the same instant we both lashed the spirit into ours, dashed on at a
break-neck gallop, round the corner of an old wall on the top of the hill,
and lo! the Holy City! Our Greek jerked both pistols from his holsters,
and fired them into the air, as we reined up on the steep.

From the descriptions of travellers, I had expected to see in Jerusalem an
ordinary modern Turkish town; but that before me, with its walls,
fortresses, and domes, was it not still the City of David? I saw the
Jerusalem of the New Testament, as I had imagined it. Long lines of walls
crowned with a notched parapet and strengthened by towers; a few domes and
spires above them; clusters of cypress here and there; this was all that
was visible of the city. On either side the hill sloped down to the two
deep valleys over which it hangs. On the east, the Mount of Olives,
crowned with a chapel and mosque, rose high and steep, but in front, the
eye passed directly over the city, to rest far away upon the lofty
mountains of Moab, beyond the Dead Sea. The scene was grand in its
simplicity. The prominent colors were the purple of those distant
mountains, and the hoary gray of the nearer hills. The walls were of the
dull yellow of weather-stained marble, and the only trees, the dark
cypress and moonlit olive. Now, indeed, for one brief moment, I knew that
I was in Palestine; that I saw Mount Olivet and Mount Zion; and--I know
not how it was--my sight grew weak, and all objects trembled and wavered
in a watery film. Since we arrived, I have looked down upon the city from
the Mount of Olives, and up to it from the Valley of Jehosaphat; but I
cannot restore the illusion of that first view.

We allowed our horses to walk slowly down the remaining half-mile to the
Jaffa gate. An Englishman, with a red silk shawl over his head, was
sketching the city, while an Arab held an umbrella over him. Inside the
gate we stumbled upon an Italian shop with an Italian sign, and after