3-053-591 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Giant Cities of Bashan - Busrar; Um es Zeitoon; Musmieh; Salkhad; Busan; El Karayeh; Kanawat; Suweldeh, 1873. 'Bashan now forms part of...the neighbourhood of Damascus called the Hauran. The name of Bashan is not found in history after the captivity... Not long ago the Rev. William Parry, D.C.L., accompanied by his wife and two English friends, travelled in perfect safety through this seldom-visited district - "this mysterious region," as the Count de Vogué calls it. They depended solely for protection from the Bedaween [ie Bedouin], so much dreaded by the Christians of Syria, on two Kurdish soldiers supplied by the Governor-General of Syria, and letters of introduction to the Druse Sheikhs from the Druse Caimakam and Sheiks of Mount Lebanon. No building was seen there which Dr. Parry considered to be older than the Christian era. Nowhere did he see anything which he could regard as the work of "the Giants of Bashan"...With the exception of a strange inscription found at Choraba, a copy of which he laid before the secretary of the Palestine Exploration Fund, the numerous inscriptions seen by him on the ruined houses and public edifices of the Hauran were found to be for the most part Greek, of the era of Bostra".' From "Illustrated London News", 1873.