Syria

I stayed only one night in Cairo before setting out for Syria. This was in the middle of Sha‘bān of the year 26. ¹ I then travelled to the town of Balbais; it is a large town with many fruit-gardens, ² but I did not see there anyone whom I should wish ³ to mention. I came next to al-Ṣāliḥīya, ⁴ after which we entered the sands and halted at the post-stations on the way through, such as al-Sawāda, al-Warrāda, al-Muṭailib, al-‘Arīsh, and al-Kharrūba. ⁵ | At each of these stations there is a hostelry (funduq), which they call a khān, ⁶ where travellers alight with their beasts, and outside each khān is a public watering-place ⁷ and a shop at which the 72traveller may buy what he requires for himself and his beast. Amongst these stations is the well-known place called Qaṭyā, ⁸ which the people pronounce Qaṭya, where zakāt is collected from the merchants, ⁹ their goods are examined, and their baggage most rigorously searched. There are government offices here, with officers, clerks, and notaries, and its daily revenue is a thousand gold dīnārs. ¹⁰ No one may pass this place in the direction of Syria ¹¹ without a passport from Egypt, nor into Egypt without a passport from Syria, as a measure of protection for a person’s property and of precaution against spies from ‘Irāq. ¹² This road is under guarantee of the bedouins (that is to say, they have been made responsible for guarding it). At nightfall they smooth down the sand so that no | mark is left on it, then the governor comes in the morning and examines the sand. If he finds any track on it he requires the Arabs to fetch the person who made it, and they set out in pursuit of him and never fail to catch him. ¹³ They then bring him to the governor, who punishes him as he sees fit.