practicable than the Viceroy of Egypt? The area of the Mosk of Omar, of course, may not be violated; but much might be done without trenching on the sacred enclosure, as this and the preceding chapters will have proved. Meanwhile I trust that the reader will be able to rest in the conclusions which I have endeavoured to establish, and for which some ground of probability has been shewn; and because, on a subject so involved in obscurity, it must needs be that many errors will be committed before the whole truth is brought to light, I will add, not more or less for my own sake than for the sake of others who have gone before me, that such errors ought not to be visited severely, or to be deemed unpardonable, if they have arisen from no want of candour or of diligence, and if they are honestly acknowledged and corrected as soon as they are discovered.

MODERN JERUSALEM AND ITS INHABITANTS.

THE Christian pilgrim approaching Jerusalem for the first time will probably be disappointed to find that his emotions on the first sight of a city, associated in his mind from his earliest infancy with all that is most sacred, are so much less intense than he anticipated, and that he can look on Mount Olivet and Mount Sion with feelings, certainly not of indifference, but of much less painful interest than he imagined possible, when he thought on them at a distance. The truth is, the events transacted here are so great in every view, that the mind cannot at once grasp them; but is, as it were, stupified by the effort. It takes time to realize the truth

that this is the home of Scripture History, the cradle of the Christian Church. But the feeling of attachment to the Holy City and its sacred localities will soon be formed, and will be deepened by time, to a calm satisfaction, a peaceful resting in it as the home of one's affections, which no other spot on earth can impart. For there is a halo about Jerusalem, an atmosphere which one drinks in, not only on the mountains around, but even amid its crumbling ruins, which has an untold charm; and he who shall have resided there for months or years, and has known what it is to suffer in body and in mind, amid the scenes of His sufferings, and has enjoyed the solace of hearty affection from true friends, and a higher consolation still; such an one alone can appreciate the privilege of a residence there, and will not readily forget the parting pang with which the last farewell was accompanied.

:

But I have to imagine the pilgrim approaching the city. If he is journeying from the West, as most pilgrims do, he will come in sight of the city about a mile from the gates, where it presents its least imposing aspect-merely a dull line of wall, with the Mount of Olives rising above. He will perhaps have read of the desolate appearance of the neighbourhood of the city it is sometimes said to resemble a city of the dead. Travellers who have so written must have been singularly unfortunate in the time of their entrance; for on a bright evening, at any time of the year, nothing can well be imagined more lively than the scene without the Jaffa Gate. It is then that the inhabitants, of whatever nation and whatever faith, walk out "to drink the air," as they express it, and the various companies may be seen sauntering about, or

reclining on the ground. Here will be seen members of the two large families into which the Jews are now divided, the Ashkenazim and Sephardim', the latter easily distinguishable from the former by their brighter and more intelligent looks; and here the Greek monks of the Great Convent, and other native or foreign Christians, and groups of native women and children sitting by the way-side, or amusing themselves with the favourite exercise of swinging under the olive-trees at the head of the Valley of Hinnom. The appearance of the females indeed is somewhat spectral, for a white sheet thrown loosely over their handsome dresses, and their yellow boots, is all that is distinguishable; but the merry laugh may be heard among them, and, with the music of their "tinkling ornaments," would serve to convince the stranger that they were veritable daughters of Eve. He will see little of the desolations of Jerusalem here but let him enter the gates, and the delusion which its compact and well-built walls, and the appearance of its inhabitants, may have produced, will be quickly dispelled. He no sooner enters the city than desolation stares him in the face. The citadel on his right hand, which shewed fair from a distance, is a ruin and patchwork-a Roman tower, with mediaval additions and Turkish debasements, erected on a massive foundation of Jewish architecture. On his left he will have an open space covered with ruins; and as he passes through the streets he will find scarcely a house that is not a ruin, and in some parts huge hulks of massive wrecks; as for example, the Hospital of the Knights

1 Ashkenazim; the Jews of Russia, Germany, &c. See Gen. x. 3. Sephar

dim;

the Jews of Spain, Portugal, and the shores of the Mediterranean.