'A handbook of Syria (including Palestine). London: Naval Staff Intelligence Department, June 1919' [92r] (188/738)
The record is made up of 1 volume (365 folios). It was created in 1919. It was written in English. The original is part of the British Library: India Office The department of the British Government to which the Government of India reported between 1858 and 1947. The successor to the Court of Directors. Records and Private Papers Documents collected in a private capacity. .
Transcription
This transcription is created automatically. It may contain errors.
DISTRIBUTION AND DENSITY OF POPULATION 177
plain to the top of the hill with the view of obtaining
better protection from Bedouin depredations. Where both
advantages (defence and water-supply) cannot be combined,
the latter consideration gives way to the former. Thus many
villages are half a mile away from their wells ; and in places
villages are established where there are no springs, and where
the water-supply is contained in open tanks or cisterns, which
depend on the rainfall. The size of any settlement is ulti
mately determined by the water-supply.
Since, without a reasonable degree of protection from
marauders, no community can exist, the area wherein it is
possible for town and village life to be maintained depends
very largely on the efficiency of the government at any
particular time. Complaints occur in many books of travel
of the inefficiency of the Ottoman Government, which by its
failure to suppress the nomad raiders permits large areas,
which might be profitably cultivated, to lie waste. It would
seem doubtful, however, whether in these cases bad govern
ment alone is responsible ; for it has been shown that the
tendency to raid the cultivated lands varies inversely with the
rainfall and the scarcity which want of rain produces among
the nomads is largely the cause of their raids.
The tendency of late years has been to increase the popu
lation of the towns at the expense of the villages. Reasons
given for this are the modern civil code, owing to which
agricultural land has largely passed from communal owner
ship into the hands of individuals ; and the ruin of native
industries by the introduction of cheap manufactured goods
from Europe. Thus in a village where a few years ago
forty looms were at work only six were found by a recent
traveller. Another reason is doubtless the better piotection
which the town affords. Thus many villages in the rich and
fertile lands of the Hauran were laid waste by the Bedouin
because the villagers declined to pay the blackmail called
khuwweh, ‘ fraternity ’; the people fearing further ill treatment
then sought more secure abodes in the vicinity of towns
more directly under Turkish rule.
About this item
- Content
Admiralty handbook regarding Syria (including Palestine) 'to as far north as the River Orontes and a line Antioch-Aleppo-Meskeneh. For details of the part of Syria beyond this line reference must be made to the Handbook of Asia Minor , Vol. iv, Part 2 (C.B. 847 C).'
'Contents. Chapters:
- I. Boundaries and Physical Survey, p 9 (folio 7)
- II. Climate, p 24 (folio 14v)
- III. Minerals, Flora and Fauna, p 93 (folio 50)
- IV. Military History, p 109 (folio 58)
- V. Inhabitants, p 175 (folio 91)
- VI. Turkish Administration, p 236 (folio 121v)
- VII. Agriculture, p 252 (folio 129v)
- VIII. Industry and Trade, p 276 (folio 141v)
- IX. Currency, Weights and Measures, p 318 (folio 162v)
- X. Jebel Ansarīyeh, p 325 (folio 166)
- XI. Country East of Jebel Ansarīyeh, p 344 (folio 175v)
- XII. Lebanon, Anti-Lebanon, and Damascus Plain, p 357 (folio 182)
- XIII. River Systems of Northern Syria, p 395 (folio 201)
- XIV. Judea and the Southern Desert, p 427 (folio 217)
- XV. Samaria (including Carmel), p 472 (folio 239v)
- XVI. Galilee, p 515 (folio 261)
- XVII. Haurān and Jaulān, p 556 (folio 281v)
- XVIII. 'Ajlūn and Northern Belqa, p 580 (folio 293v)
- XIX. Southern Belqa and Ardh el-Kerak, p 612 (folio 309v)
- XX. El-Jibāl and Esh-Shera, p 636 (folio 321v)
- XXI. The Ghōr (Jordan and the Dead Sea); and Wādi 'Arabah, p 645 (folio 326)
- Appendix: Conventional Spellings, p 668 (folio 337v)
- Index, p 669 (folio 338)
- Plates, p 725' [missing]
- Extent and format
- 1 volume (365 folios)
- Arrangement
The volume contains a contents page (folio 6) and an index (folios 338-365).
- Physical characteristics
Foliation: the foliation sequence commences at the front cover with 1 and terminates at the inside back cover with 367; these numbers are written in pencil, are circled, and are located in the top right corner of the recto The front of a sheet of paper or leaf, often abbreviated to 'r'. side of each folio. Pagination: the volume also contains an original printed pagination sequence. The volume originally contained fourteen plates showing maps, bound into the back of the volume. These are now missing; details of the plates can be found at folio 5v.
- Written in
- English in Latin script View the complete information for this record
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- Reference
- IOR/L/MIL/17/16/15
- Title
- 'A handbook of Syria (including Palestine). London: Naval Staff Intelligence Department, June 1919'
- Pages
- front, back, spine, edge, head, tail, front-i, 2r:366v, back-i
- Author
- East India Company, the Board of Control, the India Office, or other British Government Department
- Usage terms
- Open Government Licence