and photographed them. Oh! that Felix Fabri had been there to see, and could have bequeathed us his impressions of that inimitable scene. As for myself, feeling my temper getting the better of me, and not wishing to be involved in an unseemly dispute, I left the church.

CHAPTER XXIII

THE MOUNT OF OLIVES AND THE WAILING

OF THE JEWS

WE visited many other places in Jerusalem, but few of these impressed themselves much upon me, principally because I could not bring myself to believe that there was even a probability that they had to do with the events which are reported to have happened in them. Thus, there is a fine Armenian church, which as a church is worth looking at, where St. James is said to have been beheaded. He may have been, but I can discover no sufficient evidence of the fact. All that the Bible, a much-neglected book of reference, says about it is that when Herod the king stretched forth his hand to vex certain of the Church "he killed James the brother of John with the sword." Well, it may have happened here. In this church there are old porcelain picture-tiles, which are really very curious.

Then there is the house of Caiaphas, now an Armenian monastery, where we saw an altar, said to be made of the stone which closed the entrance to the sepulchre of Christ. This same stone is also to be seen in the Chapel of the Angels in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, a difficulty which Fabri gets over by stating that the faithful cut it into two. By the way, in his time, pilgrims stole fragments of that stone almost more greedily than anything else. A companion of Fabri's bribed one of the Armenian guardians with two ducats to break a piece from it, which

the pair of them did by stealth in the darkness. This knight died at sea-surely the Armenian guardian should also have died, but perhaps he did-and Felix, evidently much to his delight, inherited the fragment, which he took home with him to Ulm. In this monastery also we were shown a little cell where the Saviour is said to have been imprisoned before his trial, also the place where Peter denied his Master, and the tombs of many Armenian patriarchs. The last are undoubtedly genuine; for the other sites there seems to be no real authority, although, much as they are to-day, they were all of them shown to pilgrims in the time of Fabri. In a few brief lines Baedeker disposes of their claims.

Another noted building is the Coenaculum or the Chamber of the Last Supper, now a mosque, but evidently from the style of the architecture formerly used by Christians of the Crusader period, probably as a church. We know that every building in Jerusalem has been destroyed once, if not more often, since the time of our Lord, and this fact is fatal to any illusion connected with an upper chamber standing in the year 1900, and exhibiting even a stone upon which the Saviour is reported to have sat at the last Supper. The place, however, has many traditions. For instance, the Virgin is said to have died there: also it is the reputed scene of the descent of the Holy Ghost upon the Apostles. Lastly, in an adjoining room is a coffer covered with embroidered cloth, alleged to be a copy of the sarcophagus of David, who, as the Moslems declare, is buried in the vaults beneath. All authorities report that it is comparatively modern, nor was I sufficiently interested to attempt to see it, to do which its Moslem guardians must be rather heavily "insulted" by the travelling Christian.

All we know is that somewhere in the City of David, David was buried; somewhere stood that upper chamber

where were uttered the immortal and immortalising words recorded by St. John; somewhere rose the palace of Caiaphas where Jesus Christ was mocked, scourged, and crowned with those thorns that symbolise the lot of all humanity. Whether it was here or 100 yards or 500 yards distant, what does it matter? It matters nothing

at all.

A more interesting expedition to my mind is to hire horses and ride to the Mount of Olives by way of the Valley of Hinnom. This is a desolate, waterless place, associated with many an ancient, evil memory, whereof it was prophesied "that this place shall no more be called Tophet, nor the Valley of the son of Hinnom, but the Valley of slaughter." Here is that Tophet "which is in the Valley of the children of Hinnom," which Josiah destroyed when, "he brake in pieces the images, and cut down the groves and filled their places with the bones of men . . . that no man might make his son or his daughter to pass through the fire to Molech."

From this valley Hinnom we get the name Gehenna, a synonym of hell, and near to it is the Aceldama, or House of the Field of Blood, where for generations pilgrims have been buried. Hence it is easy to see how, as Dr. Bliss informed me he had proved by his excavations, the ancient Jerusalem must have stretched much further in this direction than does the modern town. The natural lie of the land, and the defences provided by the position and fall of the valley, make it almost imperative that this area should have been included in the walls. Following round it we came to the Pool of Siloam, now an evilsmelling mud-hole, from which, holding a handkerchief to my face, I was glad to escape as fast as my horse could carry me.

After riding for some distance along the Valley of Jehoshaphat, we began the ascent of the Mount of Olives,

and, following a steep and narrow path, came to the Russian church and hospice which stand upon the summit. Buildings belonging to the Russians are numerous in the Holy Land. When looking at them it has more than once occurred to me that in the case of new troubles in that region, their stout walls and towers would form very serviceable coigns of vantage to a power which for religious, if for no other reasons, would not be averse to establishing itself on the coasts of Palestine. Indeed, although I have little to go on beyond the results of my own observation, I believe that the erection of so many hospices and kindred establishments has a steady political purpose quite distinct from any present pious and charitable use of these edifices. Those who live may see its development before they are older by twenty years.

Close to the church stands a belvidere tower, which must be quite a hundred and fifty feet high, and is built in six storeys. To its top where, if I remember right, bells are hung, those whose heads are strong enough may climb by a circular winding stair of iron, protected with a singularly low and inefficient handrail, over which it would be easy to pitch in a fit of vertigo. I contented myself with stopping at one of the lower platforms, whence the view was magnificent.

Below were stretched the valley of Jehoshaphat, Mount Moriah crowned with its mosques, and the Hill of Zion; every detail, indeed, of walled Jerusalem, with the rugged mountains and valleys that lie about her. Still more wonderful is the prospect to the east, for there, four thousand feet below gleam the misty waters of the Dead Sea, encircled with stony hills, and separated from Jerusalem by leagues of the most desolate country to be found in all the earth. There, too, a green streak, drawn as it were across a drab-coloured sheet of paper, runs the river Jordan, and beyond it rise dim mysterious moun