would not belie the general character I
formed of it from the Mount of Olives. I caught a glorious glimpse of
splendid courts, and light aify gates of Saracenic triumph, flights of
noble steps, long arcades, and interior gardens, where silver fountains
spouted their tall streams amid the taller cypresses.]

[Footnote 36: page 91.--_Entered Jerusalem by the gate of Zion_. The
gate of Zion still remains, and from it you descend into the valley of
Siloah.]

[Footnote 37: page 94.-_ King Pirgandicus._ According to a Talmudical
story, however, of which I find a note, this monarch was not a Hebrew
but a Gentile, and a very wicked one. He once invited eleven famous
doctors of the holy nation to supper. They were received in the most
magnificent style, and were then invited, under pain of death, either
to eat pork, to accept a pagan mistress, or to drink wine consecrated
to idols. After long consultation, the doctors, in great tribulation,
agreed to save their heads by accepting the last alternative, since
the first and second were forbidden by Moses, and the last only by the
Rabbins. The King assented, the doctors drank the impure wine, and,
as it was exceedingly good, drank freely. The wine, as will sometimes
happen, created a terrible appetite; the table was covered with dishes,
and the doctors, heated by the grape, were not sufficiently careful of
what they partook. In short, the wicked King Pirgandicus contrived that
they should sup off pork, and being carried from the table quite tipsy,
each of the eleven had the mortification of finding himself next morning
in the arms of a pagan mistress. In the course of the year all the
eleven died sudden deaths, and this visitation occurred to them, not
because they had violated the law of Moses, but because they believed
that the precepts of the Rabbins could be outraged with more impunity
than the Word of God.]

[Footnote 38: page 94.--_And conquered Julius Caesar._ This classic hero
often figures in the erratic pages of the Talmud.]

[Footnote 39: page 94.--_The Tombs of the Kings._ The present pilgrim to
Jerusalem will have less trouble than Alroy in discovering the Tombs of
the Kings, though he probably would not as easily obtain the sceptre of
Solomon. The tombs that bear this title are of the time of the Asmonean
princes, and of a more ambitious character than any other of the
remains. An open court, about fifty feet in breadth, and extremely
deep, is excavated out of the