A welcome visitor.

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In the evening, camped on Mount Zion, we are favoured with a welcome visitor-a consul, of six years' residence here -who sits with us in the tent-door. He is a lettered and a learned man who takes this, to us, unenviable position for its official distinction only, and not from that need which we agree would alone drive any of us to compete for the post. From one of the chief centres of the world's life he has exiled himself to the effete, dead civilization, worse than barbarism, of this Jerusalem, though his general abilities and extensive knowledge fit him well for contesting the world's honours that he thus, all heedlessly, lets pass. The chats we have with him greatly beguile the long evening.

He does not believe in the return of more Israelites to this land than those now here. That their number has doubled during the past twelve years is to be easily accounted for, and primarily because they are one and all here supported by the voluntary contributions of their co-religionists of other lands. They are not liable, like the resident Mohammedans in Palestine, to be drafted away by conscription to supply the want for Turkish soldiery. As much by that means as by the taxation that crushes it, is the depopulation of the land to be accounted for. The deserted villages are robbed of everything in addition to their villagers, and pretty well every tree in the country has been cut down for saleable timber.

"Not the cedars of Lebanon, I hope! We shall see them?"

"It's just as much as you will, for they are situated on mountain tops, which difficult position has alone saved them. For timber for the Suez Canal they would have stripped the Mount of Olives, had the wood been of a serviceable or saleable sort."

The Jews at present throughout Syria number, our consul tells us, about thirty thousand. Not only do they do no work nor carry on any commerce by which to live, but living itself is not so much their object in coming here as dying. With a Chinese-like wish to mingle their dust with the first of

their race, do they make a pilgrimage hither that we can understand and honour, if not imitate. Buildings that we had noticed in our day's ramble, as also some in progress, are the works of charity, and intended for almshouses, for which the interior of the city affords not sufficient accommodation.

The Turk has had a long day in Palestine, and we want to know if there is any prospect of its drawing to a close, and the shadow of the Crescent disappearing from the Cross in this land of misrule. It is difficult to prognosticate, though prophecy is quite in order in Palestine. A cloud, hardly the size of a man's hand as yet, can, we are told, be seen Romewards! The Jesuits are there dissatisfied altogether, and would mend matters to their liking by removing hither the head-quarters of the Latin Church. The chair of St. Peter, shown at Rome, is said to have been once that of Mahomet, and to set it up here at Jerusalem would be but as bringing it back to Mohammedan land.

Out of all question, Jerusalem is more appropriately the place for this chair than Rome! Where the faith of a Church originated is properly its centre, and in that aspect Jerusalem distances all the claims of an Italian city, in which Christianity merely took root by the accident of Constantine's adoption. Our consul-informant has heard whispers that such a removal has been more than talked of. A practical part of the preliminary negotiations has been the survey of the dreary country we have now come through from Joppa, with a view to a railway running over it. We wish, in our aching bones, that we had delayed our journey until that matter of the railroad had ripened.

long enough, have seen Though their Japanese

If we had, we might, if we lived the Pope's palace on Mount Zion! enterprise came to great grief, that which the Jesuits take in hand does not always fail. The Vatican by the Tiber side has been fluttered lately by reformers who have taken therefrom its temporal toys. Such an insult and such a deprivation of power might be well revenged by leaving altogether

A possible change.

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the scene of it. There would be dignity shown in so answering Italy's attempt at degradation. A few more ruins would be only added to Rome's attractions in that line by the removal to Jerusalem of the seat of Papal power.

Such removal would be the escaping other encroachments than those of political reformers. Rome is becoming a second Pæstum from the dire encroaches of that malaria. which its walls no longer serve to shut out, and against which all anathemas seem to be powerless. Like Pæstum, it will yet have to be deserted in days to come for that reason, and why wait for it and sicken while waiting? No place so fitting for the transference of its pomp, and that ecclesiastical power which is left to it, as this Jerusalem. The French, who have the protectorate of the Roman holy places here, would probably help to that change.

"But what would Turkey say to it?" we ask.

"Turkey will sell anything if the price be good enough! To supply funds to the Constantinople exchequer is all that any of her possessions are held for. Palestine in that way is pretty well sucked out, and has been long ready for sale. The old Crusaders took it by the sword, but it cost more money so to do than it would to buy it in modern style, and there would be in such acquisition the chance of holding it, which the older form of taking possession wholly failed to ensure."

"What about the Greek Church and its Russian protectors?"

"Yes, certainly they are obstacles, and great ones too! The Greek Church has large possessions here, and Russia has great power. Out of that difficulty the way is not so easily to be seen, but the whole matter is one that has to be carefully handled, and many as seemingly difficult things have proved not impossible."

CHAPTER XXVII.

THE CITY OF SHRINES.

On the third day of our camping outside the walls of Jerusalem we could no longer keep our curiosity in check, and ourselves from entering the city. We actually dreamed of it, which is more than I had done of Canton or Calcutta, Jeddo, or Cairo. We hear of Jerusalem earlier in our youth, and read so much of it in the Book that is never forgotten. Such and such like help to make up that glamour which enwraps, as with a halo, Solomon's famous city.

"The horses can have a rest to-day!" said Hassan. "What, no horses allowed in the city?" we said. "There is no room for them, or for carriages either-you will find it quite troublesome enough to get along on foot."

I recalled that another holy city, Benares, and also Canton city, did not admit of horse or carriage traffic in most parts of them. We therefore hoisted our umbrellas, and started on foot for Bab el Khulil, or the Joppa gate. The day was very sultry, and made hotter by the cheerless sterility around, the barren rocks and stone-strewn land.

Joppa gate is about fifteen feet high and five wide. To indicate the Turkish ownership of the city a crescent and star are daubed on the panels. About the gate stood a crowd of itinerant pedlars and dealers in small wares and sweetmeats. A lively fight was in progress between two of them, the mob attending which surged towards us, stopping the way to the gate. A young Israelite was desperately pommelling away at an old Arab, whom he soon succeeded in getting under foot,

and we thought the trouble over. Flushed with victory he could not, however, let well alone, but made for another offender-a dealer in boiled eggs, in pink-coloured shells. This delicate merchandise he scattered all around with a kick, and in half a minute more was lying full length on his back, with the enraged owner of the eggs beating him with the empty basket. The unalloyed interest we took in this battle was of the kind felt when one does not care which side wins. The fight continued, and seemed to become "free," as an Irishman would call it, but it went further afield and left our road clear. We uncovered our heads reverently, as we would on entering a church, and so passing through the gate, stood at last within Jerusalem! One of us showed the feeling affecting him by kneeling awhile at the entrance to the sacred city.

We did not exactly stand on getting inside, though I have so expressed it; our feet slipping about very much on the cobble-stones, here badly laid down. They project some inches above the ground or sink some inches into it, and have unpleasant interspaces, so that one can walk neither between nor upon them. Their surfaces are worn quite smooth and slippery. Nowhere had I found such difficult walking. The first street from Joppa gate has the name of Christian Street, and is the leading thoroughfare of that one of the four quarters of Jerusalem named the Christian quarter. The other three divisions are called the Jewish, the Mohammedan, and the Armenian quarters.

Christian Street is about ten feet wide, with a steep roadway some five feet broad. It is quite a punishment to walk in that, and the narrow side walks are even worse. Fifty yards of it are as fatiguing as two miles elsewhere. There is some difficult walking at the end of the Black Valley at Killarney, and it is nasty to get over the waxed floors of Versailles, but they are as nothing to this trouble. On all sides rubbish in heaps and excreta of all kinds are to be seen. The filth of the city is beyond belief. For its dirt and stenches the people deserve that the cholera should come