Haleb, or, as we call it, Aleppo, the present metropolis of Syria[1], though greatly inferior to the cities of Constantinople and Cairo in extent, number of inhabitants, riches, and perhaps several other circumstances, yet, in respect to buildings, yields to none in the Turkish empire.
This city and suburbs stand on eight small hills or eminences, none of them considerable, except that in the middle of the place, on which the castle is erected. This mount is of a conic form, and seems, in a great measure, to be artificial, and raised with the earth thrown up out of a broad deep ditch that surrounds it. The suburbs, called Sheih il Arab, to the N. N. E. are next in height to this, and those to the W. S. W. are much lower than the parts adjacent, and than any other parts of the city.
An old wall not a little decayed, and a broad ditch now in most places turned into gardens, surround the city, the circumference of which is about three miles and an half; but, including the suburbs, which are chiefly to the North East, the whole may be about seven miles[2].
The houses, are composed of apartments, on each of the sides, of a square court all of stone, and consist of a ground floor which is generally arched, and an upper story which is flat on the top, and either terraced with hard plaister, or paved with stone. Their ceilings are of wood neatly painted, and sometimes gilded, as are also the window-shutters, the pannels of some of their rooms, and the cupboard doors, of which they have a great number: these, taken together, have a very agreeable effect. Over the doors and windows within the houses of the Turks, are inscribed passages out of the Koran, or verses either of their own composition, or taken from some of their most celebrated poets. The Christians generally borrow theirs from scripture.
In all their houses the court yard is neatly paved, and, for the most part, has a bason with a jet d’eau in the middle, on one or both sides of which, a small spot is left unpaved for a sort of garden, which often does not exceed a yard or two square; the verdure, however, which is here produced, together with the addition of a few flowers in pots, and the fountains playing, would be a very agreeable sight to the passenger, if there were openings to the street through which these might be discovered, but they are entirely shut up with double doors so contrived, as that, when open, one cannot look into the court yard; and there are no windows to the street, except a very few in their upper rooms; so that nothing is to be seen but dead walls, which make their streets appear very disagreeable to Europeans.
Most of the better sort of houses have an arched alcove within this court open to the north, and opposite to the fountain; the pavement of this alcove is raised about a foot and an half above that of the yard, to serve for a divan[3]. Between this and the fountain the pavement is generally laid out in mosaic work, with various coloured marble; as is also the floor of a large hall with a cupola roof, which commonly has a fountain in the middle, and is almost the only tolerably cool room in their houses during the summer.
The people of fashion have in the outer court but one or two rooms below stairs for themselves, the rest are for servants and stabling; the pavement of this is but rough, as their horses stand there all the summer, except a few hours in the middle of the day. Above stairs is a colonade, if not round the whole court, at least fronting the west, off from which are their rooms and kiosks[4]; these latter are a sort of wooden divans, that project a little way from the other part of the building, and hang over the street; they are raised about one foot and an half higher, than the floor of the room, to which they are quite open, and, by having windows in front and on each side, there is a great draught of air, which makes them cool in the summer, the advantage chiefly intended by them. Beyond this court is another, containing the womens apartments, built much in the same manner that I have described the other houses; some few of them have a tolerable garden, in which, as well as in the outer yard, there is generally a tall cypress tree.
The mosques in Aleppo are numerous, and some few of them magnificent; before each is a square area, in the middle of which, is a fountain for the appointed ablutions before prayers, and behind some of the larger mosques there is a little garden.
Besides these open spaces there are many large khanes or (as most travellers call them) caravan seraijs, consisting of a capacious square, on all sides of which are built on the ground floor a number of rooms, used occasionally for stables, warehouses, or chambers. Above stairs a colonade occupies the four sides, to which opens a number of small rooms, wherein the merchants, as well strangers as natives, transact most of their business.
The streets are generally narrow, but, however, are well paved, and kept remarkably clean.
The market places, called here bazars, are properly, long, covered, narrow streets, on each side of which are a number of small shops just sufficient to hold the tradesman (and perhaps one or two more) with all the commodities he deals in about him, the buyer being obliged to stand without. Each separate branch of business has a particular bazar allotted them, and these, as well as the streets, are all locked up an hour and an half after sunset, and many of them earlier, which is a great security from house-breakers. It deserves to be remembered, how odd soever it may appear, that though their doors are mostly cased with iron, yet their locks are made of wood.
In the suburbs, to the eastward, are their slaughter-houses, in a very airy place, with a large open field before them. The tanners have a khane, where they work, in the south west part of the town near the river.
To the southward, just without the walls in the suburbs, they burn lime; and a little way further is a small village, where they make ropes and catgut, which last manufacture is, at some seasons, extremely offensive.
In Mesherka, which is part of the suburbs on the opposite side of the river to the westward, is a glass-house, where they make a coarse kind of white glass, but they work only a few months in the winter, the greatest part of this manufacture being brought from a village called Armenass, about thirty-five miles to the westward, from whence also they bring the sand used in their glass-house at Aleppo.
The city is supplied with very good water from some springs near the banks of the river at Heylan, about five miles to the north north east, which is conveyed from thence by an aquæduct, and distributed to the different parts of the town by earthen pipes. There is a tradition, that this aquæduct was the work of the empress Helena, and that from her the springs took their present name: this water is sufficient for the necessary purposes of drinking, cookery, &c. Besides this, almost every house has a well, but the water of these, being brackish, is only employed for washing their court yards, and filling the reservoirs for their fountains.
The fuel, used in their houses, is wood and charcoal; for heating their bagnios, they burn the dung of animals, leaves of plants, parings of fruit, and such like, which they employ people to gather and dry for that purpose.
The markets are well supplied with provisions, of which we shall have occasion to give a more particular account.
For at least four or five miles round Aleppo, the ground is very stony and uneven, having a number of small eminences, most of which are as high as any part of the city. From the west south west to the north west by west, this sort of country continues for at least twenty miles, with a number of small fertile plains interspersed. To the northward and southward, after about six or seven miles, the country is level and not stony. To the eastward a vast plain commences, which, though it is called the desart, yet for a great many miles beyond Aleppo, affords a fine fertile soil.
In clear weather, the top of mount Cassius, bearing west by south, and part of the mountains, called Amanus, are to be seen from several places in the city; but, as the nearest of these, viz. that part of Amanus, which stretches to the eastward and approaches to Killis, is at least thirty miles distant from Aleppo, they can be supposed to have but very little influence upon the air of the place, any more than a small conical rocky hill, called Sheih Barakat, at about twenty miles to the west by north, and a narrow chain of low rocky hills, usually named the Black Mountains, to the south south east, at about ten miles distance.
The river Coic[5] (if a stream scarce six or eight yards wide deserves that name) passes along the western part of the city within a few yards of the walls, and barely serves to water a narrow slip of gardens upon its banks, reaching from about five miles north to about three miles south of the town. Besides these gardens, there are a few more near a village called Bab Allah, about two miles to the north-east, which are supplied by the aquæduct.
The rising-grounds above the gardens, to which the water cannot be conveyed, are in some places laid out in vineyards interspersed with olive, fig, and pistachio trees, as are also many spots to the eastward, where there are no gardens.
Inconsiderable as this stream and these gardens may appear, yet they contain almost the only water and trees that are to be met with for twenty or thirty miles round, for the villages are all destitute of trees, and most of them only supplied with water by what rain they can save in cisterns.
The latitude of Aleppo, as fixed by a French mathematician who was there in the year 1753, is thirty-six degrees twelve minutes N. latitude, which, though some minutes different from the observations of others, yet is probably the most exact, as he was not only a man of eminence in his profession, but was also furnished with the best instruments, an advantage which perhaps the other observators had not. The longitude is said to be 37 D. 40 M. east from London. Its distance from the sea, in a direct line is about sixty miles, and its height from thence is considerable, but not yet accurately ascertained.
Having thus finished what was thought necessary concerning the situation of Aleppo, with respect to the parts adjacent, let us now take a general view of the face of the country throughout Syria.
The coast in general is bordered by very high mountains, except near Seleucia, and there from mount Pieria to mount Cassius, which is ten or fifteen miles, is quite level, leaving a passage for the river Orontes to empty itself into the Mediterranean. Those mountains are covered with trees, shrubs, and a number of plants; so that, different from the plains, they retain their verdure all the summer. As they abound with springs these collect into little rivulets, and in a few places on that side next the sea rivers, which plentifully irrigate the plains that are between them and the sea. Behind them, on the land side, are generally extensive plains which receive great benefit from the streams that descend from the mountains, nigh to which they are well cloathed with myrtle, oleander, and other shrubs. The opposite boundaries of those plains are for the most part low, barren, rocky hills, and behind them other large plains, which though they have no water but the rain which falls in the winter, yet are exceeding fertile; and this is not improbably occasioned by the quantity of soil which must necessarily be washed down into them from the surrounding little rocky hills, by the violent rains of the winter. This intermixture of rocky eminencies and plains reaches within land about sixty or seventy miles, after which the country is generally level, from what I have been told, all the way to Bassorah, and is properly Arabia Deserta.
In all Syria there is but one river, (the Orontes) that having its rise on the land side of the high mountains, finds its way to the sea; the rest, which indeed are but few and inconsiderable, being soon absorbed by the thirsty plains through which they run, more especially as they receive but very few supplies in their passage: and even the Orontes, though it be swelled by a number of little brooks from the high mountains behind which it runs, and derives a farther supply from the lake of Antioch, yet seems as considerable a great many miles above Antioch, as where it empties itself into the Mediterranean.
The seasons in this country, generally speaking, are exceeding regular, particularly at Aleppo, where the air is usually very healthy, and so pure and free from damps that all the inhabitants, of what rank soever, sup and sleep in their court-yards, or upon the house tops, exposed to the open air, from the end of May to the middle of September, without suffering any inconveniency from it. However, as I shall hereafter have occasion to be more particular on this subject, I will at present only mention in general the changes of the seasons as they appear to our senses.
The natives reckon the severity, of the winter to last but forty days, which they call Maarbanie, beginning from the twelfth of December, and ending the twentieth of January; and in fact this computation comes near the truth. The air, during this time, is excessively piercing, particularly to strangers, even though they are but just come from a cold climate. In the thirteen years that I resided there, it happened not above three times that the ice was of sufficient strength to bear a man, and that too with caution, and only in a situation where the sun-beams never reached it. The snow, excepting three years, never lay above a day, and even in the depth of winter, when the sun shines out and there is no wind, it is warm, nay sometimes almost hot, in the open air. Narcissus’s are in flower during the whole of this weather, and hyacinths and violets at the latest appear before it is quite over.
As February advances, the fields which were partly green before, now by the springing up of the later grain become entirely covered with an agreeable verdure, and though the trees continue in their leafless wintery state till the end of this month, or the beginning of March, yet the almond, when latest, being in blossom before the middle of February, and quickly succeeded by the apricot, peach, &c. gives the gardens an agreeable appearance. The spring now becomes extremely pleasant, and has no defect but its short duration, for as March brings it on with rapidity, so April advances with like haste towards summer, and the gay livery that the fields wore in those two months, and indeed most of the winter, fades before the middle of May; and before the end of this month the whole country puts on so parched and barren an aspect, that one would scarce think it was capable of producing any thing but the very few robust plants which still have vigour enough to resist the extreme heats. From this time not so much as one refreshing shower falls, and scarce a friendly cloud appears to shelter us from the excessive heat of the sun till about the middle of September, when generally a little rain falling, either in Aleppo, or the neighbourhood, refreshes the air greatly.
From these first rains till the second, an interval of at least between twenty and thirty days, the weather is temperate, serene, and extremely delightful, and if the rains have been at all plentiful, though but of a few hours duration, the country soon assumes a new face; after the second rains the weather becomes variable, and winter approaches by degrees, not with so swift a pace as the summer, for the greater part of the trees retain their leaves till the middle of November; the most delicate never make fires till about the end of this month, and some few pass the whole winter without them.
It is seldom that Aleppo is troubled with very hard gales of wind; the coldest winds in the winter are those that blow from between the north west and the east, and the nearer they approach to the last-mentioned point, the colder they are during winter and part of the spring. But from the beginning of May to the end of September, the winds blowing from the very same points bring with them a degree and kind of heat which one would imagine came out of an oven, and which, when it blows hard, will affect metals within the houses, such as locks of room doors, nearly as much as if they had been exposed to the rays of the sun; yet it is remarkable that water kept in jars is much cooler at this time than when a cool westerly wind blows. In this season the only remedy is to shut all the doors and windows, for though these winds do not kill as the sumyel, (which are much of the same nature) do on the desart, yet they are extremely troublesome, causing a languor and difficulty in respiration to most people. Many summers pass without any of these winds, and, during my stay, in no summer have there been more than four or five days of them; for though the easterly and northerly winds reign most in the winter, yet providence has wisely ordered it that the westerly winds are the most frequent in the summer, without which, considering the intense heat of the sun’s rays, and the reflection from a bare rocky tract of ground, and from the white stone walls of the houses, the country would scarcely be habitable.
Where the town is situated it is, as most of the other rising grounds, rocky, and the soil just round it a white light earth, very stoney, and not fertile; but in most other parts of the country, the soil is a redish, or sometimes blackish light mold, and produces the fruits of the earth in great abundance.
A considerable part of the country lies uncultivated, from the tyranny of their government, the insecurity of property, and the consequent indolence of the inhabitants; but very little is allowed to lie fallow with a view to culture, nor do they use much manure.
They begin to plough about the latter end of September, and sow their earliest wheat about the middle of October. The frosts are never severe enough to prevent their ploughing all the winter, so that they continue to sow all sorts of grain to the end of January, and barley sometimes after the middle of February. No harrow is used, but the ground is ploughed a second time after it is sown, in order to cover the grain; in some places where the soil is a little sandy they plough but once, and that is after sowing. The plough is so light, that a man of a moderate strength may easily carry it with one hand: a little cow, or at most two, and sometimes only an ass, is sufficient to draw it in ploughing, and one man both drives and holds it with so much ease that he generally smokes his pipe at the same time.
Besides Turkey wheat, barley, and cotton[6], they sow in the fields, cicers[7], lentils[8], beans[9], chickling[10], small vetch[11], sesamum, ricinus, hemp, a green kidney bean[12], called by the natives mash, and much eat; musk melon[13] water melon[14], a small sort of cucumber called ajour, fennel-flower[15], fœnugreek[16], bastard-saffron[17], Turkey millet.
About Aleppo they sow no oats, their horses being all fed with barley; but near Antioch, and on the coast of Syria, I have seen some few fields of them.
Near the city tobacco[18] is planted in the gardens only, but in the villages about ten or fifteen miles off a large quantity is planted in the fields, and all the hills from Shogre to Latachia produce such plenty of this vegetable that it makes no inconsiderable branch of trade, particularly with Egypt.
The harvest commences with the barley about the beginning of May, and that, as well as the wheat, is generally all reaped by the twentieth of the same month. The more wet the spring the later the harvest and the more plentiful the crop. As soon as it is cut down, or rather pluck’d up, (for this is their more usual way) it is carried to some neighbouring spot of hard even ground, and there dislodged from its hulk by a machine like a sledge, which runs upon two or three rollers, drawn by horses, cows, or asses. In these rollers are fixed low iron wheels, notched like the teeth of a law, and pretty sharp, at once cutting the straw and separating the grain.
Their granaries are even at this day subterraneous grottos, the entry to which is by a small hole or opening like a well, often in the high way, and as they are commonly left open when empty, they make it not a little dangerous riding near the villages in the night.
The cotton is not gathered till October, and such spots as are sown with it yield a pleasant verdure when every thing else seems to be burnt up. In the neighbourhood of Aleppo there is no great quantity.
The olives produced about the city are, as I apprehend, very little more than sufficient for pickling for the use of the inhabitants. But at Edlib, about thirty miles to the south west, and the other villages near it, they have large plantations affording yearly abundance of oil, with which, and the ashes brought by the Arabs from the desart, a very considerable quantity of soap is annually made, some at Aleppo, but the greatest part at Edlib.
When proper care is taken, the oil is very good, but as the people of the country are not nice in their taste, they are less disposed to be attentive about it.
The ricinus furnishes an oil which serves the common people for burning in their lamps, and from the sesamum an oil likewise is extracted called seerage, consumed chiefly by the Jews.
The vineyards round the city produce several sorts of tolerably good grapes, sufficient for the supply of the markets. I need scarce mention that the Turks make no wine, but the Christians and Jews are allowed to make sufficient for their own use, upon payment of a certain tax; and the grapes for this purpose, as well as raisins, are all brought from some distance. Their white wines are palatable, but thin and poor, and seldom keep sound above a year. The red wine is deep-coloured, strong, and heady, without any flavour, and much sooner produces sleep or stupidity than mirth and elevation of spirits.
From the raisins, usually mixed with a few aniseeds, they draw an ardent spirit, which they stile arrack, and of this the Christians and Jews drink pretty liberally.
The inspissated juice of the grape[19], called here dibbs, is brought to the city in skins, and sold in the publick markets; it has much the appearance of coarse honey, is of a sweet taste, and in great use among the people of all sorts.
Though use seems the chief thing consulted in the laying out of their gardens (except in a few where they have small summer-houses) and they have not either fine walks, or any sort of ornament, yet, after what has been said of the country, it will be easily imagined how agreeable their verdure and shade must be in the hot weather, and consequently how much they must be resorted to at that season. But this is not the only refreshment they afford the inhabitants, for the markets are from them plentifully supplied with several sorts of fruits, pot-herbs, roots, and sallading; though, as they are obliged to use a great deal of water (which they raise with the Persian wheel) it must be owned that their fruits in general have very little flavour, nor do they often stay till they are ripe before they gather them. The following are all the variety here produced.
Cherries three sorts; the common red cherry[20], the white heart cherry[21], and Visnia cherry[22]; apricots two sorts, one of which has a sweet kernel, and is an exceeding good fruit, they ingraft it upon the almond, and reckon its delicacy proceeds from that particular circumstance[23]. Peaches but indifferent[24]; several sorts of plumbs[25]; cornelian cherry[26]; two or three sorts of apples, but very bad[27]; some indifferent good pears[28]; quinces[29]; pomegranates of three sorts, sweet, sour, and another between both[30]; almonds[31]; black mulberries[32]; white mulberries in great abundance; with the leaves of this tree the silk-worms are fed[33]; walnuts[34]; figs[35] of four kinds; hazel-nuts[36], the kernels of which they parch and eat between meals. Pistachio nuts[37], of a very good quality, and of which a considerable quantity is yearly sent to Europe; jujubs[38]; olive[39]; sumach, used much as a relisher in many of their dishes[40]; one tree only of St. John’s bread[41], is to be found in the gardens, though it is very common on the coast, and the fruit sold in the bazars at Aleppo.
These trees are all standards planted promiscuously, and very little obliged to culture. In some places they are thrown together in thickets, in others they form inclosures for the beds of garden-stuff, in which inclosures are also found the plane tree[42], white poplar[43], common white willow[44]; another willow that bears a sweet-scented flower, called by the natives baan, from whence they distill a simple cordial water much used[45]. Horn-beam[46], a very few oaks[47], ash[48], lilac[49], bead tree[50], a very few of the nettle trees[51], oleaster[52], tamarisk[53], turpentine tree[54], a very few medlars[55], elder[56], roses of various kinds[57], thorn[58], balaustine tree[59], forming on the whole a wild and irregular but agreeable prospect. The cypress trees[60] are generally planted nigh the house; the black-berry[61] also grows wild all over the gardens. They have neither goosberries nor currants now, though in Rawolf’s time there seems to have been a few.
The pot-herbs, &c. produced by the gardens will be best ranged according to the seasons in which they are most plentiful, in order to give a clear idea of the food of the inhabitants in the different seasons, for which reason also I shall here take the liberty to mention several that have been already enumerated.
From the beginning of November to the end of March, cabbage[62], spinnage[63], endive[64], radishes of two sorts[65], turnips[66], beet[67], carrot[68], are in great plenty; collyflowers[69] make their appearance towards the end of January, are in great abundance in February and part of March, by the end of which month they become scarce. April and May produce lettuces of different kinds[70], beans[71], truffles[72], artichoaks[73], which are very small, and chiefly eat by the natives when very young, so as when stew’d they eat the whole; and pease[74].
The two last-mentioned remain in season all the month of June. Purslane[75], and cucumbers[76] come in season also in May, and are in plenty till the end of July; in September and October the latter are again brought to market in great abundance, and towards the end of this last mentioned month the young ones are gathered for pickling.
The months of June, July, and August produce musk melons[77] in great abundance; and a small cucumber called ajoor, which is often extremely bitter. To these, in the month of July, are added water melons[78], which we have in great perfection; Jews mallows[79]; kidney beans[80]; adders cucumbers[81]; Syrian mallow[82]; lupines[83]; as also several kinds of gourds[84]; three species of mad apples[85], called by the natives badinjan; which remain all September, and the latter as far as the middle of November, making the principal part of the food of the inhabitants during the months of July, August, September, and October; and they are so fond of them, that they preserve them various ways, so as to afford occasionally a dish through the whole year. Squash[86] comes in towards the end of September, and continues all the year. The orange-shaped pumpion[87] we have more common in the summer-months. They have none of the colocassia at Aleppo, but great quantities at Tripoli; where the shopkeepers use the leaves (as Rawolf mentions of Aleppo) instead of paper, for putting up their wares.
The few following are to be met with at all seasons; parsley[88], cress[89], mint[90], onions[91], and garlick[92]; which though they come last in the list, yet they are far from being the least in use or esteem among the natives.
In the gardens they also cultivate carraway[93], coriander[94], dill[95], cypress canes[96], and common reed[97], both much used by the manufacturers of silk and cotton stuffs, by way of reels, &c.
Besides what have been already mentioned, which are produced by culture, the fields afford the bugloss[98], mallow[99], and asparagus[100], which they use as pot-herbs; the capper[101], which they pickle; the dandelion[102], and water cresses[103], used in sallading; and the summer savory[104], which, dried and powdered, and mixed with salt, they call zater, and often eat as a relisher with bread, serving many of the natives by way of breakfast in the winter-season; also the Spanish nut[105]; and a species of hartwort[106], called by them secacul; both which they eat crude.
In their little gardens they cultivate, besides the roses already mentioned, the Dutch hundred-leaf rose[107]; monthly rose[108], which, by proper management, flowers about ten months in the year; a few plants of the passion flower[109]; and several kinds of jasmin[110]: oleander[111], and myrtle[112], grow plentifully in all the water’d parts of Syria, but here only by culture. Henna[113] is kept in pots, and preserved with great care from the inclemency of the winter, being much esteemed on account of its sweet-scented flowers; Spanish broom[114], vervain mallow[115], night-shade[116], winter cherry[117]; and abundance of flowers, several of which have been brought there by the Europeans, and of which they are very fond, the women in particular, who decorate their head-dress with them: of these the chief are the ranunculus and anemony, carnation, hyacinth, narcissus, violet, tuberose[118], African marigold[119], lupines, sow-bread, Indian bellflower[120], marvel of Peru[121], columbine, stock-gelliflower. They also raise in these little gardens Guinea pepper[122], which they use as a pickle; and love apples[123], which are but little ate by any of the natives, except the Jews; rosemary[124], basil[125], flower gentle[126], female balsamine[127], musk scabious, rue[128], wormwood[129]. The common Seville orange[130], the sweet Seville orange[131], China orange[132], common lemon[133], sweet lemon[134], and citron[135], are also with care preserved here by the natives, for they will not bear a severe winter in Aleppo; though they are in great abundance at Byas, Latachia, Tripoly, and other places on the coast of Syria; from whence the city is plentifully supplied with these fruits.
Neither my time, nor knowledge in botany, even though assisted by my brother, who had a great deal more of both, were equal to the task of making a compleat list of all the plants growing round Aleppo; but though several may have been omitted, great care has been taken that none should be inserted in the following account but what have been determined with as much accuracy as possible.[136] It may not be improper to observe, that the plants in general are of a much humbler growth here than in most other parts.
Several plants have been already mentioned as flowering early in the year, as hyacinth[137], daffodil[138], tulip[139], and violet[140]; but the Spanish nut is what may be called the harbinger of the spring, and esteemed so by the natives, who are fond of its roots, which are sold at this season in the publick streets in great quantities; and from this time the botanizing season commences. Towards the middle of February the banks of the river are covered with a small cranesbill[141]; and about the same place is found the daizy[142], mentioned by Rawolf. To these are quickly joined a profusion of plants, but chiefly in the gardens and low grounds, meadow saffron[143]; flower-de-luce several species[144], bulbous flower-de-luce[145], snow drop[146], ox eye[147], marigold[148], archangel[149], fumitory[150], shepherds purse[151], dandelion[152], hypecoon[153], grape hyacinth[154], saffron[155], great variety of crowfoot[156], particularly one species (ranuncul. vern. rotundifol. minor), that generally covers all the marshy parts of the gardens.