phat. In that valley also is the tomb of Absalom, a clumsy structure, but one of the most conspicuous objects outside the walls, and the graves of the Jews covered with flat slabs, the great number of which crowded together, seems to pave parts of the valley. Pools and fountains are there also, sacred in all Christian memories.

Toward the south-east from the city, the mountain lines are depressed, and the eye escapes to the dim vastness of the Moab Mountains, brooding over the Dead Sea. From the Mount of Olives you see the Dead Sea, dark, and misty, and solemn, like Swiss lakes seen from mountains among mountains. The hillsides around the city are desolate. But in the valley bottoms, on the soil that has washed from the hills, are olive groves, and in the largest and fairest stands a ruin, of no great antiquity, but picturesque and graceful among the trees. This ruin, and the mossy greenness and fresh foliage around the pool where "the waters of Siloam go softly," are the only objects which are romantic rather than grave, in the melancholy landscape.

These are the features of that bright and arid, but still melancholy, landscape. It lies hushed in awe and desolation; and sad as itself, are the feelings with which you regard it.

One only figure is in your mind, but remembering him and all his personal and traditional relations with the city, the single pure romance which flashes across the gravity of its history, returns to you as you gaze. Looking wistfully from the walls, you hear again, as under the olive-trees in the mountains, the barbaric clang

of the Crusaders' army. Listen, and listen long. The finest strain you hear, is not the clash of arms or the peal of trumpets. The hush of this modern noon is filled with the murmurous sound of chanted psalms, and along the olive valleys toward Mount Olivet, you see the slow procession of the Christian host, not with banners, but with crosses, to-day, pouring on in sacred pomp, singing hymns, and the hearts of Saracens within the walls are chilled by that strange battle-cry.

Night and silence follow. Under the Syrian stars, this motley host, driven by fierce religious fury from the whole civilized world, kneels in its camp around Jerusalem, singing and praising God. The holy sound dies while we listen, and the clash of arms arises, with the sun, upon the air.

Jerusalem bleeds rivers of blood, that flow down the steep mountain sides, and a roar more terrible than the raging sea curdles the hot silence of noon. The clash of arms dies, with the sun, upon the air. No Muezzin at twilight calls to prayer. But in the Court of the Temple, ten thousand of his faith lie slain, and the advancing Crusaders ride, to their horses' bellies, in blood. It is the 15th of July, 1099, and that evening Jerusalem is, for the first time, properly a Christian city.

But once more, while we yet stand lost in these memories of the city, an odor, as of rose-water, sweetens the air. The Christian bells have ceased ringing suddenly. A long procession files from the gates, and the voice of the Muezzin again vibrates through the city. It is Salah-eddeen, Sultan of the Saracens, who is purifying the mosque

of Omar, who is melting the Christian bells, and dragging the Christian Cross through the mire; but who, receiving the Christian prisoners with gracious courtesy, repays their sanguinary madness with oriental generosity, sending them away loaded with presents, and retaining in the city the military friars of St. John, to nurse the sick. Thus bold and defined, like its landscape, are your first emotions in Jerusalem.

But while you stand and see the last pomp of its history pitching its phantom camp around the city, the sun is setting. The bare landscape fades away. Around you are domes and roofs, and beyond the walls you see the convent of the Mount of Olives. Thoughts more solemn than these romantic dreams, throw their long shadows across your mind, even as the shadows of the minarets fall upon the silent city. Again you see the waving of palm boughs, and a faint cry of hosanna trembles in the twilight. Again that figure rides slowly in at the golden gate, and you hear the voice-“Daughter of Zion, behold thy King cometh unto thee, meek, and sitting upon

an ass."

VII.

Within the Walls.

WITHIN the walls, Jerusalem is among the most picturesque of cities. It is very small. You can walk quite round it in less than an hour. There are only some seventeen thousand inhabitants, of whom nearly half are Jews. The material of the city is a cheerful stone, and so massively are the lofty, blind house walls laid, that, in pacing the more solitary streets, you seem to be threading the mazes of a huge fortress. Often the houses extend over the street, which winds under them in dark archways, and where there are no overhanging buildings, there are often supports of masonry thrown across from house to house. There are no windows upon the street, except a few picturesque, projecting lattices.

Jerusalem is an utter ruin. The houses so fair in seeming, are often all crumbled away upon the interior. The arches are shattered, and vines and flowers wave and bloom down all the vistas. The streets are never straight for fifty rods; but climb and wind with broken steps, and the bold buildings thrust out buttressed corners, graced with luxuriant growths, and arched with niches for statue

and fountain. It is a mass of "beautiful bits," as artists say. And you will see no fairer sight in the world, than the groups of brilliantly draped Orientals emerging into the sun, from the vine-fringed darkness of the arched ways.

Follow them as they silently pass, accompanied by the slave who bears the chibouque. Follow, if it is noon, for soon you will hear the cry to prayer, and they are going to the mosque of Omar.

There are minarets in Egypt so beautiful, that, when completed, the Sultan ordered the right-hand of the architect to be struck off, that he might not repeat the work for any one else. They are, indeed, beautiful,—yet if their grace cost but a hand, the beauty of this mosque were worth a head.

The mosque of Omar occupies the site of Solomon's temple, about an eighth of the area of the whole city. It is the most beautiful object in Jerusalem, and the most graceful building in the East. It is not massive or magnificent; but the dome, bulbous, like all oriental domes, is so aerial and elegant that the eye lingers to see it float away or dissolve in the ardent noon.

The mosque of Omar is octagonal in form, and built of bluish-white marble; over the sacred stone on which Jacob dreamed, and whence Mohammad ascended to heaven. It is one of the two temples of the Muslim faith, that of Mecca being the other. These temples are consecrated by the peculiar presence of the Prophet, and are only accessible to true believers. Ordinary mosques are merely places of worship, and are accessible