-500 
JERUSALEM® 
iboritj of certain Authors, whom he has not named, thinks k 
probable that this sepulchre belonged to Melisendis , queen of 
Jerusalem.* We descended to dt by a noble flight of fifty 
marble steps: each of these was twenty feet wide. This com*’ 
modious descent may possibly have been owing to the notion 
entertained by the empress Helena concerning its origin; but 
the sepulchre itself is of great antiquity; It is the largest of 
all the cryptce near Jerusalem. Appropriate chapels, within 
a lofty and spacious vault, distinguish the real or the imagina¬ 
ry tombs of the Virgin Mary, of Joseph, of Anna, and of 
Caiaphas. Struck with wonder, riot only in viewing such an 
astonishing effort of human labour, but in the consideration 
that history affords no light whatever as to its origin, we came 
afterward to examine it again; but could assign no pro¬ 
bable date for the sera of its construction. It ranks among 
those colossal works which were accomplished by the inhabi¬ 
tants of Asia Minor, of Phoenicia, and of Palsestine, in the 
first ages; works which differ from those of Greece, in dis¬ 
playing less of beauty, but more of arduous enterprize; works 
which remind us of the people rather than the artist; which 
we refer to as monuments of history, rather than of taste. 
Proceeding hence toward the south, along the eastern side 
of the valley, between the Mount of Olives and Mount Mo- 
toward the bridge over the Kedron, across which our 
Saviour is said to have passed in his visit to the garden of 
Gethsemane4 we came to 44 the Sepulchres of the Patriarchs 
facing that part of Jerusalem where the temple of Solomon 
was formerly erected. The antiquities which particularly 
hear this name are four in number. According to the order 
wherein they occur from north to south, they are severally 
called the sepulchres of Jehosaphat, of Absalom, the cave of 
St. James, and the sepulchre of Zechariah. From the diffi¬ 
culty of conveying any able artist to Jerusalem, and the utter 
impossibility of finding any of the profession there, these 
monuments have never been faithfully delineated. The 
* See “ Pococke’s Description of the East” vol. ii. part. 1. p. 22. Lond. 1745. 
t The plate engraved for Doubdan’s work (facing p. 120. of his “ Voyage de la Terre 
Sainte,” published at Paris in 1657,) affords a very accurate representation of the 
situation of the ancient sepulchres along the eastern side of the valley of Jehosa¬ 
phat, at the foot of the Mount'of Olives, facing Jerusalem. 
He went forth with his disciples over the brook Kedron, where "was a garden, 
Into which he entered, and his disciples. And Judas also which betrayed him, knew 
tfre place, for Jesus ofttitnes resorted thither with his disciples.” John xviii. I, & 
