CHAPTER IX.

THE POOLS AND WALLS OF JERUSALEM.-THE NINTH DAY

CAMP ASSYRIAN, TUESDAY, 6 A. M.

In looking over the city of Jerusalem at this early morning hour, I see the scarcity of fuel singularly illustrated by the fact that the smoke of the kitchen fires of all this city of twenty or twenty-five thousand inhabitants, increased at the present time by such multitudes of pilgrims, for whom food must be provided, these united chimney-smokes do not equal in quantity that of a moderate village in the United States. I suppose there is more tobacco smoke rising from Jerusalem this hour, than from all the cooking that so many breakfasts demand!

We have employed a soldier whose name is Kosroo. His uniform is the French zouave. His musket has the sword bayonet. He wears a tarboush. He is a lively little fellow, and don't know a word of English. I am to supply him with twenty cigarettes a day, and four cups of coffee. This is the genuine Oriental coffee, strong, black, without milk or sugar, cups as small as half a hen-egg. Kosroo was conscripted into the Turkish army, last year, at Tibnin. All his pay is his clothes and provisions. No wonder he likes to hire out in this way.

Kosroo is dreadfully profane. When he was asked to guard us faithfully, he swore, by Allah, that if his own father should lay a finger on one of us, he would run him through with his bayonet. But he don't look it. All the Arabs in Jerusalem swear like sailors. But in the new Jerusalem "there shall be no more curse." (Rev. xxii. 3.)

The streets of Jerusalem are in no place more than eight feet wide. Generally, they are only six. They are nothing but alleys, and you keep looking all day for a street-but you never find one. These alleys run all sorts of ways.

The musses made sometimes in these narrow streets, make the very Turks laugh. I watched them this morning. A camel, loaded with vegetables, was coming down the narrow street. On each side.

Piles of cauliflowers that grow

of him great sacksfull bulged out. around here, most as large as a bushel basket, were heaped mountain high on his hump. He loomed up like Vesuvius, as he came stalking along, his head level, his monstrous under-jaw swinging round the upper one like a barn door on its hinges, his wide, spongy feet flattening out on the stone pavement, making tracks like a mammoth's. As he came along, his rider roared ruak, ruak, that is, get out of the way. And everybody did ruak. One woman, who was carrying a bread-tray on her head, dove down below the camel's stomach, and so got past. I jumped into one of the little shops where they sell cakes. The rest of the crowd jumped into the stores right and left as I had done.

But just as the camel had passed me, he met a procession of six donkeys, all loaded down with oak roots, the drivers on top. Here was a muss. The camel screamed. The camel driver yelled ruak, ruak. The donkeys raised their tails and brayed. The donkey drivers swore. I wondered how the thing would be settled, for the donkeys could not turn round for their lives, as their roots just filled up the width of the streets. The camel could not turn round without knocking down the buildings on both sides of him. Never was such an uproar. Kosroo poked the camel's legs with his bayonet to make him bite.

At last, the men shouldered the donkeys, roots and all, and carried them backwards, into the side streets, and so let the camel pass. Such scenes must be common here, in the business part of the city, especially at this time, when there are more than five thousand strangers here.

I was surprised to see all the houses of Jernsalem numbered on the doors. Hassan says they tax people here, not according to the number of persons in the family, but according to the number of houses! So the Governor has had them all numbered. Of course they use the Arabic figures. Miyah thatata aasher, means 113. Thamarneen arbaah, is 84. Alf sittah, is 1006.

I spent a good deal of time to day at the Damascus gate. They call it here Bab es-Sham. This is the one that Dr. Barclay thinks was called in the Bible The Old Gate. (Nehemiah iii. 6.) Very considerable and interesting remains of the ancient structure are yet to be seen in the towers on each side of this gate. An old Jewish tower and stairway are perfectly preserved there. He thinks that this is the same kind of stairway named in 1 Kings vi. 8: "They

went up with winding stairs into the middle chamber and out of the middle into the third."

As I passed a convent, of which there are many here at Jerusalem, a lot of priests peeped out through the grated windows at me. One of them was a jolly red-nosed fellow. He said to me min aine jaryee. That means, Where do you come from? I told him the United States of America and State of New York. Then he said charteerah, that is, good-bye. These priests look to me exactly like a row of convicts squinting through their grated windows, such as I saw once at Sing Sing. They seem unhappy and unhealthy. This cooping up strong men in convents is like burying them alive. There is one thing, though, that I like about these priests, their singing.

To-day we have inspected the tanks, pools, and other natural landmarks of Jerusalem. This, with yesterday's explorations, will fasten indelibly upon our minds correct ideas of the general form and surroundings of the far-famed city.

Jerusalem stands in latitude thirty-one degrees, forty-six minutes north; longitude, thirty-five degrees, eighteen minutes east from Greenwich. In a straight line from the Mediterranean Sea, at Joppa, it is thirty-two miles; from the Jordan, eighteen; from Hebron, twenty; from Bethel, thirteen; Samaria, thirty-six; Jericho, thirteen; Ramleh, twenty-five. Its elevation is so remarkable that from every side, except the South, the ascent is perpetual, and so the old psalm expresses a reality: "Thither the tribes go up, the tribes of the Lord unto the testimony of Israel. (Psalm cxx. 3.) To all who approached it, in Bible days, it was emphatically a mountain city, breathing a mountain air, enthroned in a mountain fastness.

The western part of Jerusalem, in which our camps are pitched, is two thousand six hundred and ten feet above the level of the Mediterranean Sea, and nearly four thousand feet above the level of the pool at the Dead Sea. The lowest point around Jerusalem is the well En-Rogel, now called Beer-ayub. Making that a basis-standard, the heights of all the prominent points in and near the city are:

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Mount Olives at Church of Ascension..

By these figures, I see that our camp is pitched at the highest

point near Jerusalem, except Mount Olivet, which is one hundred and fourteen feet higher. No wonder, then, that I see Mount Olivet so plainly over the tops of all the walls, mosks, houses and churches intervening. The tomb of David is seventy-three feet lower than our camp; the Mosk of Omar is one hundred and eighty-one feet lower; the bridge over Kedron, which we crossed yesterday, is three hundred and twenty-nine feet lower.

Our first visit to-day was to the Upper Pool of Gihon, situated about half a mile westwardly of the Joppa gate. A crowd of men and boys were bathing in the muddy water. Yet the fact of two score naked persons swimming here, did not prevent the Mohammedan women from resorting here to fill their water jars! And the fact that this pool is a regular bathing place, the mud being stirred up till the water is thick with impurities, did not prevent their using it for cooking and drinking.

Josephus styles this the Serpent's Pool; the natives call it Birket Mamilla. Their word for pool is Birket, for well beer. The bottom of this birket is only four feet below the sill of the Joppa gate, and no doubt the water was formerly conducted into the city by a regular subterranean conduit. Even now there is a ditch through which its overflow in high water is taken into Hezekiah's Pool, inside the city. By my measurement, it is three hundred and fifteen feet by two hundred and eight, and from fifteen to twenty feet deep. A pair of steps descend to the pool at the south-west corner, and there is a dam on the lower side for regulating its contents.

The next pool we visited was the Lower Pool of Gihon, now called Birket es-Sultan. This is an immense reservoir covering a space of more than three and a half acres, and might once have been one hundred feet deep. It stands a quarter of a mile south-west of the Joppa gate. It is six hundred by two hundred and sixty feet in dimensions. For want of repairs it has run dry, and the bottom of it is a barley field. With proper care and an expenditure of a few thousand dollars, this reservoir might be made to supply the entire population of Jerusalem with water.

The Pool of Hezekiah lies inside the city, not far from the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. It is two hundred and fifty-two by one hundred and twenty-six feet in dimensions, and about ten deep. Its supply of water is from the Upper Pool of Gihon, and the rains collected from the roofs of adjacent houses.

In the office of the American vice-consul, to-day, I saw a copy of

the official newspaper, published at Beyrout. Its name is "Hadikatel-Akhbar, Journal de Syrie et Liban." The inside forms are printed in French, the outside in Arabic. The price of the paper, weekly, per annum, is one hundred piastres, about four dollars and twenty cents. For notices, five piastres a line is charged, and "Se paient d'avance" (cash in advance) is the rule of its managers. The paper is well printed and makes a creditable appearance. Another one in the same style is issued, I am told, at Damascus.

Here, at Jerusalem, I find a handsome magazine published in the Armenian language.

We began our day's researches by treading our way through the tents and camps of the pilgrims, who occupy all this quarter, waiting upon the religious services of the present (Passion) week. Very large numbers of these go down to the Jordan during their visit here. There they robe themselves in white cotton garments, bathe in the sacred river; and then, drying and preserving those garments, they take them back to their far-distant homes in Africa, Asia, Europe, and elsewhere, to be used as their shrouds. How much better is this superstition than that of the heathen.

I passed within the space of a mile through companies of Russians, Austrians, Poles, Turks, and a score of other nationalities, all travelstained and foot-sore. The Russians wear the sheep-skin jacket, with the wool turned inside, and red, rimless hats. Others are dressed in the flowing and parti-colored costumes of the Orientals.

I did not visit the Upper Pool of Gihon, as it is used for a public bathing-place; but I observed that it is embroidered with Mohammedan cemeteries, presenting the picturesque and striking view of white-robed groups of women sitting around the broken turf of newlymade graves. But I went to the Talitha Cumi Hospital of the Prussian Sisters. Here I fell in with a most accomplished physician, who has made his residence here for the purpose of paying attention to the diseases of the country. He informed me that the practice of medicine in Mohammedan countries is a mere bundle of superstitious observances. The Orientals have always connected religion with medicine, as the wild men of all nations do, and use charms and incantations instead of drugs. Our American friend, Dr. J. T. Barclay, won a high reputation during the many years he lived here. At first he was obliged to contend with blindness, prejudice, and incredulity, but eventually overcame them all. A common native practice is for the doctors to write their prescriptions upon slips of parchment