The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-12-10
SOLOMON OF NABLOUS
By c. F. MARKELL

to tread lightly lest he 1ostle a mai | through and thereby hasten the advent of the hour when GabriePs trumpet. shal sound. The rock itself is the natura | apex of the hill called Mount Moriah and peers above the marble pavement oi | the mosque at a varying altitude ranging | from one foot to nearly five feet. It is a | bare, undecorated mass of stone 60 by
 40 feet in dimensions, but it's very naked | ness contributes to it's solemnity.
 The same dim religious light that ever | haunts the cathedral, the synagogue and | the abbey is likewise the unfailing com panion of the mosque and its pervading 1n- tensity Is not lacking in the Dome of the Rock. The visitor is prone to grope as he enters for it Is only by an occasional ray of light straying twixt the ex- quisitely chisled mulions of some stained easement high up under the roof that one catches glimpse of some glitterlng mosaic or sculptured capital, which ray but intensifies the shade and shadows of the labyrinth of pillars that slumbef upon the tessalated pave.
 The dome of the mosque over 60 in dia- meter, towers nearly 100 feet in the air. The edifico is octagonal in shape and it's interior walls are encrusted With white marble and porcelain titles of har- monous cclor, exquisite blending and in- tricate designs The exterior is void oi balcony or minaret. It stands upon a platform surrounded by walls some 16OC feet long in one direction and 1000 feet in the other, and near by is a beautiful lit- tie mosque dedicated to Aksa, who was Mohammeds flying wife, and. whose name it's bears.
 But while the Mohammedan. bends in prayer beneath the sacred dome and the Christian kneels at the shrines of the church of the Holy Sepulchre, the Jew worships by fragments of ancient stone, the wall which once formed part of the old Hebrew temple, relics of his former glory. A visit to the "Wailing Wall of the Jews is usually made in the spirit of curiosity and in many instances Is not unaccompanied with much levity; but to me 1t was not provocative of mirth, for, on the contrary, I deemed it one of the most pathetic scenes that Jerusalem, or any other city, has to offer. Here, every day, but especially on Fridays, for cen lures have the exiles from Mount Zion assembled to kiss and bathe with tears all that remains of their former national glory, all thatsis left of their temporal greatness and in plaintive incantations to bewail their sad estate and implore the tender mercieS of Jehovah for a speedy redemption. Aged men gather here and standing for hours at time face the wall as they read aloud from holy writ, their bodies ceaselessly swaying backward and forward as if keeping time with their impassioned implorations; old women moan and sob as they beat the stones with their trembling hands; and even chil- dren petition God to hear their fervid prayers. Sad it was and I felt as if every stone must be hallowed by breath of those fearful invocations and queried if the weeping petitioners had not grown weary with the waiting and deemed that their God had turned to stone. From Judaea came the three religions which have dom mated the world-Judaism, Christianity and Islamism, and through the middle ages when Europe groped in darkness and densest ignorance it was the Jew who held aloft the torch of learning and who (with the Moo) constituted the scholars of the world. When our own ancestors were savages, hunting in the dense forests of Germany or fishing on the banks of the Thames, the ancestors of those unhappy creatures at the "wailing wall'' were prnces in the temple of Solomon, and l wondered why it was
 Knowing that the wailng place is much frequented by travellers, it's approaches are thronged with beggars and cripples, and nowhere in Jerusalem are to be noted such pitiable scenes except where the lepers gather just outside of the walls by the Dung Gate.
 I found that the same peculiar sway ing of the body while reading, indulged in by the men at the wall, is practised by the boy students at school, and whether studying aloud or silently the entire form is kept in a perpetually oscillating mo- tion. Most of the boys, however, sing their lessons in a high pitched, but draw1- ing and monotonous tone.
 The Jews of Palestine are of a differ ent type from those which we are ac- customed to see. They are fair skinned, blonde haired and light eyed and have lost the aquiline curve of nose charac- teristic of our Hebrews. Nearly all of the men wear long lock of hair sus- pended from the temples and with their remarkably intelligent countenances l did not wonder that God had passed over Arab. Persian and Syrian, and made the Israelites His chosen people,
 In Palestine, as in other countries the Jew seems to be the persecuted race. I was in the city when the alleged il- legal excavations under the mosque of the Englishmen was discovered, and it was the Jews against whom vengeance was first threatened. I had been visiting during the day Ain Karin, the home of John tho Baptist, and upon my return to the city about the middle of the after noon I found every Jewish bazaar in the place closed while files of Turkish troops lined the streets to photect the Hebrews from attack. Widest rumors were afloat and excitement was rampant, it being declared that Solomon's sword, ring and strands of his beard had been discov- cred and carried off, but the report proved to be a perfect fiasco and a few days later it was not believed that any improper excavations whatever had been made, and it was even said that the re- ports had 'emanated from a jealous cabal to oust a rival official.
 All of the Jewish residences in the city have the door lintels and window sashes painted in blue as a mark of distinguish ment, but the quarters are miserably filthy and one has absolutely to hold his nostrils closed when passing through them. Garbage and kitchen offal are thrown through the windows to the street below, where it is left to decay and mould, for the visits of the city garbage man, with his donkey, are few and far between: poultry, goats and donkeys are housed in the living rooms with the fam fly, and I have often seen a barnyard upon the roof of a dwelling filled with goats and sheep.
 The Latin and Greek churches of Jeru- salem are numerous, costly and hand some, bat they are all outside of the walls of the city, and I was especially pressed with the exquisite interior of French church of the Latin cult. Here are to be seen two sisters always at prayer before the altar and the music was divinely sweet. The religious at tend in pairs and when the devotions of one pair have consumed an hour, they are superseded by those of another so that the worship is perpetual series of prisons engaged in day and night.
 The city is thronged with missionaries, but they are all so intent upon effecting conventions of the Arabs that among the
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