Impatient, and with feelings almost in a nervous state, we soon found ourselves out, and winding along the narrow lane that leads from Mr. Nicholayson’s to the slope by which we descend from Mount Zion to the lower city. Standing on the edge of this, we looked down on the ruins of a great edifice erected for the knights of St. John at the time of the Crusades. It is a very large building, I should think near six hundred feet in length by two hundred in width; but the lower story or basement is all that now remains. This forms a suite of vaults, which are now occupied as stores for grain and merchandize; a street of shops forming a kind of bazaar passes along the western side of it, and on the south is the principal bazaar of the city, the exterior range of vaults answering very well for stores. The place where we were then standing was about the spot where I suppose the gate Gennath to have been. Descending from this eminence, we entered a street which passes along the northern side of this ruin, and is lined with fruit shops and houses, sometimes one, sometimes two stories in height, of stone, the windows small and the exterior very plain. This street is about one thousand feet in length. At its further extremity on our right was an edifice distinguished by its size and massiveness, but presenting on the exterior only a bare wall pierced with a few narrow windows. This was “The Church of the Holy Sepulchre.” It forms altogether a block of masonry about one hundred and sixty feet by one hundred in width, in which are included the chapel of the Crucifixion, the church of the Sepulchre, some small chapels, and a monastery, the cloisters of the monks occupying the portions of the building next the street. Just before coming to this building, we entered a low door in a stone wall, and then, having descended along a narrow alley, we turned presently to the left, and had before us the court and grand entrance to the church. On our left was the church tower, but without bells, as, with the single exception of Mount Lebanon, bells are not allowed to Christian churches in Turkey. The height of this tower has also been reduced, from a similar feeling of jealousy on the part of their Turkish masters. Three sides of the court were formed by a mass of buildings of irregular shape, while the fourth, or that looking towards the west, was open; in the central part was an arched portal ornamented with columns of verd-antique, and sculptures of the Norman style of architecture; it was open at the time of our visit, and I believe is so daily for an hour or two in the morning. After this it is closed, the key is returned to the Turkish governor; and admittance during the rest of the day, if desired, must be purchased from him. The monks, therefore, are prisoners in their monastery, except during this short interval, and intercourse with them must be held through a square hole in this door, where also provisions and other necessaries are taken in.