earance. The only other prominent
points are the towers of the Holy Sepulchre, the citadel, enclosing
Herod's Tower, and the mosque on mount Zion. The Turkish wall, with its
sharp angles, its square bastions, and the long, embrasured lines of its
parapet, is the most striking feature of the view. Stony hills stretch
away from the city on all sides, at present cheered with tracts of
springing wheat, but later in the season, brown and desolate. In the
south, the convent of St. Elias is visible, and part of the little town of
Bethlehem. I passed to the eastern side of the gallery, and looking
thence, deep down among the sterile mountains, beheld a long sheet of blue
water, its southern extremity vanishing in a hot, sulphury haze. The
mountains of Ammon and Moab, which formed the background of my first view
of Jerusalem, leaned like a vast wall against the sky, beyond the
mysterious sea and the broad valley of the Jordan. The great depression of
this valley below the level of the Mediterranean gives it a most
remarkable character. It appears even deeper than is actually the case,
and resembles an enormous chasm or moat, separating two different regions
of the earth. The _khamseen_ was blowing from the south, from out the
deserts of Edom, and threw its veil of fiery vapor over the landscape. The
muezzin pointed out to me the location of Jericho, of Kerak in Moab, and
Es-Salt in the country of Ammon. Ere long the shadow of the minaret
denoted noon, and, placing his hands on both sides of his mouth, he cried
out, first on the South side, towards Mecca, and then to the West, and
North, and East: "God is great: there is no God but God, and Mohammed is
His Prophet! Let us prostrate ourselves before Him: and to Him alone be
the glory!"

Jerusalem, internally, gives no impression but that of filth, ruin,
poverty, and degradation. There are two or three streets in the western or
higher portion of the city which are tolerably clean, but all the others,
to the very gates of the Holy Sepulchre, are channels of pestilence. The
Jewish Quarter, which is the largest, so sickened and disgusted me, that I
should rather go the whole round of the city walls than pass through it a
second time. The bazaars are poor, compared with those of other Oriental
cities of the same size, and the principal trade seems to be in rosaries,
both Turkish and Christian, crosses, seals, amulets, and pieces of the
Holy Sepulchre. The population, which may possibly