364 SKETCHES OF PALESTINE. 



of those great nations, still exists unmixed among the ruins of its 

 native land.' 



But the Jerusalem of sacred history is, in fact, no more. Not 

 a vestige remains of the capital of David and Solomon ; not a mon- 

 ument of Jewish times is standing. The very course of the walls 

 is changed, and the boundaries of the ancient city are become 

 doubtful. The monks pretend to show the sites of the sacred 

 places ; but neither Calvary, nor the Holy Sepulchre, much less 

 the Dolorous Way, the house of Caiaphas, &c., have the slightest 

 pretensions to even a probable identity with the real places to 

 which the tradition refers. Dr. Clarke has the merit of being the 

 first modern traveller who ventured to speak of the preposterous 

 legends and clumsy forgeries of the priests with the contempt 

 which they merit. 'To men interested in tracing, within the 

 walls, antiquities referred to by the documents of sacred history, no 

 spectacle,' remarks the learned traveller, ' can be more mortifying 

 than the city in its present state. The mistaken piety of the early 

 Christians, in attempting to preserve, has either confused or an- 

 nihilated the memorials it was anxious to render conspicuous. 

 Viewing the havoc thus made, it may now be regretted that the 

 Holy Land was ever rescued from the dominion of Saracens, who 

 were far less barbarous than their conquerors. The absurdity, for 

 example, of hewing the rocks of Judea into shrines and chapels, 

 and of disguising the face of nature with painted domes and gilded 

 marble coverings, by way of commemorating the scenes of our 

 Saviour's life and death, is so evident, and so lamentable, that 

 even Sandys, with all his credulity, could not avoid a happy 

 application of the reproof conveyed by the Roman satirist against 

 a similar violation of the Egerian fountain.' 



The Jerusalem that now is, is still a respectable, good-looking 

 town, of an irregular shape, approaching to a square ; it is surround- 

 ed by a high, embattled wall, built for the most part of the com- 

 mon stone of the country, which is a compact limestone. It has 

 now, including the golden gate, seven gates. One looks to the west, 

 and is called the gate of YafFa, or Bethlehem, because the road to 

 those places passes through it. Two look to the north, and are call- 

 ed the gate of Damascus, and the gate of Herod or Ephraim gate. 

 A fourth looking to the east, is called St. Stephen's gate, because 

 near it the proto-martyr was stoned to death ; it is close to the tem- 

 ple, or mosque of Omar, and leads to the gardens of Gethsernane 

 and the Mount of Olives. The fifth leads into the Temple, but is 

 now built up, owing, it is said, to a tradition that the Christians will 

 take the city by this gate : it is called the golden gate. Another 

 gate leads from without the city into the mosque of El Aksa, for- 

 merly the church of the presentation, and is called the gate of the 

 Virgin Mary. On account of a turn in the wall, this gate, though 

 in the east wall of tfie city, looks to the south towards Mount Zion ; 

 it is not, however, strictly speaking, a gate of the city. What, there- 

 fore, we reckon the sixth gate, is the dung gate, or sterquiline gate. 



