It is a city of hills, far more famous than those of Rome:
for all Europe has heard of Sion and of Calvary, while the Arab and
the Assyrian, and the tribes and nations beyond, are as ignorant of
the Capitolian and Aventine Mounts as they are of the Malvern or the
Chiltern Hills.
The broad steep of Sion crowned with the tower of David; nearer still,
Mount Moriah, with the gorgeous temple of the God of Abraham, but built,
alas! by the child of Hagar, and not by Sarah's chosen one; close to
its cedars and its cypresses, its lofty spires and airy arches, the
moonlight falls upon Bethesda's pool; further on, entered by the gate
of St. Stephen, the eye, though 'tis the noon of night, traces with ease
the Street of Grief, a long winding ascent to a vast cupolaed pile that
now covers Calvary, called the Street of Grief because there the most
illustrious of the human, as well as of the Hebrew, race, the descendant
of King David, and the divine Son of the most favoured of women, twice
sank under that burden of suffering and shame which is now throughout
all Christendom the emblem of triumph and of honour; passing over groups
and masses of houses built of stone, with terraced roofs, or surmounted
with small domes, we reach the hill of Salem, where Melchisedek built
his mystic citadel; and still remains the hill of Scopas, where Titus
gazed upon Jerusalem on the eve of his final assault.
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