667 
7 he 1 nhahitanis of Jerusalem, 
permitted to enter ; but now, that it is in 
jfuins, yon may obtain admittance for a 
few piastres. D’Anvilie proves that 
this castle, called by the Christians the 
Castle or Tower of tlse Pisans, is erected 
upon the ruins of an ancient fortress of 
David, and occupies the site of the tnw-er 
Psepiiina. It has. noi'ning remarkable: 
it is one of those Gothic fortresses of 
which specimens are to he found in every 
country, with interior courts, ditches, 
covered ways, <S:c. 
The keep of the castle overlooks Jeru« 
Salem from west to east, as the Mount 
of Olives commands a view of it from 
east to west. The scenery surrounding 
the city is dreary: on every side are seen 
naked mountains, with circular or 
tops, several of which, at great distances, 
exhibit the ruins of towers, or dilapi¬ 
dated mosques. These mountains are 
not so close as not to leave iiitetvais 
through which the eye wanders in quest 
of other prospects; hut these opetiings 
display only a back ground of rocks 
just as bare and barren as the fore¬ 
ground. 
It was from the top of this tower that 
the royal prophet descried Bethsheba 
bathing in the garden of Uriah. 
The citadel was guarded, when I saw 
it, by a kind of half-negro aga. lie 
kept his women shut up in it, and he 
acted wisely, to judge from their eager¬ 
ness to shew themselves in this dreary 
ruin. Not a gun was to be seen, and I 
am dodbtful wliether the recoil of a single 
piece would not shake all these ancient 
battlements into ruins. 
THE IK HABITANTS. 
Having examined the castle for an 
hour, we left it, anc^ took a street which 
runs eastward, and is called tlie street 
of the Bazar: this is tiie principal street, 
and the best quarter of Jerusalem. But 
what wretchedness, what desolation ! 
We will not encroach upon the general 
description. We did not meet with a crea¬ 
ture, for most of the inhabitants had fled 
to the mountains on the pacha’s arrival. 
The doorS of some forsaken shops stood 
open; through these we perceived small 
rooms, seven or eight feet square, whei’e 
the master, then a fugitive, eats, lies, and 
sleeps, on the single mat tiiat composes 
his whole stock of furniture. 
On the right of the Bazar, between the 
Temple and the foot of Mount Sion, we 
entered the Jews’ quarter. Fortified by 
their indigence, these hacbwiihstood the 
attack of tite^pacha. Here they appeared 
Monthly Mag., No. 
covered with rags, seated in the dust of 
Sion, seeking the vermin which devoured 
them, and keeping their eyes fixed on 
the Temple. The drogman look me 
into a kind of school: I would have pur¬ 
chased the Hebrew Pentateuch, in which 
a rabhi w'as teaching a child to read; but 
he refused to dispose of the book. It 
has been observed chat the foreign Jews, 
who fix their residence at Jeiusaiem, 
live but a short time. As to those of 
Palestine, tiiey are so poor as to be 
obliged to send every year to raise con- 
tiibutions among their brethren in Egypt 
and Barbary. 
From the Jews’ quarter we repaired 
to Pilate’s house, to view the raoscjue of 
the Temple through one of the windows; 
all Christians being prohibited, on pain 
of death, from entering the c^^urt that 
surrounds this mosque. The de.scription 
of it I siiail reserve till I come to tieat of 
the buildings of Jerusalem. At some 
distance from the praitorium of Pilate, 
we found the pool of Bethesda, and 
Herod’s palace. This last is a ruin, the 
foundations of which belong to antiquity. 
We went towards the gate of Sion, 
when Ali Aga invited me to mount with 
him upon the walls; the drogman durst 
not venture to folioK- us. I found some 
old twenty.four pounders fixed upon 
carriages without wheels, and placed at 
the embrasures of a Gothic bastion. 
In this heap of rubbish, denominated a 
city, the people of the country have 
thought fit to give the appellation of 
streets to certain desert passages. 
Jerusalem is comprehended in the 
pachalik of Damascus, for what reason I 
know not, unless it he a result of that 
destructive system which is naturally, 
and, as it were, instinctively, pursued by 
the Turks. Cut ofl* from Damascus by 
mountains, and still more by the Arabs, 
who infest the deserts, Jerusalem cannot 
always prefer its complaints to the 
pacha, when oppressed by its governors. 
It would be much more natural to make 
it dependent on the pachalik of Acre, 
which lies near it; the Franks and the 
Latin fathers might then place themselves 
under the protection of the consuls resi¬ 
ding in the ports of .Syria; and the 
Greeks and Turks would be able to make 
known their grievances. But this is the 
very thing that their governors are de¬ 
sirous of preventing; they would have a 
mute slavery, and not insolent wretches 
w ho dare complain cf the han.d that op* 
presses them. 
Jeiusaletn is therefore at the mercy cf 
4’Q 
