Of the seven gates which penetrate the walls of modern Jerusalem, the noblest and most ancient of the number is the one standing in the mouth of the broad depression sweeping southward through the city, called the Damascus Gate. Surmounted with turrets and battlements, it not only presents an imposing appearance, but its ornamental architecture indicates its Saracenic origin and style. Judging from the formation of the ground it occupies, it probably marks the site of an older gateway. As of old, so now, from its portal runs the great northern road to Nablous; and from it, no doubt, Saul of Tarsus went forth, leading his band of persecutors to crush the infant church of Jesus in Damascus. Constructed in the form of an elliptical arch, flanked with massive towers of great antiquity, and inclosed with huge doors incased with iron, it wears the appearance of a prison. Within is a large chamber, grim and gloomy, formed by the arch and towers, and from which a square-shaped and winding staircase leads to the top of the parapet. Guarded by four Turkish soldiers, the traveler has illustrated before him St. Luke’s description of the Roman guard on the night of our Lord’s trial: “And when they had kindled a fire in the midst of the hall, and were set down together, Peter sat down among them.”[88] In the northeast corner of the hall, within the gateway, the soldiers build a fire of juniper coals when the weather is cold, the smoke of which deepens the gloom of the already blackened walls. Midway between this gate and the northeast corner of the city is the “Gate of Flowers,” consisting of a small portal penetrating a tower, but which is now inaccessible, having been walled up since 1834. In the eastern wall of the city is St. Stephen’s Gate, a simple structure, and without ornaments, except the carved figures of two lions over the entrance. From it a path descends the steep sides of Moriah, and, crossing the small stone bridge that spans the Valley of the Kidron, leads up to the Garden of Gethsemane and to the Mount of Olives. Compelled to fly before the rebellious Absalom, it was out of the gate that stood on the site of the present one that David fled, and, a thousand years later, a greater than David went forth out of the same portal on the night of his betrayal. As it is the chief entrance to the city on the east, streams of pilgrims from the Heights of Benjamin on the north, and from the Valley of the Jordan on the east, incessantly flow in and out of this well-known gate.