, and so through the central
western gate of the Haram-esh-Sherif, "the Noble Sanctuary."

This is a great inclosure, clean, spacious, airy, a place of refuge from
the foul confusion of the city streets. The wall that shuts us in is
almost a mile long, and within this open space, which makes an immediate
effect of breadth and tranquil order, are some of the most sacred
buildings of Islam and some of the most significant landmarks of
Christianity.

Slender and graceful arcades are outlined against the clear, blue sky:
little domes are poised over praying-places and fountains of ablution:
wide and easy flights of steps lead from one level to another, in this
park of prayer.

At the southern end, beyond the tall cypresses and the plashing fountain
fed from Solomon's Pools, stands the long Mosque el-Aksa: to
Mohammedans, the place to which Allah brought their prophet from Mecca
in one night; to Christians, the Basilica which the Emperor Justinian
erected in honor of the Virgin Mary. At the northern end rises the
ancient wall of the Castle of Antonia, from whose steps Saint Paul,
protected by the Roman captain, spoke his defence to the Jerusalem mob.
The steps, hewn partly in the solid rock, are still visible; but the
site of the castle is occupied by the Turkish barracks, beside which the
tallest minaret of the Haram lifts its covered gallery high above the
corner of the great wall.

Yonder to the east is the Golden Gate, above the steep Valley of
Jehoshaphat. It is closed with great stones; because the Moslem
tradition says that some Friday a Christian conqueror will enter
Jerusalem by that gate. Not far away we see the column in the wall from
which the Mohammedans believe a slender rope, or perhaps a naked sword,
will be stretched, in the judgment day, to the Mount of Olives opposite.
This, according to them, will be the bridge over which all human souls
must walk, while Christ sits at one end, Mohammed at the other, watching
and judging. The righteous, upheld by angels, will pass safely; the
wicked, heavy with unbalanced sins, will fall.

Dominating all these wide-spread relics and shrines, in the centre of
the inclosure, on a raised platform approached through delicate arcades,
stands the great Dome of the Rock, built by Abd-el-Melik in 688 A.D., on
the site of the Jewish Temple. The exterior of the vast octagon, with
its lower half cased in marble and its upper half incrusted with Persian
tiles of blue and green,