpetre works, having consisted of only a handful of dry biscuit. We were served with a dish of rice boiled in sour milk, and were much amused by the sports and songs of the young girls of the tribe, which they continued in the moonlight till near midnight. One of the young men had just returned to the encampment, who had been taken prisoner by the Aeneze during a nightly predatory expedition. He showed us the marks of his fetters, and enlarged upon the mode of treating the Rabiat, or prisoner, among the Aeneze. A friend had paid thirty camels for his liberation. In spring the Arabs of the Djebel Haouran and the Ledja take advantage of the approach of the Aeneze, to plunder daily among their enemies; they are better acquainted with the ground than the latter, a part of whose horses and cattle are every spring carried off by these daring mountaineers.
