Enter the city; and you will find nothing there to make amends for the dulness of its exterior. You lose yourself among narrow, unpaved streets, here going up hill, there down, from the inequality of the ground, and you walk among clouds of dust, or loose stones. Canvas stretched from house to house, increases the gloom. Bazars, roofed over, and fraught with infection, completely exclude the light from the desolate city. A few paltry shops expose nothing but wretchedness to view; and even these are frequently shut from apprehension of the passage of a cadi.
Not a creature is to be seen in the streets, not a creature at the gates, except now and then a peasant gliding through the gloom, concealing under his garments the fruits of his labor, lest he should be robbed of his hard earnings by the rapacious soldier.
Aside, in a corner, the Arab butcher is slaughtering some animal, suspended by the legs, from a wall in ruins. From his haggard and ferocious look, and his bloody hands, you would suppose that he had been cutting the throat of a fellow-creature, rather than killing a lamb.
The only noise heard from time to time in the city, is the galloping of the steed of the desert: it is the Janissary, who brings the head of the Bedouin, or who returns from plundering the unhappy Fellah.
Here reside (that is, among the ruins of Jerusalem) communities of Christian monks, whom nothing can compel to forsake the tomb of Christ; neither plunder, nor personal ill-treatment, nor menaces of death itself. Night and day they chant their hymns around the holy sepulchre.
Driven by the cudgel and the sabre, women, children, flocks, and herds, seek refuge in the cloisters of these recluses. What prevents the armed oppressor from pursuing his prey, and overthrowing such feeble ramparts? It is the charity of the monks; they deprive themselves of the last resources of life, to ransom their supplicants.
Cast your eyes between the temple and Mount Zion. Behold another petty tribe, (the Jews,) cut off from the rest of the inhabitants of this city! These people bow their heads without murmuring; they endure every kind of insult, without demanding justice; they sink beneath repeated blows without sighing; if their head be required, they present it to the cimeter. On the death of any member of this proscribed community, his companion goes at night, and inters him, by stealth, in the shadow of Solomon’s temple.
Enter the abodes of these people. You will find them, amidst the most abject wretchedness, instructing their children to read a (to them) mysterious book, which they in their turn will teach to their offspring. What they did five thousand years ago, this people still continue to do. Seventeen times have they witnessed the destruction of Jerusalem, yet nothing can discourage them, nothing can prevent them from turning their faces towards Zion.
To see the Jews scattered over the whole world, according to the word of God, must, doubtless, excite surprise. But to be struck with astonishment, you must view them at Jerusalem; you must behold these rightful masters of Judea, living as slaves and strangers in their own country; you must behold them expecting, under all oppressions, a king who is to deliver them.
We will only mention, in conclusion of this article, that the most ancient as well as most splendid edifice in the whole modern city of Jerusalem, is the mosque of Omar. It stands on Mount Moriah, precisely—it is supposed—where once stood the temple of Solomon. It is one thousand four hundred eighty-nine feet—more than a quarter of a mile!—long, and nine hundred ninety-five feet broad. It was built A. D. 636, and has, therefore, stood exactly one thousand two hundred years. It is, indeed, rather a collection of mosques, than a single one. The whole is included in two grand divisions; the Sakhara, in the centre, and the Akhsa, on the south side.