As we were Deir Már Elyás, there is a gentle ascent. advancing to its summits, we began to call to remembrance some of the beautiful allusions of holy writ to the “city of the great King," the type of the spouse of Christ,2" the joy of the whole earth," and which for many ages was "full of stirs, a tumultuous city, a joyous city," and which in its glorious towers and palaces and bulwarks, was unto God himself "Gilead and the head of Lebanon."5 In a moment JERUSALEM was before our view! We stood still in solemn silence, and again went forward, and stood still and gazed. Our feelings were so overpowering, that we could neither understand them nor give them expression. "I am strangely disappointed," at last said my companion; " yet there is something in the scene strangely affecting." In the language of Scripture,―partly applied by accommodation, and partly used, as by the inspired writers, as descriptive of the present desolations of the wondrous city, the only suitable response could be given," How doth the city sit solitary that was full of people! how is she become as a widow!" "From the daughter of Zion all her beauty is departed." "All that pass by clap their hands at thee; they hiss and wag their head at the daughter of Jerusalem, saying, Is this the city that men call the perfection of beauty, the joy of the whole earth?”’6 "Many nations shall pass by this city, and they shall say every man to his neighbour, Wherefore hath the Lord done thus unto this great city? Then they shall answer, Because they have forsaken the covenant of the Lord their God."7" O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her 1 Psalm xlviii. 2. 2 Song vi. 4. 3 Psalm xlii. 2. * Isaiah xxii. 2. Jer. xxii. 6. See Lam. chap. i. and ii. APPROACH TO JERUSALEM. 403 chickens under her wings, and ye would not! Behold, your house is left unto you desolate."1 Yes," replied my friend, "Jerusalem was the most highly favoured, and the most guilty; and it is now the most signally punished city on the face of the globe." Ages have passed away since its glorious temple and palaces, and towers and residences, were overthrown; and it is not now that we have to expect to find in it anything approaching to its former magnificence. The beauty of its situation is all that we can hope to discern; and that beauty of situation,-in the eminence and slopes of the platform on which it stands, and in its natural defences on two of its sides,-still remains, though only a glimpse of it is got on the approach from Bethlehem. The southern wall, with a few domes and minarets overtopping it, and the mosks covering the sepulchres of David and the other kings of Judah on Mount Zion, were all that here appeared to our view. We were now at the "well of the Magi," to the north of the convent of Elijah, where conjecture has fixed the place of the reappearance of the star to the three wise men from the east. Several damsels were there filling their earthen pitchers; and they gave us to drink of the cooling waters. We had on our right a low swelling ridge of rock, and on our left the nearly level plain of Rephaim, almost all under grain cultivation,-the crop, however, owing to the imperfect agriculture, being of an indifferent character. The gentle slope of this valley seemed to be to the west. Our road was nearly on the exact line on which the waters which, in the rainy season, take their course to the Mediterranean, and those which go to the Dead Sea, separate from one another. As we advanced, our view of Mount Zion greatly improved; and its steep slopes to the south reminded us of its impregnableness in the days of old. A good part of it was literally "ploughed as a field." The valley of Hinnom, 1 Matth. xxiii. 37, 38. associated so much with darkness, impurity, and blood, appeared like a deep and yawning gorge, with the facings of its nearly bare rocks on each side much cut and broken. It is now called Wádí Jehennam, or the Valley of Hell. In connexion with this name, we thought of the passage of Jeremiah, “Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that it shall no more be called Tophet, nor the valley of the son of Hinnom, but the Valley of Slaughter," though it is not strictly applicable to its present designation. We passed along the western side of this ravine, keeping the great aqueduct from Solomon's pools, the Birket es-Sultán, or the Lower pool of Gihon, to the right, till we crossed the valley opposite the citadel, having the "Tower of David," or Hippicus, as one of its most prominent objects. When about to enter the Báb el-Khalil, or the gate of Hebron, known also by the name of the Yáfa or Joppa Gate, we were taken by the Turkish soldiers on guard to the tents of the officers superintending the quarantine establishment. When we had told them of our long journey through the desert, and when I had presented to them a special letter of introduction which the Governor in Council of Bombay had kindly given to me instead of a passport, they informed us that the quarantine regulations would to a great extent be dispensed with in our case. We were to be allowed to enter the city, under the care of a guardiáno, who should attend us for a couple of days, and give us at the same time liberty to move about as we pleased, without our touching any of the people in the streets, -a condition which, owing to the commencement of the influx of pilgrims, we could not observe, and on which our attendant did not insist. We entered the gate, and our feet stood within Jerusalem! Never did we pass through a town with such interest as on this occasion. We were conducted to the 1 Jer. vii. 32. ARRIVAL AT JERUSALEM. 405 lodging-house, in the Via Dolorosa, of a Greek Christian, Elias of Damascus, alias Abu Habib, the "father of the beloved," his only son, where we took up our abode. We were glad to find our friends, Messrs. Gray, Buckworth, Caulfield, and Jones, whom we had more than once met on our journey, accommodated at the same place. We had not heard a word of news from Europe for upwards of two months; and they communicated intelligence sufficient to awaken the deepest interest and anxieties of all the sons of Scotland, even in the most distant lands of their pilgrimage. A file of papers, which was kindly sent to us by Mr. Young, the English consul, did not tend to diminish these anxieties. It would be difficult to say whether, for this day at least, the natural Jerusalem in the land of Israel, or the spiritual Zion in the land of Caledonia, was uppermost in our thoughts and feelings. That the God of Zion reigneth, alone gave us hope and peace. DURING my first visit to Jerusalem with Mr. Smith, I devoted eleven laborious days to the work of observation and research within and without its walls, and in its immediate neighbourhood; and during a second visit with the Rev. Mr. Graham, I devoted five days to the same pursuit. The results of our survey and inquiries, I shall here, for the sake of convenience, combine together. Considering the attention which has been devoted to the Holy City by innumerable writers, and particularly the late full and able discussion of its topography, on somewhat opposite principles, by Dr. Robinson and Mr. Williams, my reader will expect from me but little that can be characterized as strictly novel. If I suc |