434 Sketch of the present State 
O rives du Jourdain, O champs aim.ea des 
cieux 
Sacre mont, ferules vallees 
Da doux pays de ncs ayeux' 
Serons nous toujours exiles ? 
I\Iany of them left their bones in the land 
of servitude. We found, thus far from 
France, tiie tomb of two new Israelites. 
Ljrnessi domus aila, solo Laurente sepul- 
chrum ! 
It was reserved for us to discover, at 
the extremity of the Adriatic, sea, the 
sepulchre of two daughters of the last of 
our Bourbon kings, whose funeral ora¬ 
tion we iiad also heard pronounced in a 
(idvrei in London [ 
O , 
Let us pass, however, to the subject 
of Jerusalem .—We have now in our 
liaiuls a drawing of the holy city, which, 
although well executed, is far from giv¬ 
ing a faithful representation cf its pe¬ 
culiar aspect, and of its commanding po¬ 
sition. Jerusalem, seen from Mount 
Olivet, presents an inclined plane de¬ 
scending from west to east. A iotty 
wail, fortified with towmrs and a gotinc 
castle, encloses the whole city, but ex¬ 
cludes a part of Mount Sion which it 
formerly embraced.—-Towmrds .the west 
and in the centre of the city, the houses 
are numerous and closely built; but, in 
the direction of the east and along the 
valley of cedars, large vacancies are ob¬ 
served ; among others, the area of the 
mosque which is erected near the ruins 
of the Temple, and the former site of the 
second palace of Herod. 
The houses of Jerusaletn are heavy 
square masses, built low', without chim¬ 
neys or windows : ilat terraces and some¬ 
times domes form the roof. Altogether 
they appear like prisons or sepulchres. 
The wiiole city resembles a cemetery in 
the midst of a desert. 
If you enter, you find nothing to com¬ 
pensate you for the gloom of the exterior. 
You lose yourself in narrow crooked 
streets without pavement and full of ab¬ 
rupt declivities. You tread upon loose 
stones and are enveloped in clouds of 
dust:—[)ieces of linen spread from the 
top of one house to another increase the 
darkness of this labyrinth; which is 
rendered still more dismal and disgusting 
by covered markets exhaling a most pes¬ 
tilential odor. A few mean shops only 
serve to indicate the poverty of the in¬ 
habitants ; and these are often shut, 
from an apprehension that the Cadi niay 
pa-s by : not an individual is, to he seen 
in the streets^ or at the gates of llie city • 
of Greece and Palestine, [Dec. 
now and then a peasant is discovered 
stealing through this twilight, and care- 
lully concealing the fruits of his industry 
under his clothes, lest he should be plun¬ 
dered and maltreated by the soldiery; 
ap#rt, in a corner, you may observe an 
Arabian butcher killing some animal sus¬ 
pended by the hind feet from a moulder¬ 
ing wall; from the bloody arms, and 
the haggard fei ocious countenance of the 
man, you would be led to suppose that 
he had been engaged, not in die business 
of his trade, but in the perpetration of 
murder.- The only soimd heard in this 
deicide city, and that merely at distant 
intervals, is the galloping of the Arabian 
horse, of which the rider is a janissary 
either bringing the head of a bedouin to 
Ids master, or setting out to pillage the 
i'clian. 
In the midst of this extraordinary scene 
of desolation, your attention is arrested 
by something still more extraordinary^ 
Among the ruins of Jerusalem tliere are 
two distinct and independent classes of 
people, who find in their religious faith 
resources which enable them to triumph’ 
over this array of horror-and misery. 
You have before you, on one side, a body 
of Christian monks, whom neither the 
menaces of death, nor indiguities, nor 
robberies of every description, can drive 
from the tomb of the Saviour. Their 
canticles resound niglit and day about the 
holy sepulchre. Altliougii plundered in 
the morning by a Turkish governor, tiiey 
are still found in the evening at the foot 
of Mount Calvary, praying on tlie spot 
where Jesus Christ suffered for the sal¬ 
vation of man. They welcome a stranger 
with a serene countenance and a cheer¬ 
ful heart. Without arms or troops, they 
are still able to protect whole villages 
against lawless po-ver. Women and 
children, driven like herds of cattle at 
the point of tlie sabre, take refuge in the 
cloisters of these ascetics. Their charity 
rescues the trembling victims from the 
blows of the merciless janissary. In 
order to ransom their suppliants, they 
surrender to their pursuers even thecom- 
mon necessaries of life ;—»what is almost 
indispensable for tlieir own subsistence. 
Turk^ Arabians, Greeks, Christians, 
all seek protection from the unarmed 
and defenceless ministers of the true re¬ 
ligion. It is here that we can say with 
Bossuet, ‘‘ that hands uplifted to Hea¬ 
ven, vanquish more battalions than those 
which wield the javelin and the scime'’ 
ter.” 
^Yhilj the new Jerusalem is seen, 
^ shilling 
