except the centre one, lead into similar crypts to those in the other apartments. Through the centre arch is a passage into a low vaulted room,* from which there is no issue, and which was probably the resting-place of honour in these sepulchral chambers. The sarcophagi, beautifully sculptured into wreaths of fruit and flowers, thrown from their niches, lie broken and tenantless on the rocky floor, as seen in the sketch.

As the whole of the apartments lie south of the centre of the portico, it has been supposed that others, with a concealed entrance, may exist on its northern side; but all attempts to discover it have hitherto been in

vain.

From the extent of this noble sepulchre we should have been disposed to accept the tradition of its being the burial-place of the "Kings" of Judah, but that a passage, cited by the learned Robinson, seems to fix it rather as that of Helena, queen of Adiabene, who resided at Jerusalem, and built a tomb so remarkable that it is cited by Pausanias, with another in Asia Minor, as the finest he had anywhere met with in his travels. Now this is, beyond all contradiction, the most noticeable sepulchre at Jerusalem,* and must, one would think, be the same alluded to by the Greek writer. It agrees also with the locality assigned. to Helena's tomb, and its architectural decorations are also of that age. Where then are the tombs of the kings of Judah, so often alluded to in the Books of the Kings and the Chronicles? They are always described as in the "City of David;" but whether Mount Zion precisely is signified by this expression, or the whole range of Jerusalem and its environs, it is difficult to determine. These ancient tombs were undoubtedly

* Although Dr. Robinson discovered others of the same character, though inferior, in the same vicinity. These we did not see.

hewn in the rock. We find a passage in Isaiah exactly describing them.

"Thou hast hewed thee out a sepulchre here, as he that heweth him out a sepulchre on high, and that graveth an habitation for himself in a rock."

If such sepulchres were built on Zion itself, they remain to be discovered. Perhaps the most ancient of those opposite to Zion, on the side of the Hill of Evil Counsel, may be among the resting-places of Jewish royalty.

Not to be gathered in honour to the sepulchres of their race, with funeral pomp, with "the burnings of their fathers, the former kings that were before them," was a terrible denunciation against the wicked kings of Judah.

"Shalt thou reign, because thou closest thyself in cedar ? Did not thy father do judgment and justice, and then it was well with him?

"But thine eyes and thine heart are not, but for thy covetousness, and for to shed innocent blood, and for oppression, and for violence.

"Therefore, thus saith the Lord, concerning Jehoiakim, the son of Josiah, king of Judah, They shall not lament for him, saying, Ah, my brother! or, Ah, sister! they shall not lament for him, saying, Ah, lord! or, Ah, his glory!

"He shall be buried with the burial of an ass, drawn and cast forth without the gates of Jerusalem."

In a still more awful strain is the threatening, that the

L

bones of the wicked and idolatrous race shall not rest

in their sepulchres.

"At that time, saith the Lord, they shall bring out the bones of the kings of Judah, and the bones of his princes, and the bones of the priests, and the bones of the prophets, and the bones of the inhabitants of Jerusalem, out of their graves.

And they shall spread them before the sun, and the moon, and all the host of heaven, whom they have loved and whom they have served, and after whom they have walked, and whom they have sought, and whom they have worshipped; they shall not be gathered nor be buried; they shall be for dung upon the face of the earth."

Besides this extensive and important sepulchre, others are scattered about in the neighbourhood, and ancient cisterns and other vestiges of the former extent of the city in this direction. Dr. Robinson has particularly pointed out traces of what he supposes to be the third wall. Beyond these memorials, there is no object of interest on this side of the city.

We return, then, to the Damascus Gate, by the old track worn in the stony soil, which, from the direction of the ground, has probably been for ages the road to that city, by Samaria and Galilee. The gate itself is a beautiful specimen of Saracenic architecture. Near it are two ancient chambers, (which we did not see,) supposed by Robinson to have been guard-houses to the second wall, which however could not, we should imagine, have taken this direction. Besides these, no object of interest occurs on our way to the Latin convent.

WALK III.

INTERIOR OF THE CITY-JEWISH ANTIQUITIES.

HAVING surveyed Jerusalem from the heights around, and familiarized the reader with her general aspect, we now turn our attention to the various objects of interest within the walls.

If the traveller can forget that he is treading on the grave of a people from whom his religion has sprung, on the dust of her kings, prophets, and holy men, there is certainly no city in the world that he will sooner wish to leave than Jerusalem. Nothing can be more void of interest than her gloomy, half-ruinous streets and poverty-stricken bazaars, which, except at the period of the pilgrimage at Easter, present no signs of life or study of character to the observer. We have wandered for hours among the other great cities of the East-Cairo, Constantinople, or Damascus, watching the brilliant crowds that pour through the narrow bazaars

"Like the gay motes that people the sunbeam,”

and seen the aristocratic Turk, slowly prancing by on his