“For the place that lies desolate;
   For the place that is destroyed;
   For the walls that are overthrown;
   For our majesty that is departed;
   For our great men who lie dead;
   For the precious stones that are buried;
   For the priests who have stumbled;
   For our kings who have despised Him.”

This solemn practice has been observed for about twelve hundred years, but the same place may not have been used all the time.  “She is become a widow, that was great among the nations!  She that was a princess among the provinces is become tributary!  Jerusalem hath grievously sinned; therefore she is become as an unclean thing” (Lam. 1:  1, 8).

On Friday evening we entered some of the many synagogues yet to be found in Jerusalem and observed the worshipers.  On Saturday we went to the House of Industry of the English church, where boys are taught to work.  Olive wood products are made for the tourist trade.  We passed a place where some men were making a peculiar noise as they were pounding wheat and singing at their work.  This pounding was a part of the process of making it ready for food.  An old lady was standing in an open door spinning yarn in a very simple manner.  We watched her a few minutes, and I wanted to buy the little arrangement with which she was spinning, but she didn’t care to part with it.  She brought out another one, and let me have it after spinning a few yards upon it.  I gave her a Turkish coin worth a few cents, for which she seemed very thankful, and said, as Mr. Ahmed explained:  “God bless you and give you long life.  I am old, and may die to-day.”  She told us that she came from Mosul, away beyond the Syrian desert, to die in Jerusalem.  We visited the synagogue of the Caraite Jews, a small polygamous sect, numbering in this assembly about thirty persons.  They also differ from the majority of Hebrews in rejecting the Talmud, but I believe they have a Talmud of their own.  Their place of worship is a small room almost under the ground, where we were permitted to see a very fine old copy of the Hebrew Scriptures, our Old Testament.  The work was done by hand, and I was told the man who did it was sixteen years of age when he began it, and was sixty when he finished the work, and that the British Museum had offered five thousand dollars for the book.  Some of these people speak English, and we conversed with one woman who was quite intelligent.  They kindly permitted us to go up and view the city from the housetop.

In the afternoon we visited the Temple Area, an inclosure of about thirty-five acres, in the southeastern part of the city, including the Mosque of Omar (more appropriately called the Dome of the Rock), the Mosque El Aksa, and Solomon’s Stables.  For Christians to enter this inclosure, it is necessary to notify their consul and secure the service of his cavasse, an armed guard, and a Turkish soldier, both of whom must be paid for their services.  Thus equipped,