"
Here is the first sight of Jerusalem:--"At length, about five o'clock,
after expecting, for the last half-hour, that every hill-side we climbed
would be the last, we came suddenly in full view of Jerusalem.--Few, I
think, however careless, have looked for the first time on this scene,
without some feelings of solemn awe. We read the accounts of all that
passed within or around these walls with something of the vagueness that
always veils the history of times that have gone by two thousand years
ago; but however soon the feeling may wear off or be cast away, it is
impossible, with the very spot before you where your Saviour lived and
died, not to feel vividly impressed with the actual reality of what we
have read of, and its intimate connection with ourselves.--But soon I
was struck with the very erroneous idea I had had of Jerusalem. From the
west it does not look at all like a city built on a hill; for, rather
below you, at the farther end of a barren plain, you see nothing but the
embattled walls of a feudal town, with one or two large buildings and a
minaret alone visible above them. To the right the ground dips into the
Valley of Hinnom,--but to the left it is level with the city-walls, and
its surface is covered with bare ribs of rock running along it; and it
is from this side that the Romans and Crusaders attacked.
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