each acre of earth's surface, dead, dead, nothing but dead, rushing on to judgment in the gorge of Jehoshaphat. "Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision.” And above, facing each other in the sick heaven, the black balls of the sun and moon discerned by the light of the flaring, shivering, dying stars!

Walking along the wall we came to the Golden Gate, which by some is believed to be the Beautiful Gate spoken of in the Acts. No man goes through it for it is built up. Here passed Christ, while the people cried Hosanna and threw palms upon His path. The Mahommedans have a belief that on a certain Friday, none know when, a Christian conqueror will enter by this gate and hunt them from Jerusalem for ever. haps that is why they wall it up. In itself the building is striking, but I will not attempt its detailed description. Experts say that in its present form it dates from the Byzantine period.

Per

At length we had visited everything we were allowed to look at, and turned for a while to contemplate the whole expanse of this great and sacred place that has seen so much, and for aught we know, has still so much to see. Then we parted from our guide and guard with mutual compliments, pointed in a manner best understood in the East, and returned to the city, following the tortuous line of the Via Dolorosa. Along this street the Saviour is supposed to have borne His cross-indeed, by tablets and otherwise, each "station" is recorded to an inch, upon what authority I have not been able to discover. Still millions have accepted and continue to accept the tradition.

Afterwards we visited what is now shown as the Pool of Bethesda. I cannot say if it is the true site which has been claimed for other springs. This is cerɩain, however, that it agrees very closely with the conditions described in the Gospels. Many steps lead to this darksome pool to be accurate, there are two pools. The

steepness of these steps make it evident that no maimed or impotent person could have climbed down them quickly without assistance. It is possible, however, that here were nothing but cisterns, fed by some underground fountain. Above are the remains of a chapel, discovered, I understand, in the course of recent excavations, and built apparently during the crusading period.

Our next expedition of importance was to the Pools of Solomon, about six miles from Jerusalem, which once they helped to supply with water. Now the aqueduct is broken, and practically the only water in the city is obtained from cisterns that are filled by the rains. So long as these cisterns remain clean their water is good, but they are not always clean. Also towards the end of summer the supply fails. Then there is much sickness.

It is said, I believe with truth, that some years ago the Baroness Burdett-Coutts offered to restore the broken aqueduct at a cost of about £20,000. Thereupon the Turkish authorities, wishing to profit by this strange folly of a Frank, asked for another £3000 baksheesh in return for the honour that must accrue to a stranger who, at her own expense, proposed to provide their city with a supply of pure water. I am glad to say that, according to the story, the Baroness refused to submit to this imposition. Subsequently, after the pause common in the East, it was intimated to her that her original offer would be accepted. To this she is reported to have replied that she had now spent the money in building or endowing a church in England. As a result, Jerusalem remains, and is likely to remain, without any constant supply of drinking water.

Here it is the same in every case. A gentleman who is resident in the city told me that he had applied for leave to mend at his own expense a hole in the road running past his house. The answer was that he must pay

for the privilege. The Sultan, it was explained to him, could mend his own road if he liked, or, if it pleased his Imperial Wisdom, could leave it unmended. In the issue he left it unmended.

We drove out through the Jaffa Gate, past the Hill of Evil Council, where Caiaphas and his colleagues are said to have decided upon the destruction of the Saviour. On a ridge above stands a tortured-looking wind-bent tree, apparently an oak, to which Judas is reported to have hanged himself. In the account by Bishop Arculf, as taken down by Adaman, the Abbot of the Isle of Iona, upon which he was shipwrecked on his return from the East in the days of the Northumbrian king Alfred-that is, at the end of the seventh centurythe Judas tree was shown upon much the same spot. Arculf, however, describes it as a large fig - tree, and that it is not still a fig I am unable to assert with confidence, for we did not go close enough to verify its species. Mandeville, 600 years later, speaks of it as an elder-tree, but Sir John can scarcely be counted as an authority on this or any other matter.

Further on we came to the little building that is shown as the tomb of Rachel, of which the site at any rate appears to have been accepted for many centuries. Certainly she must have been buried very near by, for Jacob says in Genesis: "And as for me, when I came from Padan, Rachel died by me in the land of Canaan in the way, when yet there was but a little way to come unto Ephrath and I buried her there in the way of Ephrath; the same is Bethlehem."

Leaving Bethlehem to be visited on our return, we drove to the Pools of Solomon. They are splendid `reservoirs, three of them, lying one below the other, fed from the spring known as the Sealed Fountain and other sources. Of the three pools the first is the smallest, and the last, which is nearly two hundred yards long by fifty broad and sixteen deep, is the largest. I