This was our first view and first impression of Jerusalem. To myself, however, little time was given for observation. The Commodore called for me; and telling me that as this was a city in the line of my profession, they must look to me to provide quarters for the company--said he wished me to ride forward rapidly, and see where we could find accommodations. So I changed my humble donkey for a spirited steed, and taking for interpreter a young Arab officer who had accompanied us from Jaffa, set forward at a pace that made us look more like crusading knights at a tilt than peaceable pilgrims. The gates, which are usually closed at sunset, we found were kept open in expectation of the arrival of our party, and a large number of citizens were standing in groups without. On our drawing up and inquiring the way to the house of Mr. Nicholayson, the missionary from England, he himself stept forward and gave us a hearty welcome. His house he immediately placed at our disposal, but on his inquiring how many there might be in the party, and receiving my answer, “I think about seventy,” he stood aghast. A company of seven or a dozen, the number as he had supposed our company, he could readily accommodate, and his house was cordially at our service for as many as it would hold; but where to find accommodations for seventy he could not tell, some of the monasteries, the usual resort of pilgrims, being now, he said, in quarantine on account of the plague. We turned into the city, however, to make an effort; and crossing an irregular open area, and then winding down some dark narrow streets, stopped at length at a low gate in the face of a high massy wall. It admitted us into the chief Latin convent; but the Prior, on our being presented, said that nearly all the building was in quarantine, some of the monks having recently died of the plague, and that an adjacent establishment belonging to his order was in a similar situation. Foiled here, we proceeded on a little further, and on applying, though with reluctance, at the Greek convent, were successful; their large building, forming a hollow square with a court in the centre, being given up to us. We returned forthwith, and found that our company had already entered the city, and in attempting to follow us, had got jammed up in one of the narrow streets, where a scene of vexatious and yet amusing confusion was just commencing; the baggage mules with their broad panniers and projecting loads sticking fast between the opposite houses, and, in their efforts to extricate themselves, taking little note of rank or office; while torches glancing here and there upon pistol and cutlass, and the dusty, and jaded, and sometimes disconsolate looking features of our companions, mixed up with the wild and curious gaze of the natives, assisted in making up a singular scene. They had just learned the result of our application at the Latin convent; and to a wearied man, the idea of