Submitted by scott on
Image

Bædeker: (1898)  El-Kunêtra, a neatly and regularly built village, situated 3040 ft. above the sea-level, whence an ancient Roman road leads to Baniyas. The village is the seat of the government of Jôlân (a Kâimmakâm under the Mutesarrif of the Haurân); 1300 inhabitants, mostly Circassians. International Telegraph. Little is left of the ancient village. This is the best place on the route for spending the night. Travellers are cautioned against sleeping in the open air, as heavy dews fall here.  (Route 31, page 304)


This is the site recognized by Ian Strathcarron as "Jonesborough", where Sam and the pilgrims camped September 16, 1867, after departing Damascus. It is also possibly the site named Kefr Hauwar. This site was thought by the pilgrims to possibly be the location of the tomb of Nimrod. This is the village of melancholy dogs and sore-eyed children. Ian Strathcarron visited this site, or tried to at any rate, and found it in the no mans land between Israel and Syria. "I thought it best not to mention to the Minister's assistant that Quneitra sounded so grim when Mark Twain camped there that the Israeli-flattened scene of devastation might well be an improvement."


When I say that that village is of the usual style, I mean to insinuate that all Syrian villages within fifty miles of Damascus are alike—so much alike that it would require more than human intelligence to tell wherein one differed from another. A Syrian village is a hive of huts one story high (the height of a man,) and as square as a dry-goods box; it is mud-plastered all over, flat roof and all, and generally whitewashed after a fashion. The same roof often extends over half the town, covering many of the streets, which are generally about a yard wide. When you ride through one of these villages at noon-day, you first meet a melancholy dog, that looks up at you and silently begs that you won’t run over him, but he does not offer to get out of the way; next you meet a young boy without any clothes on, and he holds out his hand and says “Bucksheesh!”—he don’t really expect a cent, but then he learned to say that before he learned to say mother, and now he can not break himself of it; next you meet a woman with a black veil drawn closely over her face, and her bust exposed; finally, you come to several sore-eyed children and children in all stages of mutilation and decay; and sitting humbly in the dust, and all fringed with filthy rags, is a poor devil whose arms and legs are gnarled and twisted like grape-vines. These are all the people you are likely to see. The balance of the population are asleep within doors, or abroad tending goats in the plains and on the hill-sides. The village is built on some consumptive little water-course, and about it is a little fresh-looking vegetation. Beyond this charmed circle, for miles on every side, stretches a weary desert of sand and gravel, which produces a gray bunchy shrub like sage-brush. A Syrian village is the sorriest sight in the world, and its surroundings are eminently in keeping with it. I would not have gone into this dissertation upon Syrian villages but for the fact that Nimrod, the Mighty Hunter of Scriptural notoriety, is buried in Jonesborough, and I wished the public to know about how he is located. Like Homer, he is said to be buried in many other places, but this is the only true and genuine place his ashes inhabit. When the original tribes were dispersed, more than four thousand years ago, Nimrod and a large party traveled three or four hundred miles, and settled where the great city of Babylon afterwards stood. Nimrod built that city. He also began to build the famous Tower of Babel, but circumstances over which he had no control put it out of his power to finish it. He ran it up eight stories high, however, and two of them still stand, at this day—a colossal mass of brickwork, rent down the centre by earthquakes, and seared and vitrified by the lightnings of an angry God. But the vast ruin will still stand for ages, to shame the puny labors of these modern generations of men. Its huge compartments are tenanted by owls and lions, and old Nimrod lies neglected in this wretched village, far from the scene of his grand enterprise.


Murray (Route 33 page 464) refers to this location as Kuneitirah.  "Kuneitirah is a ruined village of about 80 or 100 houses, built on a low mound. Beside it is a large khan, now also ruinous. It was a strong building intended both for defence and accommodation ; and the country required it. It contains the usual conveniences of spacious caravanseries ; tanks, stables, vaulted chambers, and a mosk."


 

33.125598907471, 35.82389831543
Site Category
Venue
No
Type of Feedback