the city lies the ancient burial ground, now long
disused but still undisturbed, many acres of uneven land, covered so
thickly with graves, and planted so closely with granite and sandstone
slabs, that the paths will scarce allow two persons to walk side by
side. The stones stand and lie in all conceivable positions, erect,
slanting at every angle, prostrate upon the earth or upon others already
fallen before them--two, three, and even four upon a grave, where
generations of men have been buried one upon the other--stones large
and small, covered with deep-cut inscriptions in the Hebrew character,
bearing the sculpture of two uplifted hands, wherever the Kohns, the
children of the tribe of Aaron, are laid to rest, or the gracefully
chiselled ewer of the Levites. Here they lie, thousands upon thousands
of dead Jews, great and small, rich and poor, wise and ignorant,
neglected individually, but guarded as a whole with all the tenacious
determination of the race to hold its own, and to preserve the
sacredness of its dead. In the dim light of the winter's afternoon it
is as though a great army of men had fallen fighting there, and had
been turned to stone as they fell. Rank upon rank they lie, with that
irregularity which comes of symmetry destroyed, like columns and files
of soldiers shot down in the act of advancing. And in winter, the gray
light falling upon the untrodden snow throws a pale reflection upwards
against each stone, as though from the myriad sepulchres a faintly
luminous vapour were rising to the outer air. Over all, the rugged
brushwood and the stunted trees intertwine their leafless branches and
twigs in a thin, ghostly network of gray, that clouds the view of the
farther distance without interrupting it, a forest of shadowy skeletons
clasping fleshless, bony hands one with another, from grave to grave, as
far as the eye can see.

The stillness in the place is intense. Not a murmur of distant life from
the surrounding city disturbs the silence. At rare intervals a strong
breath of icy wind stirs the dead branches and makes them crack and
rattle against the gravestones and against each other as in a dance of
death. It is a wild and dreary place. In the summer, indeed, the thick
leafage lends it a transitory colour and softness, but in the depth of
winter, when there is nothing to hide the nakedness of truth, when the
snow lies thick upon the ground and the twined twigs and twisted
trunks scarce cast a trace