Monday was a big day for me.  Mr. Ahmed and I went down inside the Jaffa gate and waited for Mr. Smith, who was our guide, Mr. Jennings, and a Mr. Michelson, from California.  Mr. Smith had been a farmer in America, but had spent three years at Jerusalem and Jericho.  He was well acquainted with the country, and we could depend upon what he told us.  Add to all this the fact that he went around with us without charge, and it will be seen that we were well favored.  On this Monday morning we started out to take a walk to Bethany, the old home of that blessed family composed of Mary, Martha, and Lazarus.  We passed the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, walked along the street called the Via Dolorosa, and saw several of the “stations” Jesus is supposed to have passed on the way to the execution on Calvary.  We passed the traditional site of the “house of the rich man,” the “house of the poor man,” and the Temple Area.  After passing the Church of St. Anne, we went out of the city through St. Stephen’s gate, and saw the Birket Sitti Mariam, or Pool of Lady Mary, one hundred feet long, eighty-five feet wide, and once twenty-seven and a half feet deep.  It is supposed that Stephen was led through the gate now bearing his name and stoned at a point not far distant.  Going down the hill a few rods, we came to the Church of St. Mary, a building for the most part underground.  It is entered by a stairway nineteen feet wide at the top, and having forty-seven steps leading to the floor thirty-five feet below.  We went down, and in the poorly lighted place we found some priests and others singing or chanting, crossing themselves, kissing a rock, and so on.  This church probably gets its name from the tradition that the mother of Jesus was buried here.  Just outside the church is a cavern that is claimed by some to be the place of Christ’s agony, and by others, who may have given the matter more thought, it is supposed to be an old cistern, or place for storing olive oil or grain.  Perhaps I would do well to mention here that tradition has been in operation a long time, and the stories she has woven are numerous indeed, but often no confidence can be placed in them.  I desire to speak of things of this kind in such a way as not to mislead my readers.  It was near this church that I saw lepers for the first time.  The valley of the Kidron is the low ground lying between Jerusalem and the Mount of Olives.  The water flows here only in the wet part of the year.  Crossing this valley and starting up the slope of the Mount of Olives, we soon come to a plot of ground inclosed by a high stone wall, with a low, narrow gateway on the upper side.  This place is of great interest, as it bears the name “Garden of Gethsemane,” and is probably the spot to which the lowly Jesus repaired and prayed earnestly the night before his execution, when his soul was “exceeding sorrowful, even unto death.”  It is really a garden, filled with flowers, and olive trees whose trunks, gnarled and split, represent them as being very old,