THE MOUNT OF OLIVES.

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largest, barked and scarified by the knives of pilgrims, is reverenced as the identical tree under which Christ was betrayed; and its enormous roots, growing high out of the earth, could induce a belief of almost any degree of antiquity. A little outside the fence of the garden is a stone, reverenced as marking the hallowed place where Christ, in the agony of his spirit, prayed that the cup might pass from him; a little farther, where he "sweat great drops of blood ;" and a little farther is the spot to which he returned, and found the disciples sleeping; and no good pilgrim ever passes from the Garden of Gethsemane to the Mount of Olives without doing reverence in these holy places.

In company with a long procession of pilgrims, who had been assembling in the garden, we ascended the Mount of Olives. The mount consists of a range of four mountains, with summits of unequal altitudes. The highest rises from the Garden of Gethsemane, and is the one fixed upon as the place of our Saviour's ascension. About half way up is a ruined monastery, built, according to the monks, over the spot where Jesus sat down and wept over the city and uttered that prediction which has since been so fearfully verified. The olive still maintains its place on its native mountain, and now grows spontaneously upon its top and sides, as in the days of David and our Saviour. In a few moments we reached the summit, the view from which embraces, perhaps, more interesting objects than any other in the world; the Valley of Jehoshaphat, the Garden of Gethsemane, and the city of Jerusalem, the Plains of Jericho, the valley of the Jordan, and the Dead Sea.

On the top of the mountain is a miserable Arab village, in the centre of which is a small octagonal building, erected, it is said, over the spot from which our Saviour ascended into heaven; and the print of his foot, say the monks, is still to be seen. This print is in the rock, enclosed by an oblong border of marble; and pilgrims may at any time bo VOL. II.-P

seen taking, in wax, impressions of the holy footstep; and for this, too, they are indebted to the research and bounty of the Empress Helena.

Descending again to the ruined monastery, at the place where our Saviour, more than eighteen hundred years ago, wept over the city and predicted its eternal ruin, I sat down on a rough stone to survey and muse over the favoured and fallen Jerusalem. The whole city lay extended before me like a map. I could see and distinguish the streets, and the whole interior to the inner side of the farther wall; and oh! how different from the city of our Saviour's love. Though even then but a mere appendage of imperial Rome, it retained the magnificent wonders of its Jewish kings, and, pre-eminent even among the splendid fanes of heathen worship, rose the proud temple of the great King Solomon. Solomon and all his glory have departed; centuries ago the great temple which he built, the "glory of the whole earth," was a heap of ruins; in the prophetic words of our Saviour, not one stone was left upon another; and, in the wanton spirit of triumph, a conquering general drove his plough over its site. For years its very site lay buried in ruins, till the Saracen came with his terrible war-cry, Koran or the sword;" and the great mosque of Omar, the holy of holies in the eyes of all true believers, now rears its lofty dome upon the foundations of the Temple of Sol

omon.

"The

From the place where I sat, the mosque of Omar was the only object that relieved the general dulness of the city, and all the rest was dark, monotonous, and gloomy; no spires reared their tapering points to the skies, nor domes, nor minarets, the pride and ornament of other Turkish cities. All was as still as death; and the only sign of life that I could see was the straggling figure of a Mussulman, with his slippers in his hand, stealing up the long courtyard to the threshold of the mosque. The mosque of Omar, like

THE FOUR GREAT TOMBS.

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the great mosque at Mecca, the birthplace of the Prophet, is regarded with far more veneration than even that of St. Sophia, or any other edifice of the Mohammedan worship; and to this day the Koran or the sword is the doom of any bold intruder within its sacred precincts. At the northern extremity of the mosque is the Golden Gate, for many years closed, and flanked with a tower, in which a Mussulman soldier is constantly on guard; for the Turks believe that, by that gate, the Christians will one day enter and obtain possession of the city-City of mystery and wonder, and still to be the scene of miracles! "It shall be trodden down by the Gentiles until the time of the Gentiles be fulfilled;" and the time shall come when the crescent shall no longer glitter over its battlements, nor the banner of the Prophet wave over its walls.

Returning to the Valley of Jehoshaphat, and passing along its eastern side, we came to the great burying-ground of the Jews. Among its monuments are four, unique in their appearance and construction, and known from time immemorial as the tombs of Absalom, Jehoshaphat, St. James, and the Prophet Zachariah. All are cut out of the solid rock; the tomb of Absalom is a single stone, as large as an ordinary two-story house, and ornamented with twentyfour semi-columns of the Doric order, supporting a triangular pyramidal top. The top is battered and defaced; and no pilgrim, whether Jew or Christian, ever passes through the Valley of Jehoshaphat without casting a stone at the sepulchre of the rebellious son. No entrance to this sepulchre has ever been discovered; and the only way of getting into the interior is by a hole broken for the purpose in one of the sides.

Behind the tomb of Absalom is that of Jehoshaphat, "the King of Judah, who walked in the ways of the Lord." It is an excavation in the rock, the door being its only ornament. The interior was damp, the water trickling from

the walls, and nearly filled with sand and crumbling stones. The next is the tomb of St. James, standing out boldly in the side of the mountain, with a handsome portico of four columns in front, an entrance at the side, and many chambers within. After this is the tomb of Zachariah, like that of Absalom, hewn out of the solid rock; and like that, too, having no known entrance. Notwithstanding the specific names given to these tombs, it is altogether uncertain to what age they belong; and it is generally considered that the style of architecture precludes the supposition that they are the work of Jewish builders.

Leaving them after a cursory examination, we descended the valley; and, following the now dry bed of the Kedron, we came to "Siloa's Brook, that flowed fast by the oracle of God," which, coming from the foot of Mount Zion, here presents itself as a beautiful stream, and runs winding and murmuring through the valley. Hundreds of pilgrims were stretched on its bank; and a little above is the sacred pool issuing from the rock, enclosed by stone walls, with a descent by two flights of steps. "Go wash in the Pool of Siloam," said Christ to the man who was born blind; and, like myself, a number of pilgrims were now bending over the pool and washing in its hallowed waters. Passing by the great tree under which the Prophet Isaiah was sawed asunder, I turned up towards the city, and in a few minutes was standing on Mount Zion,

THE FIELD OF BLOOD.

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CHAPTER XII.

The Field of Blood.-A Traveller's Compliment.-Singular Ceremony.— A Ragged Rascal.-Ostentatious Humility.-Pride must have a Fall.An Ancient Relic.-Summary Legislation.

ALL that is interesting about Jerusalem may be seen in a few days. My health compelled me to remain there more than three weeks, during which I made two excursions, one to the ancient city of Joppa, and the other to the Dead Sea. As soon as I could do so, however, I visited all the places, to see which is the business of a pilgrim to the holy city. The fourth morning after my arrival I went out at the Bethlehem Gate, and, crossing the valley of the sons of Hinmon, on the side of the opposite mountain I came to the Aceldama, or field of blood, the field bought with "the thirty pieces of silver," which to this day remains a public burying-place or potter's field. A large chamber excavated in the rock is still the charnel-house of the poor and unhonoured dead of Jerusalem. The fabulous account is, that the earth of that field will in forty-eight hours consume the flesh from off the bones committed to it.

Leaving this resting-place of poverty and perhaps of crime, I wandered among the tombs on the sides of the mountain; tombs ornamented with sculpture, and divided into chambers, the last abodes of the great and rich of Jerusalem; but the beggar, rudely thrown into the common pit in the potter's field, and the rich man laid by pious hands in the sculptured sepulchre of his ancestors, are alike nothing.

Outside the Damascus Gate, and about half a mile dis