MOSK AT KEFR ET TÛR-CHURCH OF THE ASCENSION. 417

the Saviour, made in the rock when he was about to ascend up to heaven, is shown to devout pilgrims, and has been ever since the seventh century. It has no resemblance whatever to a human foot; and it is humiliating to see the pilgrims bowing to, praying before, and covering with kisses, a forgery so manifest. The Church of the Ascension, but especially the mosk at Kefr et Tûr, owes its present celebrity to the impressive view of the Holy City from the top of the minaret.

Jerusalem, as I saw it from the balcony of that minaret this morning, fulfils all my anticipations. It was the City of the Great King realized; and if a nearer acquaintance is going to dissipate and reverse my present impressions, I do not wish to enter the city, but depart from the Mount of Ascension, carrying away with me the picture already imprinted on my mind.

Such a result is not inevitable, though this is by far the best view you will ever have. Your introduction to the Holy City differs widely from mine. Wearied with a long ride from Jaffa, I approached it from the west when the shadows of evening were

falling heavily over the blank walls and unpicturesque ramparts of Zion. At that time there was not a house outside the walls. I could see nothing of the city but high walls, and entered the gate dissatisfied and sadly disappointed. Subsequently, while residing here, this first impression wore off, and was succeeded by feelings of deep reverence and earnest affection. Be not discouraged, therefore, if you return from the first walk about Zion weary and dejected, with a sensation of disgust tugging desperately at your heart. As you repeat your rambles with less excitement and hurry, and become familiar with the localities and their sacred associations, an intelligent and abiding interest in the very dust and stones of Jerusalem will grow up vigorous and refreshing, you scarcely know how.

At any rate, I am resolved to make myself thoroughly acquainted with the Holy City and its environs.

A very sensible resolution; but I give you fair warning that I am not to be your constant companion. It is no child's play, at this season of the year, to walk or ride down and up Mount Olivet, and explore sites and scenes from the bottom of Jehoshaphat to the top of Zion. Salîm will go with you, and guides in abundance can be procured, and the city is before you. As to other helpers, you are in danger of being bewildered with an embarras des richesses. Not to name the Bible and Josephus, there are Eusebius and Jerome, Reland, Maundrell, Chateaubriand, Williams, Wilson, Schultz, Robinson, and many guide-books and minor works. Charts, plans, and views are equally numerous-Catherwood's, Robinson's, Wilson's, Schultz's, Williams's, British Ordnance Survey, and many others; and you have the living original spread out beneath your eye, and ready to be questioned at all hours of the day and night. Do not set out, however, resolved to make discoveries. There is not a foot of ground that has not been already scrutinized by a thousand eyes as keen as yours; and the old adage, “If true not new, if new not true," may be applied to Jerusalem and her monuments with more propriety than to any other place on earth.

To me everything is invested with the charm of novelty, and I shall taste the pleasure of discovery without claiming any of its honors. Jerusalem is the common property of the whole Christian

UNCERTAINTY REGARDING THE SACRED SITES.

419 world. Zion and Moriah, Olivet and Siloah, Gethsemane and Calvary, belong neither to Greek nor Latin-are neither Papist nor Protestant; and I mean to pursue my rambles and researches with as much freedom and zest as though no eye but mine had ever scanned these sacred sites.

So be it; but do not dream of reaching results in all cases clear and satisfactory even to yourself, much less to others. It may not be amiss to begin your researches by distinctly defining certain names and terms beforehand which will be ever recurring in your study. Remember, you can neither think, speak, nor write about anything accurately without a name for it. Jerusalem, during her long and eventful history, has had many names, either for the entire city or for various parts of it; and there has been much diversity of opinion, and even keen controversy, about several of the most important.

It would be entertaining at least, if not instructive, to submit the topography of Jerusalem and her environs to a conclave composed of devout padres, learned authors, and intelligent professors from Europe and America.

They would scarcely agree on a single point. Every text in the Bible that had any bearing upon its topography would be mystified and confounded. Josephus would be so tortured and twisted and perplexed as not to know what he meant himself; and thus, too, would the "fathers," and every pilgrim and visitor who unfortunately published a sentence about Jerusalem, be treated, and then dismissed from the witness-box as incompetent, or otherwise unworthy of credit. Now learn from this imaginary congress of conflicting theorizers to walk softly over such doubtful territory, and not to dogmatize where the opinions of the learned clash.

It is my own impression that no ingenuity or research can reconstruct this city as our Saviour saw it, or as Josephus describes it. No man knows the line of the eastern and south-eastern portions of the first wall, or where the second began, or how it ran after it began, or where the third wall commenced, or one foot of its circuit afterwards; and of necessity the locations of castles, towers, corners, gates, pools, sepulchres, etc., etc., depending upon supposed starting-points and directions, are merely hypothetical.

One hypothesis may have more probability than another, but all must share the uncertainty which hangs over the data assumed by the theorizers.

Leaving speculations and their results to take care of themselves, may we not find some important points and boundaries about which there can be no reasonable doubt?

Certainly there are such outlines, strongly drawn and ineffaceable, which make it absolutely certain that we have the Holy City, with all its interesting localities, before us. For example, this mount on which our cottage stands is Olivet, without a doubt; the deep valley at its base is the channel of the Kidron; that broad ravine that joins it from the west, at the well of Job, is the valley of Hinnom, which is prolonged northwards and then westwards under the ordinary name of the valley of Gihon. The rocky region lying in between these valleys is the platform of ancient Jerusalem -the whole of it. Within these limits there was nothing else, and beyond them the city never extended. Thus I understand the language of Josephus when he is speaking of Jerusalem, one and entire.

We may go a step farther in generalizing, and with considerable confidence. The platform of Jerusalem is divided into two nearly equal parts by a valley which commences north-west of the Damascus Gate, shallow and broad at first, but deepening rapidly in its course down along the west side of the Temple area, until it unites with the Kidron near the Pool of Siloam. The city, therefore, was built upon two ridges, with a valley between them; and these grand landmarks are perfectly distinct to this day. The eastern ridge is Moriah, on which stood the Temple; the western is Zion, so-called; and the valley between them is that of the Tyropœon, or Cheesemongers. These ridges are nearly parallel to each other, but that of Zion is everywhere the highest of the two; that is, the part of it without the present south wall is much higher than Ophel, which is over against it; the Temple area is lower than that part of Zion which is west of it, and the north-west corner of the city overlooks the whole of the ridge on which the Temple stood. This accords with the express and repeated assertions of Josephus-who, however, never uses the word Zion—that the hill, which sustained

THE TYROPOON-VALLEY OF THE CHEESEMONGERS.

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the Upper Market-place, or the Upper City, was much the highest of all. The houses built down the eastern slopes of Zion everywhere face those on the western side of the opposite ridge, and the corresponding rows of houses meet in the intervening valley, just as Josephus represents them to have done in his day. The historian wrote his description with an eye to Titus and the Roman army; and I cannot doubt but that, up to our present point of generalization, we have laid down the outlines of Jerusalem as they saw and conquered it.

If we now proceed from generalities to particulars, we encounter obscurity and perplexing difficulties at every turn; and these thicken around us just in proportion as we descend to details. more and more minute. For example, perhaps all planographists of the Holy City agree that the lower part of the interior valley. is that of the Cheesemongers; but higher up, where, under the name of Tyropœon, it must define the supposed position of a certain tower, the course of this valley is very earnestly contested. And thus, too, nearly all agree that the broad ridge south of the Jaffa Gate is Mount Zion; but some maintain that it terminates there at the Tower of David, while others believe that it continued up northwards to the Castle of Goliath, and even beyond it. Some authors assume that the Tyropœon commences at the Tower of David, and descends first eastwards and then to the south-east, under the Temple area and down to Siloam, and that traces of such a valley can still be seen. Other eyes absolutely fail to discover it, and their owners say that the rain from heaven and the theodolite of the engineer obstinately refuse to acknowledge any such valley. Some place Acra north of Jaffa Gate, and others north-west of the Temple area. But we need not extend the list of conflicting theories any farther, for it includes nearly every rod of the entire city -the line of every wall, the position of every castle, the name of every pool, the place of every gate, the site of every scene, etc., etc. On most of these questions I have my own opinions, but to state and defend them would be a most wearisome business, and as useless as it would be endless; from which libera nos, Domine.

While upon the summit of Olivet this morning, I was struck with the wonderful contrast between the two views brought into