Accompanied by the American consul and a single servant, we entered the cave without difficulty, and, lighting our wax tapers, proceeded along carefully for a hundred feet, when we began rapidly to descend. To our surprise, on our right sat an Arab maiden who had become the sibyl of the cavern, surrounded by several natives, to whom she was delivering her sibylline oracles. Rapidly descending toward the southeast, we soon found ourselves in a cave three thousand feet in circumference, more than a thousand feet in length, and more than half that distance in breadth. The air was damp; the darkness that of a rayless night; the ground on which we walked was strewn with the chippings of the quarrier; the walls around us were marred with marks of the chisel, and the ceiling above us adorned with stalactites of a rose-color hue, from which trickled the percolating waters of the city; while, disturbed by our approach, bats screamed their grief and flapped their long black wings against their solid nests. Moving southward, we came to the verge of a precipice a hundred feet across and fifteen feet deep, on the bottom of which the skeleton of some lost explorer had been found. Threading a long gallery on the left, we saw a fountain as deep as it was wide, partially filled with water strongly impregnated with lime. Turning eastward, we entered a second gallery of greater depth, in the sides of which are immense blocks of limestone, in part detached from their native bed, just as they were left by the unknown quarrier thousands of years ago. Here, as elsewhere, were the unmistakable marks of a broad chisel-shaped instrument, evidently used to detach the blocks on either side and at top and bottom, and then by the pressure of a lever the mass was broken off from the rock behind. Occasionally we passed huge pillars supporting the ceiling above, and in several instances saw blocks hewn and squared ready to be hoisted to their destination. On the right and left winding passage-ways led us to noble halls, white as snow, and supported by native piers, on which are engraven the cross of some Christian pilgrim or knight of the Crusades; and on the sides of the chambers are Hebrew and Arabic inscriptions, the memorial of some wandering Jew and some conquering son of the Prophet.
Seeking in vain for an entrance other than that on the north, we returned to daylight full of curious thoughts. What tales of woe are written on these walls! and, could we hear their voices, too low for mortal ear, what secrets would they reveal! In the time of sieges this has been the retreat of Jew and Christian, of Saracen and knight; the last refuge of helpless womanhood, of tender children, of infirm old age, and the death-bed of dying heroes wounded in the fight.
Being unquestionably a quarry, many facts lead to the conclusion that here were hewn the stones for the construction of Solomon’s magnificent temple. The material, both as to grain and color, is the same as that found in the antique walls and buildings of the city; the extent of the quarry, together with the vast amount of stone removed, and in such large blocks, suggest the erection of some grand temple; the ancient tradition coming down from the days of Jeremiah and pointing to this quarry; the remarkable absence of another adjacent to the city; and the important fact that the mouth of the quarry is many feet higher than the surface of the Temple area, which must have facilitated the transportation of those immense blocks of limestone, which were no doubt conveyed on rollers down the inclined plane of the quarry to the site of the Temple, where, hewn and finished, they were silently elevated to their destined place—the magnificent fane of Solomon, with all its courts and porticoes, rising noiselessly into being, as of old the world rose from naught, at once explaining and fulfilling the words of sacred history:“The house, when it was in building, was built of stone made ready before it was brought thither, so that there was neither hammer nor axe, nor any tool of iron heard in the house while it was building.”[82]
Nothing more impressively indicates the complete destruction of ancient Jerusalem than the impossibility of identifying with exactitude the location of its former gates, the scene of so many thrilling events. Fire and sword, plunder and time, have removed those landmarks of great historic deeds.These gone, we are left to conjecture as to the location of the “Valley Gate,” through which Nehemiah passed on his nocturnal exploration to ascertain the condition of the city;[83]of the “East Gate,” from which Jeremiah went forth with the ancients of the people to the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, to illustratethe destruction of the Jews by breaking in their presence a potter’s vessel;[84]of the “Horse Gate,” out of which the ambitious Queen Athaliah was led to execution;[85]of the “Gate betwixt the two walls,” “whence Zedekiah and all his men of war fled before the King of Babylon;”[86]and of the “Gate of Benjamin,” where the king sat when the kind Ebed-Melech, the Ethiopian, interceded in behalf of Jeremiah, then in a loathsome dungeon beneath the royal palace.[87]
Of the seven gates which penetrate the walls of modern Jerusalem, the noblest and most ancient of the number is the one standing in the mouth of the broad depression sweeping southward through the city, called the Damascus Gate. Surmounted with turrets and battlements, it not only presents an imposing appearance, but its ornamental architecture indicates its Saracenic origin and style. Judging from the formation of the ground it occupies, it probably marks the site of an older gateway. As of old, so now, from its portal runs the great northern road to Nablous; and from it, no doubt, Saul of Tarsus went forth, leading his band of persecutors to crush the infant church of Jesus in Damascus. Constructed in the form of an elliptical arch, flanked with massive towers of great antiquity, and inclosed with huge doors incased with iron, it wears the appearance of a prison. Within is a large chamber, grim and gloomy, formed by the arch and towers, and from which a square-shaped and winding staircase leads to the top of the parapet. Guarded by four Turkish soldiers, the traveler has illustrated before him St. Luke’s description of the Roman guard on the night of our Lord’s trial:“And when they had kindled a fire in the midst of the hall, and were set down together, Peter sat down among them.”[88] In the northeast corner of the hall, within the gateway, the soldiers build a fire of juniper coals when the weather is cold, the smoke of which deepens the gloom of the already blackened walls.
Midway between this gate and the northeast corner of the city is the “Gate of Flowers,” consisting of a small portal penetrating a tower, but which is now inaccessible, having been walled up since 1834. In the eastern wall of the city is St. Stephen’s Gate, a simple structure, and without ornaments, except the carved figures of two lions over the entrance. Fromit a path descends the steep sides of Moriah, and, crossing the small stone bridge that spans the Valley of the Kidron, leads up to the Garden of Gethsemane and to the Mount of Olives. Compelled to fly before the rebellious Absalom, it was out of the gate that stood on the site of the present one that David fled, and, a thousand years later, a greater than David went forth out of the same portal on the night of his betrayal. As it is the chief entrance to the city on the east, streams of pilgrims from the Heights of Benjamin on the north, and from the Valley of the Jordan on the east, incessantly flow in and out of this well-known gate.
Situated in the southern wall, nearly in the centre of the Tyropean Valley, is the “Gate of the Western Africans,” which is of inferior construction, and is opened and shut according to the caprice of the governor. Fortunately, it was opened when I passed, an event which may not occur again for many years. From it a path descends to the charming gardens of Silwân. On the summit of a ridge beyond is the Gate of Zion, the cleanest and most quiet of the seven. But the great and most usually thronged portal of the town is the Yâffa Gate, located in the western wall of the city, between Mount Zion and Mount Akra. Consisting of a massive square tower, it has a quadrangular hall within. Probably standing on the site of Nehemiah’s “Valley Gate,” it is the point to which all the great thoroughfares converge, from Bethlehem and Hebron on the south, and from Yâffa on the west. Carefully guarded during the day by a band of soldiers, all the gates are closed at night when the evening gun is fired. From a superstition as suggestive of fear as it is precautionary against surprise, the gates are closed on Friday between the hours of twelve and one, because of an old and prevalent tradition that on that day and at that hour the Christians will attempt to retake Jerusalem.
Running north and south through the very heart of the city is a broad depression, and coming up from Siloam, on the south, is the Tyropean Valley, joining the former at the northeast corner of Mount Zion, where the latter abruptly diverges to the westward, intersecting the Valley of Gihon. Upon its divergence hangs the long and fierce controversy touching the topography of the ancient city. Though its upper section is filled with rubbish from twenty to fifty feet deep, yet there is a perceptible ascent from Christian Street to the Hippic Tower,as there is a descent from the Yâffa Gate into the valley beyond. If the intervening ridge is not accumulated earth, it is difficult to conceive how Mount Zion could ever have been the “strong-hold” represented by sacred and profane writers. The construction of the three famous towers on the northwest portion of the hill by Herod the Great was not to supply a natural defect, but to honor the king’s favorites, and to be the depositories of his royal treasures.As recent excavations in the vicinity confirm the correctness of the supposition, so future excavations will remove the last doubt that this is the “Valley of the Cheesemongers” described by Josephus, separating the “upper city from the lower.”[89]
As of old, Jerusalem stands upon five hills, formed in part by valleys without the city, and by depressions within. Though, when viewed from within the town, their altitude is not great, yet in their general outlines all are distinctly defined. Of these hills, covering an area of four and a half miles in circumference and half a mile in diameter, Zion, Moriah, and Ophel are mentioned by the inspired historians, while, together with the former, Akra and Bezetha are described by Josephus. Rising in the form of a parallelogram, Mount Zion is the largest of the five sacred hills. Attaining an average height of more than 500 feet above the surrounding valleys, its southern and western sides are as rugged as they are steep. Though lower than the northwest corner of Akra, yet, when viewed either from the Tyropean or the Hinnom valleys, the bold brow of Zion is seen to best advantage, justifying the confidence reposed in it as a strong defensive position. Sloping down toward the King’s Gardens, where three valleys meet, its southeastern sides are terraced from base to summit, and planted with corn and olives, fulfilling the words of the prophet,“Zion shall be plowed like a field.”[90] Directly opposite the Haram, the naked rocks rise from the “Vale of the Cheesemongers” more than thirty feet high, and on the verge of the precipice once stood the “House of the Mighty.” Less than half the hill is included within the present walls, occupied by the Citadel, the English Church, the American Consulate, the Post-office, the Prussian Hospital, the Church of St. James, the Jewish Synagogue, private residences, and the Lepers’ Quarters; while beyond the walls are the Diocesan school-house, the ArmenianConvent, the Tomb of David, and the Protestant Cemetery.
Emotions of joy and sadness are awakened as one stands upon the site of those great historic events which have filled the world with their renown, and impressed their inevitable results, for “weal or woe,” upon the opinions and actions of mankind. As the religious sensibilities of our nature are most susceptible of excitement, so no spot on earth excites the mind to the same degree as where the events of sacred history occurred. Around Mount Zion cluster memories of human shame and glory. Here the defiant words of the Jebusites kindled the martial soul of David, who, summoning all his military skill and courage for the attack, captured the “stronghold of Jebus.” Here he reigned for thirty-three years in unrivaled wealth and glory, and here he penned many of his sublime psalms. Here the ruder palace of the father gave way tothe grander palace of the son. Here, in regal magnificence, unequaled in the annals of kings, Solomon held his court, displaying a wisdom as vast as his wealth was exhaustless, and achieving for himself a name that was borne to the uttermost parts of the earth in accents of praise and gladness. Here, for a thousand years, their descendants reigned in power and glory; and here, on the very summit of their pleasures and greatness, they, with fourteen of their successors to the throne, were entombed. Here stood the palace of Caiaphas, in whose judgment-hall Jesus was tried and Peter swore. To gratify personal ambition, and perpetuate the memory of his royal favorites, here Herod the Great reared those three massive towers which were the pride and admiration of the triumphant Titus.Calling one Mariamne, in honor of his queen, whom he afterward slew in a passion of jealousy, he named the second Phasaëlus, after his friend, and the third Hippicus, in memory of his brother, both of whom were slain in battle, fighting in his behalf.[91]