The Mellette County pioneer. [volume] (Wood, Mellette County, S.D.) 19??-1971, 1919-04-11

IN NN ~SS "D @
- ners that are almost unknown
to the outside world and that
most Of the tourists never see In New
Age Phi. j. Baldensperger writes enter
tainingly of some Of them.
The Church Of the Holy Sepulcher
and it's surrounding honeycomb of
cloisters may be said approximately to
have separated the Christian and the
Moslem quarters Of the city. Two gates,
closed at night, shut off the church
from the town-one below Christian
street, beside the Jami'el Omari, and
the other, a small one, leading to the
Mauristan. The Jami'el Omari is the
real Mosque OF Omar. 1t "a built in
A. d. 637 to commemorate the first
prayer said by the Caliph Omar ibn ell
Khattab after his entry into the con-
quered city. The small gate opposite
across the court leads straight into the
MoSlem quarter. No Jew is ever al
lowed to pass in front of the church or
through either Of the two gates. Once
or twice an inquisitive son Of Judah
tibo tAlSu liiC SApCilAiCIly puL lC lbs
not lived to tell the tale of his adj
venture, SO roughly was he handled
by the mob.
Outside the small gate, in the Mos
lem quarter, are shops for the sale of
glass beads and bracelets, kept by
men of Hebron, and soOn you come
into the street Of shoemakers. The
trade was established here in old days,
when the abattoir was in the Mauri-
stan, among the ruins OF the ancient
hospital of the Knights of st. John.
The Mauristan was given by Sultan
Abdul AZiz as a present TO Frederick
William, crown prince Of Prussia, when
he visited Jerusalem in 1869. The Ger
a Church Of the Redeemer (ErloSer-
kirche) was built here after the war of
1870. The slaughter house had previ-
Ously been removed to waste land just
inside the walls up by the Zion gate.
The hides Of beasts were thrown upon
the road, and people walked on them
till they were tanned enough for shoe
making. European boots and shoes
"tlC tllCh uuhLOWh W liz DIdJOIllys
The Moslem and Christian men wore
soft red shoes Of sheepskin the wOm-
en- yellow slippers Of the same. The
mission schools and converts had cob
blers Of their own, who had been
taught the ways of Europe in such mat
tiers.
Round the corner to the left, below
the Abysslnian convent, were the
sweets shops. Great was our delight
when at the New Year every boy in
the school received a cake enriched
with clarified butter and sweetened
with honey and sugar. But Halaweh,
sweetstuff made of sesame meal and
honey, was our perennial joy.
Butchers, Spicers and Dyers.
All along behind the Mauristan run
three streets parallel to one another,
appropriated by the butchers, the
spicers and the dyers, respectively. In
the butchers street, the dealers, all
MQslems, sold nothing but mutton and
goats flesh. AS the streets are arched
over, semidarkness reigned, and often
we have tumbled over fat and lazy
dogs which were attached to almost
every meat shop. These dogs not only
kept good watch at night, but also kept
the greasy street in a tolerable condi-
ton by licking up the blood and eating
bones. But for the presence of the
spicers' street at hand the shoemakers'
street, with its old skins the butchers
street, with all its offal. and the dyers'
street. with blue colored stuffs hang
ing from the roof. would have made
the whole region smell as foul as the
town slaughter yard. Once or twice
a week we were sent to fetch meat
needed for the kitchen on our donkey.
The butchers street, / forgot to say,
hardly measured three yards across, but
with the carcasses hanging out before
the shops there vas hardly room In the
butchers street for two to pass abreast.
The spicers' street resembled 1t In this