The government is supported by taxation, which is as heavy as the military collectors are exacting. Every expedient is resorted to to avoid the payment of a tax which is imposed with rapacity and gathered with rigor. Under the pretense of poverty, rich Jews live in filth and go through the streets in rags; and to escape the system of espionage which the grasping Turk has established, both Arabs and Christians secrete their treasures in fields and cellars. The Moslem population is estimated at 7556 souls, and their “Quarter” extends from the southwest corner of the Haram to the central bazar, thence up to the Damascus Gate, including a portion of Mount Akra, the whole of Mount Bezetha, as far down as the northern wall of the Temple inclosure. Mount Moriah is exclusively their own; and, besides the famous mosques of Omar and El-Aksa, they have several others within the limits of their districts. Five times a day from their graceful minarets the muezzins call the faithful to prayers. Many of the Turks, especially those of foreign birth, are men of noble bearing, and in their way are polite; but the Arab Moslems are the most despicable of beings, guilty of all the crimes forbidden in the Five Books of Moses. Among the most idle, reveling, and villainous class of men in the city are the Dervishes, the embodiment of fanaticism and the cause of nearly all the religious troubles which occur within the town. In their devotions they are the Pharisees of modern times. Whether at the corner of the streets, or in the crowded bazar, or on the house-top, wherever the hour of prayer overtakes them, they count their rosaries, perform their genuflexions, and recite their Koran prayers. During our stay in Jerusalem the Mohammedan fast called “Ramadan” occurred, lasting from moon till moon. At four o’clock P.M. on the eleventh of March the commencement of the fast was announced by a cannon from the Tower of Hippicus. All that night long the balconies of the several minarets were brilliantly illuminated, and amid the glory of a thousand lamps the sonorous voice of the muezzin was heard chanting, “God is great; Mohammed is his prophet; rise up and offer prayer; prayer is better than sleep.” Throughout that month no faithful follower of the Prophet ate from sunrise till sunset, but the booming of the evening gun was the signal for a night of rioting and feasting. On the evening of the 7th of April seven guns from Hippicus announced the joyful intelligence that the “Fast of Ramadan” had ended, which was received with shouts that awakened the solemn echoes of Olivet, and was immediately succeeded by the “Feast of Beiram,” at which gluttony is the prevailing sin.