worshippers, some of them very old, who have come from afar with the one desire to die in the Holy City and be buried in the valley of Jehoshaphat; they kiss the stones, and sit for hours mourning. Sometimes a beautiful Litany is chanted here, of which the Reader. Because of the Temple which is destroyed- Because of our greatness which is departed— Because of the precious stones of the Temple ground to powder Because of our priests who have erred and gone astray Because of our kings who have contemned God People. We sit alone and weep. Jerusalem is "a city which is compact together," and the places of numerous to describe in detail, are all within easy distance of each other. glance at a few of them. interest, far too We must just Near the Church of the Sepulchre is a fine old Gothic gateway; passing through it and the yard there is a staircase leading to a cloistered court, and beyond, a large open space, with traces of ruins. This is the Mûristân, the site of the Hospital of the Knights of St. John-a noble order whose history is full of romance. At first they devoted themselves to the care of pilgrims; then to battle with the infidels; then to an important part in politics. When Jerusalem was in flames they fled to Cyprus, thence to Rhodes, where they erected the massive fortifications to be seen to this day, and subsequently they settled in Malta, where their memorial is to be found in the cathedral, in palaces, and in fortifications. The Mûristân covers about one hundred and seventy square yards, half of which was presented the Sultan to Prussia in 1869. The former refectory on the south side of the cloisters has been fitted up as a German Protestant church, and elsewhere in this place buildings for the benefit of the Germans in Jerusalem have been erected. On Mount Zion is the Armenian convent, one of the largest and richest in the citywith tamarind-trees in front said to have been planted by Herod-and containing the Church of St. James, where it is said that apostle was beheaded. Near this convent is the so-called Palace of Caiaphas, containing the tombs of Armenian patriarchs; and, among legendary matters, the prison of Christ, the stone that was rolled away from the Sepulchre, and a small pillar on which the cock stood when he crew to warn Peter! Hard by is a small mosque known as Neby Daud, or the Tomb of David. It cannot well be doubted that this memorial, if it does not mark the actual place, at least marks the vicinity of the burying-place of the Hebrew kings. That they were interred on Mount Zion is known with certainty, for it is said of the successive kings of Judah that they slept with their fathers, and were buried in the City of David "-which is only another expression for Mount Zion (see 1 Kings xi. 43, xiv. 31, xv. 24, &c.). The notice in Neh. iii. 16 represents the sepulchre of David as opposite a certain pool, and the present tomb stands exactly against the Lower Gihon, on the west of Jerusalem. The Apostle Peter speaks of the place of David's burial as a matter of general notoriety. No reason can be assigned why the locality in that age should have become a different one from that which Nehemiah mentions. Josephus furnishes testimony to the same effect. From that time to the present, as often as we hear any Jewish witnesses on the subject, we find them connecting the national tradition respecting David's tomb with this spot, and the Mohammedans and Eastern Christians regard it with the same veneration.* It is needless to say, however, that there are many opposite opinions to this view, and that learned travellers have assigned David's tomb to various other places. Adjoining the tomb is a building in which is the supposed Conaculum, or upper room," where the Saviour kept the last Passover, and where He appeared to His disciples after the Resurrection. It is a room fifty feet by thirty; in one part is a screen where mass is celebrated by Christians; in another is a praying-place for Moslems. It is stated that when Titus destroyed Jerusalem, this building, with a few others near it, escaped, and that the earliest travellers to the land found it identified as the scene of the Last Supper. Among the buildings of less historical or legendary importance may be mentioned the Greek monastery, with its five churches and library; the Coptic monastery, the Abyssinian monastery, the synagogues, the Church of St. Anne-the mother of the Virgin Mary, whose birth-place, it is alleged, was here;-the residence of the Pasha, the Consulates, the state prison, and the barracks. It is beyond the scope of this work to include the environs of the great cities under review, but no account of Jerusalem would be complete which ignored them. No one can think of Jerusalem without thinking of the Mount of Olives and Bethany; of the Kidron and Gethsemane; of Siloam; of the Tombs of the Kings; and many other spots every whit as interesting as those within the walls of the city. We shall, therefore, as briefly as possible, proceed to examine some of these sacred sites. Starting again from the Jaffa Gate, we may make an imaginary tour of the environs as we made our tour of the city proper. Descending the valley of Gihon, memorable as the place where Solomon was crowned and proclaimed king (1 Kings i. 33, 35, 45), we proceed along the valley until we come to a wall from east to west, on which is an old aqueduct built to convey water from the Pools of Solomon. This wall forms the northern end of the Birket-es-Sultân, or Lower Pool • Hackett, "Illustrations of Scripture." of Gihon (Isa. xxii. 9)—a large reservoir one hundred and seventy yards long and seventy wide, varying in depth from thirty-five to forty-one feet. It probably dates from the time of Hezekiah; a tradition identifies it as the pool in which David beheld Bathsheba bathing. In the sixteenth century it was restored by Sultan Solimân, whence its present name. Continuing along the valley of Gihon to where it turns westward, we enter the valley of Hinnom, bounded by the Hill of Evil Counsel on the south and Mount Zion on the north. It is a deep and narrow ravine, with steep rocky sides, where in ancient times children were sacrificed to Moloch, whence it obtained the name of Tophet, or Place of Fire. So odious did the place become that it was made a huge cesspool and charnel-house, and in later times the Jews called it Ge Hinnom, or Gehenna, making it signify hell. On the southern face of the valley at the eastern end is Aceldama, the traditionary Field of Blood of the traitor Judas-a small plot of ground overhung with one precipice and looking down another into the glen below. There is no historical evidence that this is the Potter's Field of the New Testament (Matt. xxvii. 3-10; Acts i. 18, 19), although the place has been regarded with interest from a very early period, and contains a vast number of tombssome of hermits, some of Crusaders, and some of more recent date-the soil being considered to be very favourable to decomposition. At the junction of the valleys of Hinnom and Jehoshaphat we are close to a spring called Job's Well, one hundred and twenty-three feet deep, and lined with masonry, the water of which is noted for its purity and excellence. Stone troughs stand around for cattle, and picturesque groups may be seen standing by a ruined mosque close by the well. This is En-Rogel, the boundary between the tribes of Judah and Benjamin (Josh. xv. 7)-the spot where Adonijah "exalted himself, saying, 'I will be King"" (1 Kings i. 5, 9), and prepared a great feast in celebration of his coronation. The modern Arab village of Silwân-a miserable place where the dwelling-places are old sepulchres-is the Siloam of Scripture. Following the tiny rill, described by Milton as "Siloah's brook that flowed Fast by the oracle of God," we reach the Pool of Siloam, fifty-three feet long, eighteen wide, and about nineteen feet deep, with piers, columns, and other architectural fragments indicating ancient work, surrounding it. The waters, in which the blind man of the Gospel was bidden to go and wash (John ix. 6, 7), are regarded as sacred; notwithstanding this, they are greatly polluted by washerwomen and tanners, who use them freely. Josephus makes frequent reference to this spot. "Now the Valley of the Cheesemongers, as it was called, and that which we told you before distinguished the hill of the upper city from that of the lower, extended as far as Siloam; for that is the name of a fountain which hath sweet water in it." From the Pool of Siloam a rocky channel, zigzagging for five hundred and eightysix yards, leads to the Fountain of the Virgin. In this channel or passage Captain Warren found another passage expanding into a vaulted chamber about forty feet wide, in which were found vases, glass lamps, and other interesting relics. The place is supposed to have been used by the Jews as a place of refuge in the time of the Roman persecutions. The well has a dozen different names-the Dragon's Well, the Well of the Sun, the Spring of Gihon, and the King's Pool; while the present name-St. Mary's Well, or Fountain of the Virgin-is due to the tradition that it was here the Mother of our Lord washed the swaddling-clothes of her infant son. The spring is intermittent, flowing in rainy weather from three to five times daily, in summer twice, and in autumn once only. "This is accounted for as follows:-In the interior of the rock there is a deep natural reservoir which is fed by numerous streamlets, and has a single narrow outlet only. This outlet begins a little above the bottom of the basin, rises to a point higher than the top of the basin, and then descends. As soon as the water in the basin has risen to the height of the bend in the outlet, it begins to flow through it, and continues to flow, on the syphon principle, until it has sunk in the basin to the point where the outlet begins." From this well a path ascends to the north, to the south-east angle of the Temple wall. Another leads to the Jews' Cemetery, where the ground, from the Kidron half-way up the Mount of Olives, is literally covered with tombstones and honeycombed with tomb grottoes. Four monuments in this neighbourhood are of considerable interest; the first is the Tomb or Pyramid of Zacharias, according to the Christians (Matt. xxiii. 35), and of Zechariah according to the Jews (2 Chron. xxiv. 20). The tomb is absolutely solid, "hewn out of the living rock by cutting a passage round it. It has no internal chambers, nor even the semblance of a doorway" (Fergusson). The sides are adorned with Ionic columns, and square pillars stand at the corners. The second monument is the Grotto of St. James, the spot where it is alleged St. James lay concealed after the Crucifixion, eating no food until after the Resurrection. It is composed of a verandah or screen cut out of the rock, with two Doric columns supporting the entablature, leading into extensive chambers and shaft tombs. The third monument is the Tomb of Jehoshaphat, with a gable entrance leading to irregularly-shaped chambers, some of which bear traces of frescoes on mortar, and are supposed to have been used as chapels by the Christians in very early times. The most conspicuous of the four monuments is the so-called Tomb of Absalom, hewn out of the solid rock, detached on three sides, and separated from the rock by a passage nine feet wide. It is forty-seven feet in height, adorned with four half-columns and capitals of the Ionic order, and a Doric frieze and architrave. The interior is now choked with stones and rubbish, thrown in by Jews, who never pass the monument without pelting it with stones, in token of their abhorrence of Absalom's disobedience to his father. From this spot the footpath may be continued up the Mount of Olives. The hill is divided into several eminences by low depressions, the highest point, to the north, being 2,723 feet above the sea-level. On the summit is a mosque, in the centre of which is a stone from which it is alleged our Lord ascended to heaven. Moslems regard the place as sacred in consequence, and Christians celebrate mass here occasionally. From the minaret of the mosque is obtained the most magnificent view in all Palestine. Looking northward we see the upper course of the valley of the Kidron, beyond which rises the ridge of Scopus; eastward stretch the mountains of Moab, the glittering waters of the Dead Sea, Gilead, the valley of the Jordan (the course of the river marked by the dark green line of vegetation); southward, the valley of the Kidron. Close around the view is more striking still. The Holy City lies like a map before us, every building of importance distinctly visible. In the south-east quarter the Mosque of Omar, in the midst of the raised platform or Harâm-esh-Sherif; south of it the Mosque El-Aksa. At the north-west the Turkish barracks on the site of Antonia; north of the Temple the hill Bezetha, and on it, near St. Stephen's Gate, the Church of St. Anne. West of this the hill of Akra, and on its eastern slope the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, and the Mûristân. Mount Zion, the Tower of Hippicus, the English church, the Armenian convent, the Jewish quarter with its synagogues, the black dome of the Tomb of David-these, with the walls, minarets, and towers, make up a wonderful assemblage of buildings all transfigured in the glorious Eastern sunshine. Among the many places of interest included in the view are the round-topped Frank mountain, the Hill of Evil Counsel, the valley of Rephaim, Neby Samwil (Mizpeh), Shafât, the ancient Nob; Gibeah, the home of Saul; Ramah, the birthplace of Samuel; and Bireh, the ancient Beeroth. It is an easy and pleasant walk of a few minutes from the summit of Olivet to Bethany, prettily situated, with glorious views of the distant hills of Moab, the Dead Sea, and the Jordan valley; the vines, figs, and olives, and the luxuriant gardens and cornfields, forming a pleasant contrast to the sterility of the hills nearer Jerusalem. "Three pathways lead, and very probably always led, from Bethany to Jerusalem : one, a long circuit over the northern shoulder of Mount Olivet, down the valley which parts it from Scopus; another, a steep footpath over the summit; the third, the natural continuation of the road by which mounted travellers always approach the city from Jericho, over the southern shoulder, between the summit which contains the Tombs of the Prophets and that called the Mount of Offence."* It is this latter road, beyond doubt, which our Lord descended on His triumphal entry to Jerusalem on Palm Sunday. Descending to the Kidron we approach, on the western slope of Olivet, the Garden of Gethsemane, an irregular quadrangle about one-third of an acre, enclosed by a wall covered * Stanley. |