[Illustration: A street in Jerusalem]

It is a mournful fact that the one really fine building in Jerusalem
should be the Mosque of Omar--the famous "Dome of the Rock." This is built
on the legendary site of the temple of Solomon, and the mosaics lining the
inside of the dome are the most beautiful I have ever seen. The simplicity
is what is really most felt, doubly so because the Christian holy places
are garish and tawdry, with tin-foil and flowers and ornate carving. It is
to be hoped that the Christians will some day unite and clean out all the
dreary offerings and knickknacks that clutter the Church of the Holy
Sepulchre. Moslems hold the Mosque of Omar second in sanctity only to the
great mosque in the holy city of Mecca. It is curious, therefore, that
they should not object to Christians entering it. Mohammedans enter
barefoot, but we fastened large yellow slippers over our shoes, and that
was regarded as filling all requirements. Storrs pointed out to me that it
was quite unnecessary to remove our hats, for that is not a sign of
respect with Moslems, and they keep on their red fezzes. The mosque was
built by the Caliph Abd el Melek, about fifty years after Omar had
captured Jerusalem in 636 A.D. Many of the stones used in building it came
from the temple of Jupiter. In the centre lies the famous rock, some sixty
feet in diameter, and rising six or seven feet above the floor of the
mosque. To Mohammedans it is more sacred than anything else in the world
save the Black Stone at Mecca. Tradition says that it was here that
Abraham and Melchizedek sacrificed to Jehovah, and Abraham brought Isaac
as an offering. Scientists find grounds for the belief that it was the
altar of the temple in the traces of a channel for carrying off the blood
of the victims. The Crusaders believed the mosque to be the original
temple of Solomon, and, according to their own reports, rededicated it
with the massacre of more than ten thousand Moslems who had fled thither