The Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis) 1868-1895, 1889-05-22
CITY OF. THE GRET KING.
ANCIENT AND mooeRweRusALeM.
no Traces OF It's Old BpIsior and Mag
nifcence-Its Present Inlbitants-Ths
Hebrew OF To-Day--TD Russian
Power-CustomsEto.

says Jerusalem Is cityhat is builded
compact together" and ait was in his
day so IL is now, as evidend by the low,
flat-roofed houses with the white domes
crowded thickly into the irrowest of lit
tic crooked streets that arnowhere wide
enough 10 permit the Psage of two
wheeled vehicles, the onlyneans OF con-
veyance through them bag the camel,
donkey or horse. The toust chronicler
who desires 10 study thooly city and
the towers thereof that may tell Il
TO the generations followir" will find II
more satisfactory 10 Elrally follow
David's advice and "walk bout Zion and
60 round about her" cDohd, half-paved
thoroughfares on foot hstad Of attempt
ing any more ambitiousmtans OF locomo-
ton. Because of its storg and secure
elevation on its four rugged hills Jerusa-
lem was undoubtedly lost desirably To-
Gated when consideration a military
standpoint in the time David and Sol
ONION, but viewed with modern eye
worse situation for cit could hardly be
conceived.
In the first place ii is amost completely
without water, even for blinking purposes,
the greater portion of tn year and, sec
ondly, the country Immediately about it
is barren beyond expression and pro-
duces comparatively noting. Water is
luxury that must be jalously guarded,
and il is gathered in ciserns during the
months of the rainy seaon and made to
do duty for the rest of the year, when
none can be expected. The water-seller's
occupation is busy one and have OBJ
served in all these easten countries the
great fondness which the people display
for that much-neglected liquid in Amer
lea They gulp down goIlets of it, when
opportunity presents, witt greater gusto
than II IL were the choicest of wines.
There is frequently great suffering among
the poorer classes for want of it, and they
are compelled TO bring in meager sup
plies from points many niles distant, car
Tylng IL upon their bucks in pig skins
Solomon, in his wisdom, had an excellent
system of water-works FIR the supply of
Jerusalem, bringing it from "Solomon's
Pools" beyond Bethlehem, but in the gen.
eral wreck that has overaken everything
here, these aqueducts lave long since
been destroyed. Feeble attempts have
from time to time been made to put
them again in working order, and the
Baroness Burdett- Coutts, l am informed,
most generously offered to donate
something near two hundred thousand
dollars for their restoration, but, as usual
with Turkish officials, the rascally COVER
nor OF the province refused to permit her
TO carry out her charitable design unless
she gave him a bride of $4,000. In other
words, he coolly demanded that she should
bride him for permission TO give this large
sum in charity for the relief OF his suffer
ing people. 1t was the greatest possible
benefit that she could have bestowed upon
the venerable metropolis, for its CRYING
necessity is water, and a more perfect out
rate than its non-acceptance can hardly
be comprehended. But Turkish COVER
nors, it is said, live by bribery and cor
ruption, and care little for public veal
or anything beyond their own miserable
pockets.
Jerusalem may have been city of the
greatest magnifcence in the days Of Solo
mon, as we are told it was, but il requires
a stretch of the imagination TO believe it
now, and it is not wholly unlikely that its
grandeur was somewhat exaggerated by
those who looked upon it with partial
eyes and had never known anything be-
yond 1T, just as residents of Cincinnati,
Louisville, Chicago, etc, imagine they
live in real cities until they have once
seen Indianapolis. Certainly, whatever
1t may have been then, it is now unat-
tractive and disappointing, its only re-
naming interest being the thousand and
one sacred associations that cluster about
lee rrl.rxv hoe f~ro.~av Iov,owto1
touching lamentation OF jeremiah httinglv
expresses the feelings of those who, for
the first time, look upon it. "How doth
the city SIT solitary that was full OF people;
how Is she become as a widow ?" How
ever. seen from the outside and at a little
distance from certain points of vantage. its
appearance Is still striking and pictur-
esque. and from the Mount OF Olives the
view Is especially attractive, and il is then
only that one can feel sympathy with the
partial rhapsody of the psalmist, when he
says: Beautiful for situation, the Joy of
the whole earth is Mt. Zion, on the sides
of the north" Solomon was equally ex-
travagant in his opinion as 20 the beauty
Of his capital, and uses ''comely as Jerusa-
lem" to describe the acme of perfection in
personal appearance.
But the traveller in making his CON-
PARSONS must remember that the DOOR
squalid, stricken Jerusalem of to-day is not
really the royal metropolis OF Solomon at
all, for IL is said that eight JerusalIns have
been built one over the remains of the
other at different periods during the
history of the sacred city, which suf-
fered destruction after destruction during
the twenty-seven terrible sieges of which
il was the victim, down to its almost COM
plete humiliation by the Roman legions
OF Titus. That sturdy old chronicler
Josephus tells US that at that time the
city's population numbered some millions
of inhabitants, while now, at the furthest
il contains not more than thirty or forty
thousand people. and some writer's give
II as low as fifteen thousand. The exact
figures are hard to arrive at under the cir
cumstances; but the seemingly most re-
liable authorities estimate that there are
5000 Mohammedans, 1900 Christians
mostly Greek churchl and 1900 Jews.
IL will be observed that although the Mus
sulmans is the ruling class, they are
least in number, while the Jews
now lead the list. There is perhaps more
In this than appears on the surface. as all
the recent indications evidence that the
Jews are quietly making powerful effort
10 recolonize Palestine, and they have
come into the country in such great num-
bers of late that the Turkish government
has become alarmed and has taken steps
to prevent the Hebraic invasion. Thou
sands upon thousands OF poor Jews have
been helped to come here within the last