CHAPTER VII
AROUND THE WALLS OF THE HOLY CITY
I have tramped about the walls of Jerusalem on foot and have ridden round them upon donkeys. Let us make the trip on foot.
Some of the walls which still stand were laid up by Solomon, others were erected by Herod the Great, who built David’s Tower, and others by Agrippa only a few years after Christ’s death.
We walk across the road leading to Bethlehem, down which the Wise Men of the East rode on their way to the birthplace of the Saviour, and picking our steps through a caravan of camels lying there, climb up the slope of Mount Zion. There is a moat at the foot of the tower which is one hundred feet wide and thirty feet deep, and the wall rises perhaps one hundred feet above this. There are olive trees between the road and the walls, and as we go we see ragged donkeys feeding among them.
Now we have passed the moat and come close to the wall. Though its lower portions are about two thousand years old, the stones are as firm as when they were laid.
Going onward, we pass tower after tower running fifteen or twenty feet out from the wall and rising five or six feet above it. These towers were used for the archers and watchmen stationed there on the lookout for the enemy.
A little beyond David’s Tower, almost against the walls, is the great church built by the Germans. Its site commands a view over the whole of Jerusalem and was sold to the Kaiser of Germany by the Sultan of Turkey. A part of the churchyard is the American cemetery, which was sold by our consul. Its sale caused great excitement among the Americans at Jerusalem, and the American colony here protested against the removal of their dead, which they said was done after dark. The bodies were taken up and carried to the English cemetery.
Continuing our walk we hug the wall looking down into the Valley of Hinnom until we come to Zion Gate, and a little farther on to the Dung Gate. Below this in the Valley of Jehoshaphat lies the Pool of Siloam. At the Zion Gate a group of lepers are begging. They are ragged and filthy and hold out the stumps of their hands asking for alms. On the inside of this gate stood the house of Caiaphas, where Peter three times denied that he was one of the disciples of Christ, before the cock crowed.
As we go on we see chickens scratching in the earth outside the wall, and as we look at the gardens on the slopes of Kedron or Jehoshaphat observe that the land is still rich. There are cows away down in the valley and the bees are buzzing on the cacti and wild flowers on the slopes. In some favoured spots the Holy Land is still one of milk and honey. The villages near Jerusalem have dairies which supply excellent butter, and the honey, which is largely made of orange blossoms, is delicious. It is served every day at all the hotels, usually in the liquid form rather than in the comb.