Situated in the southern wall, nearly in the centre of the Tyropean Valley, is the “Gate of the Western Africans,” which is of inferior construction, and is opened and shut according to the caprice of the governor. Fortunately, it was opened when I passed, an event which may not occur again for many years. From it a path descends to the charming gardens of Silwân. On the summit of a ridge beyond is the Gate of Zion, the cleanest and most quiet of the seven. But the great and most usually thronged portal of the town is the Yâffa Gate, located in the western wall of the city, between Mount Zion and Mount Akra. Consisting of a massive square tower, it has a quadrangular hall within. Probably standing on the site of Nehemiah’s “Valley Gate,” it is the point to which all the great thoroughfares converge, from Bethlehem and Hebron on the south, and from Yâffa on the west. Carefully guarded during the day by a band of soldiers, all the gates are closed at night when the evening gun is fired. From a superstition as suggestive of fear as it is precautionary against surprise, the gates are closed on Friday between the hours of twelve and one, because of an old and prevalent tradition that on that day and at that hour the Christians will attempt to retake Jerusalem. Running north and south through the very heart of the city is a broad depression, and coming up from Siloam, on the south, is the Tyropean Valley, joining the former at the northeast corner of Mount Zion, where the latter abruptly diverges to the westward, intersecting the Valley of Gihon. Upon its divergence hangs the long and fierce controversy touching the topography of the ancient city. Though its upper section is filled with rubbish from twenty to fifty feet deep, yet there is a perceptible ascent from Christian Street to the Hippic Tower, as there is a descent from the Yâffa Gate into the valley beyond. If the intervening ridge is not accumulated earth, it is difficult to conceive how Mount Zion could ever have been the “strong-hold” represented by sacred and profane writers. The construction of the three famous towers on the northwest portion of the hill by Herod the Great was not to supply a natural defect, but to honor the king’s favorites, and to be the depositories of his royal treasures. As recent excavations in the vicinity confirm the correctness of the supposition, so future excavations will remove the last doubt that this is the “Valley of the Cheesemongers” described by Josephus, separating the “upper city from the lower.”[89]