Page:The Nestorians and their rituals, volume 1.djvu/406

350 architecture. The town is not very clean, but is considered healthy; the climate in summer during the day is very hot, but the nights are cool and pleasant. When I was here in March, 1836, the nights were bitterly cold, but the sun was hardly up when the heat was scorching, reminding one forcibly of Jacob's expostulation with Laban somewhere in the vicinity of Harrân, when he said: "In the day the drought consumed me, and the frost by night, and my sleep departed from mine eyes."

Birejik contains a population of 1500 families composed of Turks, Turcomans, Arabs, Christians, and a few resident Jews. Turkish is the only language spoken except by the Arabs, who seldom speak any other than their own native tongue. The Christians, who are all Armenians, have a church and a priest. The bulk of the people are petty traders and craftsmen; the Arabs and Turcomans, who live chiefly in the numerous caves which skirt the hills around, are engaged in tending the flocks of sheep which are kept here for the Aleppo and other Syrian markets. The custody of the town is entrusted to a Mutsellim, and a few irregular troops. When I called upon this official in 1849 he was playing chess with two merchants of the town in his shirt sleeves, and his Frank trowsers were attached to his extremities by a solitary button. His assistant seemed anxious to copy the style of his superior, for when he returned my visit he was without coat or stockings. I have often had occasion to observe, that the substitution of the Frank for the Oriental costume by the Turks has rendered them very careless in their mode of dress.

There is little cultivation in the vicinity of the town, if we except the wheat and other grain which are raised in great abundance in the vast plains bordering the Euphrates, and which form the staple articles of commerce in this district. Fruits are scarce, but melons, cucumbers, onions, and other vegetables are grown in large quantities on the banks of the river.

But the most interesting object at Birejik is the old castle, which though shattered and fast crumbling into ruin, presents a most imposing spectacle. It is built upon an isolated rock at the northern extremity of the town, of an oblong form, and upwards of two hundred feet from the ground below. The entrance is by a narrow gateway leading through an excavated