Kerak Castle

Madaba may best be described as a village of what in England we should call squatters.

They are Christian exiles from the Moslem town of Kerak, who about 1880 took possession of a city which had been in ruins some thirteen hundred years, having been devastated, according to a learned monograph upon the subject by the Dominican Père Séjourné, most probably by Chosroes in his destructive march to or from the north.

The present population of some nine hundred, of whom about two-thirds are Greeks, the rest Latins, occupies a small hill about a hundred feet in height, of which almost a third is debris.

The new residents, in digging for foundations, have brought to light a great deal that is of extreme interest, and, as naturally follows, have destroyed still more.

You can preach that to the old women." In certain respects, the people of Madaba stand higher than the Christians west of the Jordan, and offenses against morality are very rare.

Among the genuine Bedou, they are almost unknown.

Monogamy is the rule in Madaba, though in Kerak, whence the people come, polygamy is found even among Christians, and among others is quite usual.

In matters of peace and warfare, they observe the rules of the Bedou, and Schumacher quotes interesting examples of what he truly calls the sound views of honor and manliness to be noticed even among the wild customs of these children of nature.