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was dimmed with bars of iron, and looked on a dead wall: the cold stone floor, the naked and dirty walls; the hoarse and half-suppressed voices of monks; the looks of bigotry and suspicion from a few of the more rude and ill-bred-cold, hard, hateful realities, which were sufficient, but for the strong prestige of enthusiasm, to transform the hallowed and romantic city into a prison. When my steps wander to Jerusalem again, I will abjure the gloomy gates of St. Salvadore, and seek my simple and kind home on the walls, where they looked over the plain and the olive wood.

The Pillar of Absalom has a most antique appearance, and is a very interesting object in the valley: it is of a yellow stone, adorned with half columns, and consists of three stages, and terminates in a kind of cupola. Its antiquity is, no doubt, very great; it is difficult to assign the period of its erection, but it most probably marks the spot of the pillar raised of old by the unfortunate prince, and was intended to perpetuate its memory. "Now Absalom in his lifetime had taken and reared up for himself a pillar, which is in the king's dale, for he said, I have no son to keep my name in remembrance; and he called the pillar after his own name: and it is called unto this day, Absalom's Place."

The tomb of Zacharias, adjoining, is square, with four or five pillars, and is cut out of the rock. Near these is a sort of grotto, hewn out of an elevated part of the rock, with four pillars in front, which is said to have been the apostles' prison at the time they were confined by the rulers. The hill above is Mount Olivet. The vale or glen of Jehoshaphat was our favourite walk, and here often wandered the celebrated missionary, whose undying zeal and enterprise have procured him so just a fame. One day he was walking in the valley of Jehoshaphat with a rabbi, a zealous and stanch defender of the faith of his fathers; when, conversing on the merits of their different creeds, by degrees a warm and able altercation took place. Heedless, in the heat of the contest, of the paths over which they were straying, they approached the venerable and elegant pillar of Absalom, and stood at its foot. The sight lent wings to the controversy: to the missionary's mind it brought back the memory of the ancient glories of his people; and, animated by the impulse of the moment, he climbed up into the recess formed in the highest story of the pillar, and, looking down, challenged his adversary to continue the argument. The latter, nothing daunted by the vantage ground of his antagonist, stood beneath, and sternly confronted him; and with voices that rang loudly among the rocks of the desolate valley, they there carried on for some time their solemn and earnest argument. His discourses were not always, however, so fruitless as on this occasion: some of his countrymen were moved, in spite of themselves, by his words, and the powerful and sincere manner in which they were urged. There were occasions when he was really eloquent; and his fervid imagination aided the effect of his addresses on the minds of the Orientals.

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