CLAlt&E S TEASELS. 
362 
when tliese sepulchres were hewn, nor by what peopled 
They are a continuation of one vast cemetery, extending 
along the base of all the mountainous elevations which sur- 
round Jerusalem upon its southern dnd eastern sides; and 
their appearance alone, independently of every other considera¬ 
tion, denotes the former existence of a numerous, flourishing, 
and powerful people. To relate the legends of the monks 
concerning these places would be worse than silence, even if 
they had not often been told before. The 44 Sepulchre of Je°> 
hosaphaif ■•"and the “ Cave of St. Jamesf are smaller works, 
of the same nature 'with the monuments ascribed to Absalom 
and Zeckariah. All of them contain apartments and recepta¬ 
cles for the dead, hewn in the same marvellous manner. Jo¬ 
sephus mentions a monument erected by Absalom; but he de¬ 
scribes it as a marble Slele, distant two stadia from Jerusalem.} 
The same, however, is said in Scripture to have borne the 
name of 44 Absalom's Place,” in the beginning of the eleventh 
century before the Christian aera.-J A very extraordinary 
‘circumstance concerning the two principal sepulchres is, that, 
at present, there is no perceptible entrance to the interior. 
The only way of gaining admittance to that of Absalom is 
through a hole recently broken for the purpose ; and to that of 
2echariah 9 although the Jews pretend to a secret knowledge 
of some such opening, there is no entrance of any kind. 
After viewing these monuments, having now examined all the 
antiquities to the south and east of Jerusalem, we crossed the 
/bed of the torrent Kedron by the bridge before mentioned: 
then, ascending to the city by a very steep hill, on which tra¬ 
dition relates that St. Stephen was stoned, we made the cir¬ 
cuit of the walls upon the northern and western side; and, 
having found nothing remarkable, entered by the gate of 
Jaffa. 
The streets of Jerusalem are cleaner than those of any 
other town in the Levant; though, like all of them, they are 
very narrow. The houses are lofty ; and, as no windows ap* 
* 
^Mons. De Chateaubriand places them among the Greek and. Roman monuments 
of Pagan times (See Trav. vol. II. p. 95.) erected t* the Jews. 41 If I were re¬ 
quired,” says he, (Ibid. p. 101.) “ to fix precisely the age in which these mausoleums 
were erected, I should place it about the time of the alliance between the Jews and 
the Lacedaemonians, under the first Maccabees,” 
t Antiq. lib. vii. cap. 9. Colon. 1691. 
t “Now Absalom, in his lifetime, had taken and reared up for himself a pillar. 
■?v)ych is in the king’s dale; for he said, I have no son to keep up my name in remem¬ 
brance*. and he called the pillar afterhis own naxne, and it is called* unto this day,- 
A&saibm’s place.” 2 &\m. xviii. is, 
