BOSZRA.
235
Near it is another altar, with a defaced inscription.
In going northward from the springs, I passed the rivulet Djeheir, ¬
whose source is at a short distance, within the precincts of
the town. It issues from a stone basin, and was conducted anciently ¬
in à canal. Over it seems to have stood a small temple, to
judge by the remains of several columns that are lying about. The
source is full of small fish. Youssef Pasha built a barrack here
also; but it was destroyed by the Wahabi who made an incursion ¬
into the Haouran in 1810, headed by their chief Ibn Saoud,
who encamped for two days near this spot, without being able to
take the castle, though garrisoned by only seven Moggrebyns.
The banks of the Djeheir are a favourite encampment of the Bedouins, ¬
and especially of the Aeneze.
Beyond the town walls, and at some distance to the north of the
Djeheir, stands the famous mosque El Mebrak; and near it is the
cemetery of the town. Ibn Affan, who first collected the scattered
leaves of the Koran into a book, relates that when Othman, in
coming from the Hedjaz, approached the neighbourhood of Boszra
with his army, he ordered his people to build a mosque on the spot
where the camel which bore the Koran should lie down; such was
the origin of the mosque El Mebrak.* It is of no great size ; its
interior was embellished, like that of the great mosque, with Cufic
inscriptions, of which a few specimens yet remain over the Mehrab, ¬
or niche towards which the face of the Imam is turned in
praying. The dome or Kubbe which covered its summit has been
recently destroyed by the Wahabi.
The above description comprises all the principal antiquities of
Boszra. A great number of pillars lie dispersed in all directions
in the town ; but I observed no remains of granite. Its immediate
* Mebrak () means the spot where a camel couches down, or a halting-place.
