hope of pardon; and the Romans about Cæsar, in great expectation how Julius would receive their supplication.” Titus called upon the Jews to surrender, reminding them that by immediate submission they might still save their city and their Temple. The infatuated rebels, however, turned a deaf ear to Titus' entreaties, and accordingly, when the hour of destruction came, their city and sanctuary were mercilessly destroyed.

The Bridge of Herod, across the Tyropœon, figures in another scene in the Jewish wars. When the Jews at Jerusalem became exasperated at the cruelties of Florus, the most wicked of all the Roman Procurators of Judea, Herod Agrippa used his powers in endeavouring to appease his subjects, and thus avert a sanguinary conflict with the Romans. "He therefore called the people together into the Xystus, and placed his sister, Bernice, on the palace of the Maccabees, that she might be seen of them, which palace was over the Xystus, at the passage to the Upper City, where a bridge connected the Temple with the Xystus." From this passage we learn that the Xystus was like the Agora of Athens and the Forum of Rome, namely, an open space where the people of the city could assemble for public deliberations. On one side rose the Temple, and on the other the palace of the Herods, and the two were connected by a bridge spanning the valley. The arch lately discovered by the Royal Engineers, and usually known as Robinson's Arch, was probably the same as Zion Bridge, mentioned in connection with Agrippa and Titus. It would there

fore be a conspicuous feature of Jerusalem in the days of Christ, and our Saviour and His disciples probably gazed often upon this lofty arch crossing the ravine. This structure may have been hurled down at the Roman destruction of Jerusalem, and thus for eighteen centuries every trace of it, with the exception of the broken arch stones still adhering to the city wall, has been buried amid the accumulation of rubbish.

The recent excavations at the south-west corner show that the six lowest courses of masonry, reaching from the rock up to the ancient pavement- a distance of twenty feet-are composed of stones with marginal drafts and rough pricked faces. The joints and drafts are beautifully worked, and exhibit as much delicacy in dressing as any stones throughout the Sanctuary walls; but the three-cornered projecting faces look as if they had not been touched after they were dug out from the quarry. They somewhat resemble the rough-faced masonry found in the substructures of the north-east section of the wall, but the mode of dressing is quite different.

This rough masonry extends along the west wall for a hundred yards, as far as Barclay's Gate-called Bab al Maghâribé, or Moor's Gate, by the present inhabitants, and the Prophet's Gate by the Moslems-a distance of one hundred yards. Extending from the top of the rough masonry up to the present surface, a height of forty feet on an average, and in some places reaching three or four courses above the ground, is a wall of

masonry made up of marginal drafted blocks with finelyworked faces. The upper portion of the wall is of various periods of construction, but, being comparatively modern, is of little interest.

A solid ramp seems to have risen from the valley up to Barclay's Gate, and formed a termination to the rough-faced masonry.

Extending northwards of Barclay's Gate, as far at least as Wilson's Arch, there is no vestige of roughfaced masonry, the stones throughout, from the rock to the surface, being marginal with fine-worked face. There is a unity of design in the masonry reaching from Barclay's Gate southwards to the south-west angle, and rounding the corner as far as the Double Gate. This masonry includes a hundred yards of the west wall, and a hundred yards of the south wall, each section being measured from the south-west corner, and it is probably the work of Herod the Great when he enlarged the outer courts of the Temple.

ii. The Wailing Place.

Proceeding northwards of Barclay's Gate, we come to an interesting section of the wall known as The Jews' Wailing Place, where the Jews assemble every Friday afternoon. It is a small quadrangular area, roughly paved with large square stones, situated between low houses and the Sanctuary wall. It is further hemmed in by walls on the north and south sides, and the area itself

98

THE WEST AND NORTH WALLS.

is only of small dimensions, being about a hundred in length and fifteen in breadth. The Temple above ground at this spot is about sixty feet high the lower courses of visible masonry are for the part made up of magnificent stones, venerable from high antiquity, and from the fact that they are veri remains of the old Jewish Temple. For many ge tions, at least once a week the Jews have been perm to approach the precincts of their Temple, and it touching sight to see them manifest affection to venerable wall, while they kiss the very stones bathe them with their tears.

The Psalmist's words were verily fulfilled: " servants take pleasure in her stones, and favour the thereof." Kneeling before the vestiges of their des and dishonoured sanctuary, the Jews still raise the of lamentation: "God, the heathen are come into 1 inheritance, Thy holy Temple have they defiled, have laid Jerusalem on heaps. . . . We are beco reproach to our neighbours, a scorn and derision to that are round about us. How long, Lord? Wilt be angry for ever? Shall Thy jealousy burn like fi

The nine courses rising from the present ground made up of large blocks, and above are fifteen co of small stones plainly dressed. The four lowest co have marginal drafts about half an inch deep and two to four inches wide, and the faces of the stone finely polished. Some of the blocks are of great 2 Psalm lxxix. 1, 4, 5.

1 Psalm cii. 14.