It has been said, and truthfully, too, that Jerusalem has occupied a more prominent place in history than Athens, with all its arts, or Rome, with all its arms; than Nineveh, with all its overgrown power, or Babylon, with all its nameless abominations. Jerusalem has done more to mould the opinions, to animate the hopes, to decide the creeds, and to influence the destinies, of humanity than all other cities combined. Here Solomon reigned. Here David sang, and Isaiah prophesied. Here Christ the Lord lived, and taught us how to live. Here, too, he was nailed to the tree, there to die, “the Just for the unjust.” Mrs. Watson, an earnest, devout, Christian lady from Detroit, is a member of our party. As we stand upon this hill and look upon Jerusalem for the first time, she is completely overcome. Her heart has melted within her, and is flowing freely through her eyes. She weeps like a child, and her tears do credit to her heart. We camp in a beautiful olive grove on the north side of the city. Our mail is soon brought. After devouring letters, newspapers, and a hearty lunch, I say to the party: “‘Walk about Zion; go round about her; tell the towers thereof; mark ye well her bulwarks; consider her palaces,—that ye may tell it to’ your friends in America.” With Bible in hand, with prayer and praise in our heart, we are now ready to begin our “walk about Zion.” It takes four eyes or more to see the beauty of a picture, and four ears or more to extract the melody from music. I shall therefore ask the reader to join us in this walk about the “city of the great king.” [Illustration: HILLS AND WALLS OF JERUSALEM.] We find the city perched, like an eagles nest, among the hills of Judea. “As the mountains are round about Jerusalem, so the Lord is round about them that fear him.” It stands 2,650 feet above the level of the Mediterranean, and 3,800 feet above the Dead Sea. Imagine two ravines, deep and narrow, coming together so that the table-land between them forms the letter V, the sharp point of the letter being to the south, while the open part extends northward. Jerusalem is built on such a V, though it does not run down into the sharp point of the letter. The ravine, or brook, on the east is Kedron, that on the west is Hinnom. We find the city surrounded on all sides by massive walls of stone, rising forty to sixty feet above the ground. The east and west walls run close along the edge of the chasms, so that, coming up out of the valley to either one of them, one would find it steep and difficult. The south wall cuts off the sharp part of the V. The north wall is much stronger than any of the others, because that part of the city is not protected by ravines, as are the other three sides.