I didn’t argy, but I bought a string of beads for Tirzah Ann and a pipe for Thomas J., the wood of which growed on the Mount of Olives, so the man said.

I told Josiah they would prize ’em high havin’ come from Jerusalem.

And he said, “They never see Jerusalem,” he said they wuz growed over in New Jersey, and when I asked him how he knew, he said he re_cog_nized the berries and the grain of the wood.

But he couldn’t no such thing, and I presoom the man told considerable truth.  And we see Rabbis, Turkish cavalry, common people livin’ in the queer little housen jest as they did in Jerusalem, and the priests goin’ through their religious ceremonies jest the same.  And we went through the Citadel and the different public buildin’s.

There wuz lots of wimmen and girls on the streets, some on ’em sellin’ posies for charity, I bought two little bunches, one on ’em I put in Josiah’s buttonhole, though he objected and said it would probable make talk for a man of his age and dignity to be trimmed with flowers.

They wuz real pretty girls, with white veils on over their dark hair, their lustrous eyes lookin’ out at us as they might have looked at the Postles.

And there wuz cunnin’ little donkeys that anybody could ride if they wanted to, and camels with gorgeous trappings kneelin’ down ready for folks to mount and be carried ’round the streets.  Josiah stood ready to pay the ten cents apiece to give us the pleasure of a ride.

But I declined the treat.  I sez, “We don’t ride the old mair hoss back to home, and I don’t hanker after bein’ histed up onto a camel’s hump, or to see you in that perilous poster.”

He said he’d love to tell the bretheren we’d rid ’em, but seein’ I wuz sot agin it he gin up.

The streets smell bad and are so narrer I don’t see how they would manage if two buggies met; one would have to back out, they couldn’t git by each other.

The old Roman barracks are bare and dreary lookin’, but dretful interestin’ to me for there our Lord stood to be judged by Caesar like a lamb before the shearer, and he said, “I wash my hands of this matter, I find no fault in this man.”

I wish Caesar had had more gumption.  His wife could see furder ahead than he could.  But that is often the case, as I tell Josiah.

And we went through St. John’s Hospice, and the Mosque of Omar.  That is a monstrous big building with a great round dome on top, two broad flights of steps lead up into it, we clumb the nighest one and went inside.  The high dome is lined with colored mosaic, and looks first-rate, but I didn’t pay much attention to that for right underneath the centre is an exact reproduction of the rock where Abraham offered up Isaac, or got ready to.  How Love and Duty tugged at Abraham’s heart and most tore it into as he stood there, and what faith he had.  It is heart-breakin’ to think on’t, though it all come out right in the end, as the hardest things will if we cling to Duty.