INHABITANTS OF THE HAOURAN.
297
merly inhabited the small village of Boreika, on the southern borders -
of the Ledja, assured me that from twenty Mouds of wheatseed -
he once obtained thirty Ghararas, or one hundred and
twenty fold. Fields watered by rain (the Arabs call them Boal,
), yield more in proportion to the seed sown, than those which
are artificially watered ; this is owing to the seed being sown thinner ¬
in the former, The Haouran crops are sometimes destroyed
by mice („6), though not so frequently as in the neighbourhood of
Homs and Hamah. Where abundance of water may be conducted
into the fields from neighbouring springs, the soil is again sown,
after the grain harvests, with vegetables, lentils, peas, sesamums,
&c.
The Fellahs who own Fedhans often cultivate one another's
fields in company : a Turk living in a Druse village often wishes to
have a Druse for his companion, to escape in some degree the
vexations of the Druse Sheikh. At the Druse Sheikhs, black
slaves are frequently met with; but the Turk and Christian proprietors ¬
cultivate their lands by hired native labourers. Sometimes the
labourer contracts with a townsman, and receives from him oxen,
ploughs, and seed. A labourer who has one Fedhan or two oxen
under his charge, usually receives at the time of sowing one Gharara ¬
of corn. After the harvest he takes one-third of the produce
of the field ; but among the Druses only a fourth. The master pays
to the government the tax called Miri, and the labourer pays ten
piastres annually. The rest of the agricultural population of the
Haouran consists of those who subsist by daily labour. They in
general earn their living very hardly. I once met with a young
man who had served eight years for his food only ; at the expiration
of that period he obtained in marriage the daughter of his master,
for whom he would, otherwise, have had to pay seven or eight hundred -
piastres. When I saw him he had been married three years;
Qq
