On the south is a fine pointed doorway, with well-carved ornaments in good relief, leading into a spacious hall, in which are medallions containing good arabesques. Beyond this is a very large court surrounded by a cloister with pointed arches, which also have arabesques in their details. The hall, the cloister, and the court, are now only used to shelter the camels and horses of the first comers; consequently they are in a filthy state, and their ornaments are daily being destroyed. A spiral staircase in the north-east corner of the hall leads to the upper floor, where is a Gothic window of two lights, with a marble column as mullion, crowned by an elegant arabesque capital. After going over this floor and mounting to the roof, we see the remains of a splendid apartment with all the requisites of a Mohammedan Harem[508]; but here care is necessary to avoid a fall. The view from the summit of the terrace is far from uninteresting; the whole Haram es-Sherîf is well seen, with a considerable extent of the central valley, the hill Acra (as placed by me) full in view, and also Bezetha, separated from Moriah, and rising above it. Here the student and the archæologist will form a good idea of the topography of the ancient city; and the descriptions of Josephus, especially with reference to Acra and Bezetha, will be readily understood.
Opposite to S. Helena's Hospital on the north is a Saracenic house, apparently of the same date, which is in a very unsafe state. In the south façade is a great number of delicately wrought and interesting arabesques. It is used by certain Mohammedans, who meet there for prayer. They belong to an order of Dervishes, who are very free from fanaticism, and employed in doing good. When I speak of the convents belonging to the different sects, I will give a fuller account of them.
To the south of the House of Dives is seen on the east side of the road the front of a Saracenic fountain[509], which (as is stated by an inscription) belongs to the age of Solyman. To avoid repetition, I may mention that all the fountains in Jerusalem, so far as regards their ornamentation, belong to the same epoch. It is now dry, because the revenues, destined to supply it with water and repair its conduit, have been absorbed by their former managers.
Keeping along the valley towards the south we come to a street leading up to Temple Street; following this westward, we find on the left, after a few yards, a Saracenic doorway, the ornamental details of which are elegant and well executed[510]. It was the entrance to a boys' school for Mohammedans, founded by Omar, and afterwards enriched by Saladin; but a mass of ruins is the only memorial remaining of their liberality. Near this gate on the west is a street; and at the beginning of this, an opening in the ground covered with a large slab, giving admission into a passage leading to the Fountain of the Virgin in the Kidron valley; of which I shall speak again at greater length.
Opposite to the above-named gate is an ancient edifice, which, from the masonry, may be attributed to Saladin or Solyman; it is called by the Mohammedan chronicle the Hospital of Omar. I have examined the interior, and it appears to me, from the arrangement of some of the principal walls, to have been a church in the days of the Latin kingdom, most probably the Church of S. Giles, mentioned by various writers of the time of the Crusades[511]. The Saracenic architecture in its façade may have been the addition of one of the two above-named Sultans, and shews how rich the neighbourhood of Jerusalem is in fine coloured stones, which take a polish like marble. Many of these are fastened together with lead without mortar. This building might be thoroughly restored for a small sum of money; but it is involved in the same destiny as all the other ancient buildings belonging to the Mohammedans in Jerusalem, and unless it be sold will soon be a heap of ruins.
In a small street on the west of the above is an ancient edifice, which shews the hand of a skilful architect in the regularity of its façade, and the arrangement of its inner walls. The wall of the former consists of small stones with deeply-cut rustic-work up to the level of the first floor; along which runs a very plain cornice beneath a row of square-headed windows, also crowned with a projecting cornice. The remainder of the façade is constructed of polished stones accurately laid. In the ground-floor rooms, now converted into offices, are the shafts and capitals of columns, and from the general appearance of the building we may infer that it has been a chapel. Local traditions state that it once belonged to the Germans; and it is not impossible that it may have been a dependency of the establishment that afterwards gave birth to the Teutonic order of knights. Returning to the Hospital of Omar, and following the small street opposite to it, we arrive, after crossing the central valley, at the spot on the western wall of the Haram, where the Jews (as we have already mentioned[512]) come to bewail the calamities of their nation. The stranger who visits the place when the unhappy sons of Israel are gathered together there, returns saddened by the sight of their grief. Ceaselessly swaying their bodies from side to side, they utter their prayers in a wailing chant, broken by sighs and sobs, as they kneel among the ruins of their departed grandeur, a feeble and waning remnant in their fatherland. This continual motion, as I was informed, is in memory of the wandering of their ancestors, during the forty years that elapsed between their exodus from Egypt and their entry into Canaan. Having easy access to the Haram, and the power of introducing any person with me, I several times offered to take various Jews into the place, and shew them the true remains of the Temple of Solomon and of Herod; but they always refused for the following reason. When the Temple was destroyed a great number of holy vessels were buried in the ruins; therefore every Jew in the Holy City refrains from visiting the sacred enclosure, for fear of treading upon their dust, and so confines himself to lamenting outside the wall. If one of them enters the Haram (so they told me), he is excommunicated by the chief Rabbi, and expelled by the whole body as a sacrilegious person. All rules, however, have their exceptions, and so has this; for Baron de Rothschild and Sir M. Montefiore, on the occasion of their visit to Jerusalem, obtained permission from the authorities and entered the Haram. This greatly displeased many of their brethren, who grumbled loudly at it in secret; but the excommunication was not fulminated; perhaps because they remembered that these gentlemen had liberally aided in supporting them in times past, and were likely to do so for the future; and consequently thought it would be very foolish to offend them by an act of ignorant fanaticism.
Returning by the same street, we will now enter the Jewish Quarter and visit the synagogues. The great ancient synagogue may be compared to a vaulted cave; the way into which is down a badly constructed and worse kept staircase. Some piers which were formerly ornamented with wood-carvings and gilding (of which some slight traces still remain) sustain the roof of these subterranean chambers, many parts of which threaten to fall down. They are lighted by the feeble rays that struggle through the broken panes of the closely grated windows. The place is always damp, both from its low situation, and from the water which runs into it during the winter-rains by the staircase, the windows, and the leaky vaulted roof. Round the upper part of the chamber latticed wooden galleries are built; but these are so separated one from another, and so patched from repeated repairs, that they look more fit to be fowl-pens than seats for the women, who seem to me to occupy a very dangerous position. Below are shattered, rotten, worm-eaten benches, haunted by swarms of voracious fleas, which are occupied by the men. At the end of each chamber is a kind of wooden cupboard, with more or less tasteless ornament about it, in the middle of which is the tabernacle, usually covered with a torn curtain, which on festival days only is replaced by another, given by some European benefactress. The tabernacle contains nothing but a copy of the Scriptures, written on parchment rolls. The tables of the law are kept with a holy veneration in the principal of these chambers, wrapped up in a purple cloth embroidered with gold. While the services are going on, each Israelite has upon his head a piece of striped blue and white woollen cloth, edged with a cord, which hangs down from each corner. Many also wear a little box on their foreheads in which a copy of the ten commandments or of some other passages of Scripture is enclosed[513]. When the Rabbins unroll the parchment before the worshippers, each draws near to touch it reverently with the end of one of the cords of his veil. The sad and solemn psalmody of the Doctors of the law, answered by verses of the Bible recited by all the people, with sighs and every manifestation of profound grief, produces a feeling of compassion for this unhappy remnant of Israel, whose constancy and resignation under so long and heavy a burden seem to deserve a better fate.
What I have said of this synagogue may also be applied to the rest, which, as they are smaller, so are they more inconvenient, and in a still more ruinous condition. During my stay in the city a new synagogue was built on the eastern slope of Sion, called the Polish. It rises majestically, and its dome dominates over a large portion of the city, but I know too well that it will not last long, as its foundations are bad; because the master-mason who directed the work had not sufficiently examined the ground, and so mistook its nature. They were laid in a great measure on ancient walls, which, not so much from ignorance of their existence, as from a mistaken economy, were not properly examined. Therefore when the new walls were finished, and the greater part of the dome completed, cracks, caused by a settlement, appeared all along the building. Consequently it became necessary to strengthen the foundations and to modify the design of the façade by closing up arches and windows, and using iron tie-rods. At present it seems likely to stand for some years; but not for a long period, as its materials and masonry are not very strong.
A German synagogue on the east of the Polish, reached by threading a labyrinth of dirty lanes, is now being repaired. Those in charge of the work have begun to restore the façade, over which they have wasted a great quantity of money in loading it with useless ornament; and have paid no attention to the interior, which, in my opinion, should be the first consideration: consequently they are now at a standstill for want of funds. There are other small synagogues in the Jewish Quarter, but these are not worth notice, being only rooms used for that purpose.
Quitting the Jewish Quarter by its south side in order to reach the Sion Gate, we come upon the Armenian property, and stop a little to examine their churches. In the outer wall of the Convent, close to the Gate of David, is a small chapel, said to occupy the site of the house of Annas the High-Priest, father-in-law to Caiaphas[514], whither our Saviour was brought after he had been made prisoner at Gethsemane. The tradition is not very old, and is of little value, because, after so large a part of the city towards the south has been destroyed, and the whole greatly changed by the ravages of Titus's army and other causes, it is highly improbable that the site of a house can be exactly fixed. Adrichomius[515] says of this chapel, "the house of Annas, father-in-law to Caiaphas, where afterwards the Church of the Holy Angels was built." It is small, but divided into a nave and two side aisles by two pillars, which sustain the vaulted roof.