Knoxville daily chronicle. [volume] (Knoxville, Tenn.) 1870-1882, 1879-12-11

troll near the whole city-whole sections
and divisions of it. The American Con-
sulate to-day is rented from the Armenian
| Christians.
When tie Governor of the city wants to
| raise money, he sends to the Armenian
| Patriarch, and says lend me Sl00,GJ at III
| per cent, for five years, and the Patriarch
must hand over, although e knows he will
never get cent back, principal or interest;
! but he knows that if he does not lend it,
on some pretext or other he will be In
| prison. on short notice. Some years ago
the Patriarch was thus imprisoned, and the
American Consul went down to the prison
| doors and dem anded his rele. e, and he
was released. It is very important thgt
| Consuls be stationed in Jerusalem, and
they are there from all the great nations OF
! the globe.
| Vast quantities of soap, and wheat and
! barley, and olive and sesame oils are ex-
| ported from Jerusalem, besides large
amounts of ornaments and curioslties, such
as of olive wood are sold. The inhabitants
make money out of travellers, and the
Eastern pilgrims, who come every year,
| l0,Cc0 strong, and spend several weeks,
| leaving them quite revenue. Petroleum
| is now used for illumination, instead of the
old-time olive OIL All manufactured
articles. such as clocks, tools and clothes,
are brought from England and France.
| Jerusalem is artifcially supplied with
| water. The nearest river is fifteen miles.
and the Cedron is dry, except a few months
! of the year. The roofs of the buildings
are arranged to gather every drop, of
| water that falls in the winter, and conduct
1t down into immense cisterns under every
| house. These are cut in the subterranean
limestone; besides there are four capacious
pools in and about the city, ranging in d.
mension from 800 feet in length to ECO in
width, and DO to rs feet in depth. Three
vast pools of the same size were built by
Solomon, six miles below the city near
Bethlehem, and pipes conduct this water
Mount Moriah is literally honey combed
with reservoirs, cisterns and aqueducts,
holding 100000 gallons Of water. So
that the city never surrendered during the
longest siege owing to scarcity of water,
although food often gave out.
Jerusalem has been surrounded at diff
ferent times by three or four walls, the
more modern one being built in the middle
of the sixteenth century, by Solyman, the
Magnificent It is fifteen feet thick, and
varies iu height from twenty five to seventy
fcet, according to the irregularities Of the
ground. It is four-sided, taking in por-
| tons of the four hills on which the city is
built, and is q miles in entire circuit
| You could easily walk about it in an hour.
1t serves a very good purpose to keep out
the rowing Arabs and pilfering peasants,
but broaside from 20 modern guns would
riddle it through and through.
There are four open gates: Damascus
gate, on the north; Joppa gate. on the
west; Zion, on the south, and st. Steph zen,
on the east. These gates are shut when the
sun goes down, except the Joppa, which
in kind of grace stands open half hour
longer, and woe betide the peasant or
loiterer who endeaYors or tries to getin after
that. He may pound and bang those thick
oaken doors, but the gate is shut. He
must don his cloak, if he has one, and lie
down to his dreams on the outside but q
plaster or a nickel has often been known to
bride the honorable janitor TO let you in.
| All the houses of the city are made
of white or gray limestone. | do not re-
| call wooden house there. The walls
floors, ceilings, arches and domes, are all
| of limestone. The whole city, walls and
houses look so white. There is scarcely a
window in the first story, and the doors
are so low you have to stoop to get into
them. The people live in the second
story, as the first is used for shops, stores,
cattle and sheep The houses open into
inner courts. and you hardly ever see
| their goods or open rooms
The streets of Jerusalem are exceedingly
nsrrow-only three or four of them fifteen
feet wide, and very zigzag and crooked,
the most of them mere alleys~-and lanes,
five or six feet in width. They are mostly
lll-paved, where paved at all. Solomon,
in all his glory, never paved street in
Jerusalem; and presume Gay street would
have been wonder to him. And how ST.
lent those Jerusalem streets are. No car
riage, hack, bread or beer cart, no wheel
barrow; no sound of machinery or fac
| tory; you almost never hear the sound Of
horses hoof. There are few, if any, squares
for the people to gather in, and the CHI IL
dren seem to be silent. Stiffness profound,
sepulchral as the grave, reigns as IN city
of the dead. With few exceptions the
streets are filthy and nOiseme. All the
rubbish and animal and vegetable matter,
and sWeepings from houses and stores and
stables, are emptied into, the thoroughfares,
and, as many of these are vaulted overhead
they are often dark and close and sitting.
Ours and hounds. rats and mice, are un-
molested, as they act as scavengers. Sew
eral times they have had to open the gates
for the hyenas to come in and clean the
city, for fear of pestilence, but that some
years ago.
The streets are not very safe by night.
There was no illumination when was
there. A small taper satisfies Syrian. No
light breaks from any window. You ira
verse the roads by night and you may fall
into pit, or tumble over a heap of filth,
or be bitten by dog or kicked by mule,
or stabbed by an Arab. Everybody carries
lantern when he goes out of night, else
he may be arrested as an assassin or thief.
At sunset all the bazaars, shops, baths and
coffee houses are closed, and darkness and
stiffness set on the CITY like pail.
Jerusalem has two hotels, and very com
Portable and clean, but most travellers oc
cupy tents; a postofice is connected with q
bank. It has but one paper, and that a
Hebrew publication. Mails arrive once
week by the NJ Mediterranean steamers. 1t
has no theaters, operas, club-houses, muse
ums, or public Libraries. The bridegroom
brings home his bride by day, and Jerusa-
lem, in itself alone, must be one of the
dullest cities on earth.
Mount Zion is the largest highest and
most interesting hill in Jerusalem. Its
imagery has gone into the Psalms and into
all Christian literature, and it represents the
stability and glory of the Church of God
on earth, and is the type of the eternal city
Of God in heaven, Mount Zion was an i'm
pregnable fortress, a veritable Glib
raltar. 1t rose in the south
west of the city from 200 to
400 feet above the valleys on its four sides.
An immense deep, wide, natural trench sur
rounded it. It was 1000 feet long and 1,O0O
feet wide on its surface, and when, in addi-
ton to its natural elevation, it was sur
rounded by wall high and broad with
towers and battlements land sbulwarks, it
must have been great, grand sight, Here
Molo Oh in 1y,I