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its position, which is open towards the west. Even during the hottest days, when e.g., in the Ghûta a perfect calm prevails, so that no breeze is felt, this cool and moist sea-breeze blows refreshingly and regularly over the plain; and hence the Hauranitish poet never speaks of his native country without calling it the “cool-blowing Nukra” (en-nukra el-‛adı̂je). But as to the fertility of the district, there is indeed much good arable land in the country east of the Jordan, as in Irbid and Suwêt, of the same kind as between Salt and ‘Ammân, but nowhere is the farming, in connection with a small amount of labour (since no manure is used), more productive than in Hauran, or more profitable; for the transparent “Batanaean wheat” (hinta bethenı̂je) is always at least 25 per cent. higher in price than other kinds. Hence the agriculture of that region also, in times of peace and security (during the first six centuries after Christ), produced that fondness for building, some of the magnificent memorials of which are our astonishment in the present day; and, in fact, not unfrequently the inscriptions testify that the buildings themselves owe their origin to the produce of the field. Thus, in the locality of Nâhite in the Nukra, I found the following fragment of an inscription:...Μασαλέμου Ράββου κτίσμα ἐξ ἰδίων κόπων γεωργικῶν ἐν ἔτι στ, Masalemos son of Rabbos set up (this memorial) out of the produce of his farming in the year 280. Of a like kind is the following remains of two distichs in Marduk: . . . δρός τε σαόφρων | . . . μεγαρόν | . . . ις ἀνάπαυμα μέγιστον | . . . γεωπονίης. In Shakkâ the longer inscription of a mausoleum in a state of good preservation begins: Βάσσος ἑῆς πάτρης μεγακύδεος ἀγλαὸν ὄμμα Ἐκ σφετέρου καμάτοιο γεωπονίης τέ μ ̓ ἔδειμεν.
Bassos, beaming eye of the honourable city of his birth,
Has built me out of the produce of his own tillage.