Jerusalem stands upon a tongue of land, bounded on the west by the Valley of Hinnom, and on the east by the Valley of Jehoshaphat, two deep wÁdies, which, uniting at the southern extremity, under the name of the Kedron, flow down together to the Dead Sea. The promontory thus formed is divided again by a smaller valley, called the Tyropoeon, bisecting the city from north to south, and running from the Damascus gate, by the Pool of Siloam, into the Kedron. Two hills, or spurs, thus project from the elevated ground on the north-west of the city, of which the western—the higher of the two—is called Mount Sion, and the eastern, Mount Moriah; upon the last stood the Temple of the Jews, and upon it at the present day stands the far-famed Masjid el Aksa, better known as the Haram es SherÍf, or “Noble Sanctuary.” Between the valley of Hinnom and that of the Tyropoeon a narrow neck of ground is occupied by the Citadel or “Tower of David.”

In shape the city is an irregular rhomboid, the longest diagonal of which measures something less than a mile. It covers about two hundred and nine acres of ground, of which thirty-five are occupied by the area of the Haram es SherÍf. There are five gates: the Damascus gate in the centre of the north side; St. Stephen’s gate on the east, a little to the north of the Haram; the Water or Dung gate, in the Tyropoeon valley, with the Sion gate on the south side, and the Jaffa gate immediately under the walls of the city on the west. The main street is about three-fifths of a mile long, and bisects the city from north to south; from this the other streets run, for the most part, at right angles; that which follows the direction of the north wall of the Haram being called the Via Dolorosa, and containing the Roman archway known as the “Ecce Homo Arch.” The city is divided into quarters, defined by the intersection of the principal street, and that which crosses it at right angles from the Jaffa gate to the Bab es Silsileh, one of the gates of the Haram; they are named after the different sects to whom they are appropriated.^[81] The Mohammedan quarter comprises the north-east portion of the town, also, of course, including the Haram Area; the Christian quarter is in the north-west; the Jewish quarter consists of all the south-eastern part, except so much of it as it covered by the Haram; and the remaining quarter, the hill of Sion, on the south-west, is appropriated to the Armenians. The mountains which encompass Jerusalem are dull and unvaried in outline, and, being composed of white limestone, there is an utter absence of all pleasing variety of colouring. Nor does the intense clearness of the atmosphere add much to the general effect, diminishing as it does the distance, and dwarfing the proportions of all around. The view from the Mount of Olives, situated immediately to the east of the city, alone forms an exception to the monotony of the general appearance of the neighbourhood, and from this really fine views are obtained. Looking on the city itself, the eye rests upon the graceful form and rich colouring of the Dome of the Rock, standing in its picturesque and quiet enclosure, while the gilded dome of the Holy Sepulchre, the tapering minarets of numerous mosques, the massive walls and clustering buildings, combine to make a beautiful, and even impressive picture. Turning to look eastward, a scene no less grand and novel presents itself; before you, a little to the right, the mountains of Moab rise up high above the azure waters of the Dead Sea; the broad deep valley of the Jordan comes in from the left, the course of the stream just discernible by the thin fringe of verdure which lines its banks; while the blank dreary desert stretches almost to your very feet, making even the desolate hills of Jerusalem look green and fertile by the contrast.

There are many objects of interest outside the city walls, and a walk round the town, on the outside, furnishes food for much curious antiquarian speculation. Commencing with the head of the valley on the north-west side, you pass the upper and lower pools of Gihon, the former situated in the midst of a picturesque Mohammedan cemetery. Turning down into the Valley of Hinnom, and past the countless tombs excavated in the solid rock, you come to the well of Joab (the En-Rogel of Scripture), immediately opposite the queer little village of Siloam, which consists of caves faced with rude masonry or plaster.

In the Valley of Jehoshaphat—besides the modern Hebrew graves, which lie so thickly together that they appear almost to form one broad pavement—there are several curious monuments; the tomb of Jehoshaphat, of which nothing but a pediment rising a little out of the ground, and roughly bricked up, is now visible; the tomb of Zachariah, and the Pillar of Absalom, two monolithic monuments of uncertain date; and a little cave-chamber cut in the face of the rock, ornamented with two Doric columns, and leading into a sepulchral vault, which is said to have formed the hiding-place of St. James the apostle during the first Christian persecution. Then come the Fountain of the Virgin, the Garden of Gethsemane, and the site of the Ascension upon the Mount of Olives. All these, with many others, and the traditions which attach to each, have been too well and too frequently described by travellers to need that we should dwell upon them here.

The Coenaculum, or Tomb of David, is situated at the south-west angle of the town, outside the city walls; the history of this has been already related on p. 436.

The olive groves by which the city is surrounded, and of which such glowing descriptions have been given by enthusiastic pilgrims, are scanty, and, like most other olive groves, exceedingly ugly and uninteresting; to tell the sober truth it is impossible to grow very rapturous over a stunted tree, with greasy, silver-grey foliage and dilapidated trunk. On a gala day, however, when a motley throng, dressed in bright colours and fantastic garb, crowd outside the Jaffa gate, disperse themselves amongst the tombs in the cemetery of the upper pool of Gihon, or cluster in animated groups beneath the olive trees, the scene is one which a lover of the picturesque might travel far to see.

The city is completely walled round, presenting the appearance of a huge fortress; by the Jaffa gate, where the tower of Hippicus rises above the walls, and the cypresses of the Armenian convent gardens peep over the battlements, they are pretty and picturesque, but, with this exception, there is nothing whatever in them to arrest the attention. Examining them more closely, you are struck with the great size of the stones used in their construction, many of which, especially in the lower portions, are doubtless of great antiquity. Captain Warren, in the course of his excavations at the south-east angle and elsewhere, has come upon blocks which may still occupy the place where Solomon’s workmen laid them, but now that the excavations are discontinued and the shafts closed the pilgrim will be grievously disappointed if he expect to find a single stone in situ.

The houses are all built of roughly-hewn blocks of stone. Syrian houses have flat roofs, but the want of timber for beams renders this construction impossible in the southern part of Palestine, and the deficiency is supplied by furnishing the buildings with large stone domes. From the nature of the ground there is not a single level street in Jerusalem. The streets are paved with the hard limestone of the country, worn smooth with constant traffic, and this makes them cleaner than those of many other Eastern towns.

Nothing could be more out of harmony with all sacred associations than the interior appearance of modern Jerusalem. True, there is something picturesque and romantic about the narrow streets, the quaint old archways, and the ruins upon which you stumble at every turn; but the ruins are those of Saladin’s city not of Herod’s, while the Jerusalem of David and of Solomon lies crushed and buried twenty fathoms under ground.

Of course, the two principal objects of attraction in Jerusalem are the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and the Haram es SherÍf.

The actual Sepulchre is covered by a small chapel coated with reddish marble, and is surrounded by a circular building of fine proportions, with a magnificent dome. The Greek church is immediately to the east of this rotunda, and Calvary to the south-east, and some twelve or thirteen feet above it. The only entrance is by a door leading into an open court on the south, and this is never opened except by the Mohammedan official who has charge of it, and with the permission of the patriarch of one of the Christian sects.

On a bench inside the door sits a Turkish guard, whose duty it is to see that the Christians do not cut each other’s throats in order to show their zeal for the faith, and the precaution is far from needless.

The open court in front of the entrance to the church is filled with native Christian pedlars from Bethlehem, who drive a thriving trade in crosses, rosaries, incense, and other devotional wares.

Of the various traditional sites within the church, and of the respective authenticity of each, it is not our province here to speak; suffice it to say, the priests have crowded into this small area every incident of the Passion and Crucifixion of our Lord, as well as a great many others of which the ordinary Christian has never heard.

It is refreshing to escape from the narrow streets and noisy stifling bazaars into the quiet shady close of the Haram es SherÍf.

The engraving prefixed to this volume conveys a good idea of the general effect of the buildings and the enclosure in which they stand; but in order completely to realise the scene one must have the bright colours and the atmospheric effect: and, above all, the dim religious light streaming in through the gorgeous stained-glass windows of the Cubbet es Sakhrah and the Mosque of El Aksa. A few years ago the traveller was debarred from this enjoyment, and could not even venture near the sacred spot without danger to life and limb from the infuriated fanatics who guard it. Now, however, a douceur to the Sheikh, and the company of an attendant from the consulate, or police station, will be sufficient to procure the privilege. It is time that the jealous barbarity and insolent licence of the Turks should be modified by the good sense of civilized nations, and that sanctuaries such as these, which are common to Christian and Mohammedan, should be thrown open to both. Perhaps, some day, Europe may learn that it is scarcely worth while to make war upon a Christian power for the sake of upholding a rotten and corrupt government which repays the obligation by encouraging its own subjects to insult and murder the subjects of its allies.

The inhabitants of Jerusalem number about sixteen thousand, and the pilgrims and travellers who annually visit it at Easter time are reckoned at about fifteen thousand more.

The population is composed of such varied and discordant elements that to give an account of the different sects alone would occupy a volume. We do not profess to enter at all into the question from a theological point of view, but simply to give a brief account of the various peoples inhabiting Jerusalem as they appear to the traveller of the present day.

First in order come the Mohammedans, Turkish and native, who, although they give themselves the airs for which the true believer is distinguished, and look with ill-concealed aversion and contempt upon all besides themselves, yet are not, perhaps, quite so fanatical as those in other towns of the Holy Land. They are, for the most part, Orientals of the conventional type, leading lazy, useless lives, and dividing their time between smoking, praying, bargaining, and cursing. The Turks have the same stupid pasty look which all town-bred Turks have. The natives are remarkable for nothing but sturdy limbs, an inordinate appetite for brown bread and onions, and an incessant habit of reckoning up real or imaginary gains. If you see two FellahÍn coming along the road you may venture anything that their conversation will be of piastres, and that the first word you hear will be a numeral. We must do the Mohammedans the justice to say that the bigotry is not all on their side, for a Jew’s life is not safe if he so much as venture into the neighbourhood of the Holy Sepulchre.

The Christians are of so many different types and nations that it is almost hopeless to attempt to enumerate them all; the following are, however, the chief divisions:

The native Christians are chiefly from Bethlehem; they are a fine athletic race, much fairer than the Muslim peasantry, and exhibiting unmistakable traces of an admixture of European blood, dating back, no doubt, from the Crusading times. The women are sometimes exceedingly pretty, and their costume very picturesque; they wear a loose-fitting, coloured dress, and a saucepan-shaped cap upon their head, over which is thrown a white mantle, or veil, reaching almost to the feet.

The men wear enormous turbans and the ordinary striped abbah, or cloak, of coarse goat’s-hair; this, with a linen shirt, leather belt, and enormous yellow slippers, completes their dress. They do a large trade in rosaries, crosses, carved shells, beads, and olive wood fancy articles, and are a quiet and industrious people.

The Syrians, or Jacobites, are a small body who occupy a monastery upon Mount Sion, called the House of St. Mark.Mark. The present bishop is an intelligent man, a native of Asia Minor; one or two monks of the monastery, and the old woman who cleans up the place, are natives of a village near ‘AintÁb, on the banks of the Euphrates, the only spot where the Syriac language is spoken. In this little convent the traveller may still hear the accents of that ancient tongue, and, probably—as the old lady is no lover of monkish indolence—he will have the opportunity of judging of its capabilities as a scolding medium.

The Greek community consists mainly of monks, with a slight sprinkling of dragomen and wine-shop keepers. The Greek monk, with his handsome face, reverend beard, and severely simple costume, is a noble and saintly figure as to the outward man; but Greek monks, known more intimately, are found to be a drunken and sensual crew, devoid alike of honour and religion. We speak of the monks only, for the Patriarch of Jerusalem and one or two of his bishops are gentlemanly and even learned men, while amongst the laymen attached to the educational branch of the convent may be made some agreeable acquaintances. Although the blasphemous fraud of the “Descent of the Holy Fire” on Easter Sunday, is countenanced by the Armenians, it is really kept up by the Greeks, and performed by the Greek Patriarch. A more degrading spectacle than this can scarcely be imagined: the Church of the Holy Sepulchre crammed to suffocation with eager, half-mad pilgrims, and the Chief Dignitary of the Orthodox Church of Christ solemnly entering into His tomb to juggle with a box of lucifer matches! What wonder that the “infidel” soldiers, who keep the peace in the church, gaze on the scene with a supercilious and derisive smile.

About Easter time the city begins to swarm with Russian pilgrims. These are, perhaps, the only real religious enthusiasts among the crowds who annually come to worship at the Holy City, and no one who has seen the reverence with which they look upon everything in the place—even to the drunken monk who admits them into the church—or the genuine emotion and awe which they display when kneeling before the site of some absurd tradition, can doubt for one moment of their sincerity. Many a weary mile must they tramp along in their native land, many an unheard of hardship must they encounter before they can toil up the sides of Mount Sinai, or reach the foot of Calvary; and yet they never seem to grow sick or faint-hearted, but plod on with a marvellous steadiness of purpose, and whenever you meet a Russian pilgrim, whether it be in the midst of the scorching desert or by the shady banks of Jordan, he will greet you with a respectful salutation and a bright contented face. At Jerusalem itself they may well be content, for the Russian government has built a hospice near the Jaffa gate where thousands of these poor pilgrims are taken in and cared for. This immense establishment is furnished with dormitories, refectories, chapel, reading-rooms, hospitals, &c., and for cleanliness and good management would compare favourably with any institution of the kind in Europe.

The Copts have a large monastery of their own immediately contiguous to the Holy Sepulchre, and have contrived, by bribing a Turkish official, to appropriate a great portion of the funds and buildings belonging to the Abyssinians too. At the back of the chapel of the Holy Sepulchre, under the dome, is a little oratory belonging to this sect. The Copts of Jerusalem are little better than transplanted Egyptian FellahÍn; their large round features and heavy looks easily distinguish them from the rest of the population.

The Abyssinians are an exceedingly gentle and inoffensive community. They are principally employed as domestic servants by the European residents in the city. They have a monastery, or, rather, a few cells amidst the ruins of what was once a monastery, in an open court over the Chapel of Helena, part of the buildings of the Holy Sepulchre. Here a few monks and a few nuns live in the utmost squalor and misery, subsisting on charity, and in a chronic state of fever. They exhibit great kindness and affection for their compatriots, and are always ready to assist from their own scanty means any Abyssinian who may come to them in distress. They are perhaps the only monks to whom can be conscientiously applied the name of men.

The Armenians are a thriving and industrious people, and their quarter is the only one in Jerusalem in which any regard is evinced for cleanliness or order. The large convent of St. James, the son of Zebedee, on Mount Sion, belongs to them, and the street immediately outside its gates might almost be mistaken for that of some European continental town. The church is the most richly decorated of any in the city, and, amongst other curiosities, possesses the chair traditionally supposed to have belonged to St. James. The patriarch is a gentleman and an accomplished man of the world, and even amongst the monks may be found some who devote themselves to photography and other useful arts. The Armenian is easily distinguishable by a florid complexion, very prominent nose, and dark hair.

The Georgians are a small and insignificant body, occupying the Convent of the Holy Cross outside Jerusalem, to the left of the Jaffa road.

Of the Occidental Christian communities need only be mentioned the Latins. Amongst a number of monks of the conventional low Romish type, there are a few intellectual men, who devote themselves to educating the poor peasantry of the neighbourhood. Their convents are more orderly, have more of life in them, than those of the Oriental Christians, and one is bound to say that the Latin clergy in Jerusalem do make the best of that parent of all social evils, the celibacy of the priesthood.

The Jews of Jerusalem are almost entirely supported by their co-religionists in Europe, upon whose charity they impose, and whose name they disgrace. They are divided into two classes: the Ashkenazim, who consist chiefly of emigrants from Germany and Poland, and the Sephardim, who claim connexion with the old Hebrew families of Spain. The Sephardim are far superior to the others, both in culture and in manners, and have occasionally a certain air of Oriental dignity about them. The Ashkenazim, on the contrary, are, for the most part, mean and disreputable in appearance, and apparently belong to the lowest orders of society. With his dull, exaggerated German-Jewish features, his ridiculous garb,—a long eastern caftan, or vest, and a broad-brimmed slouch hat, from which depend on either side of the face the Pharisaic love-locks—the Ashkenaz Jew of Palestine resembles nothing so much as his representative in modern theatrical burlesque. The services in their synagogue are conducted in a shamefully careless and indifferent manner; and the weekly ceremony of “wailing over the stones of the Temple,” when not regarded through that distorting medium of religious enthusiasm which too many travellers bring with them to the Holy Land, is simply a farce.

This picture is a melancholy one; much as one may wish that it could have been painted in brighter colours, it is best to present truthfully the impression which the modern city makes upon most travellers whose eyes are not blinded by the associations clinging to its soil. Filled with abuses, its sacred shrines defiled, and their worshippers exposed to constant danger and insult, Jerusalem is indeed “trodden down of the Gentiles until the time of the Gentiles be fulfilled.”