Dayr Marsarjis

The Monastery of Marsarjis stands above a town three farsakhs away, on the top of a high mountain that can be seen from several farsakhs off. ¹

At its gate is a tree whose kind no one knows. Its leaves never fall, and it bears a fruit like an almond. Al-Umari suggests that it is the tree that Ibn Wahshiyya said is the only one of its kind in the world. On its mountain are starlings that never leave it and are never hunted, and in its ravines are many snakes, which keep people from hunting them at night. ¹