Princeton Expeditions to Syria (1899, 1904-1905, 1909)

March Cash Rec'd Paid

April 15th 1905 Excited talk, and crowds of the people in the streets. The women just as in many of one street fights & riots, being the wildest. There were weird looking tall men bare legged to above the knees with short white skirts on and long hair projecting on all sides from under little skull caps finely embroidered in many brilliant colors and carry clubs (line drawing of a club) like bludgeons. I thought they were a lot of fanatics and had made trouble for our people who were not visible anywhere. There seemed to be a labarinth of narrow streets. P+J. rode into the crowd to find out what the matter was. It was over a woman and the people were fighting among themselves. Everything seemed to be mixed up. We rode out of the town by a back way, and discovered that the rest of our party had left 4:05 proceeding W. through grain fields most of way and on the plain arriving 4:47 Sermeda, an inhabited town on the plains (pop. est. 500) tall tower of mosque (minaret). No stops. at 5:15 we left the plains and ascended to the W. N. W. a narrow valley winding and very rough & rocky until on a table land we reached 5:45 Bārbiskā, an uninhabitited ruined town class "A" proceeding on ascent in same direction we arrived at camp at Dâr Ḳitā 6:10.

Apr. 20th 1905 A slight rise of ground & then descended to a pocket between the hills with a wadi decscending to S.E.arriving in 10 mins. at Kfellūsîn. A quite widely scattered ruined town, tower standing 1 church standing, 1 in foundation, walls of a good quality house partly standing. Left at 5 12 going down wadi to S.E. for 6 mins then following another wadi in which is a road to Dana. We covered a low rocky hill about 6 30 and arrived at plains of Sumeda passing by Ḥizreh 7 00, Tell 'Adeh 7 30 & arriving at camp Dêr Tell 'Adeh