Heaps of ruins and filth are seen in the public places, and no one frequents them for business; beggars crave an alms, lepers exhibit their sores, vagrant curs snarl over their booty. Camels crouched down await their burdens, and fill the air with a disgusting odour, caused by the ointment with which they are smeared to cure skin-diseases. Disgust, fear, hypocrisy, slavishness and distrust, are the common expressions in the faces of the men, shewing the different races of which they are composed; opposed one to another in religion and fortunes, victors and vanquished, jealous and distrustful one of the other. The women are generally covered with a white cloth, looking like ghosts, or if uncovered, would look better veiled. If wearied with the dullness within, we go outside the walls, we find a few olive-trees on the north-west, a few young plantations on the west, and the rest barren and desolate. Everywhere deep valleys or steep hills, stony and rocky roads, impracticable for carriages, difficult for horses, and painful for foot-travellers. Wherever we go the memorials of the dead are before our eyes; for the cemeteries are the places of general resort. Escaping, however, from the city, from its bad smells and loathsome and importunate beggars, we can ascend the hills, and contemplate a panorama, where every stone is a witness of God's revelation, and every ruin a monument of His wrath. On these bare summits high and ennobling thoughts fill the mind, bringing a calm that is found with difficulty in bustling and crowded cities. He who is careless or unbelieving, he who travels only from curiosity or to kill time, had better take my advice, and avoid Jerusalem. There he will have no amusement beyond taking a ride, or smoking and drinking bad coffee in an Arab _café_; watching the languid passers by, or listening to Arab songs accompanied on tuneless instruments. He, however, who has a family or business to care for, or is occupied in studying the inexhaustible riches of the soil, will live in Jerusalem as agreeably as in any other place. There is but little pleasant social intercourse in Jerusalem, owing to the jealousies among the rival sects; so that the conversation generally runs upon the failings and faults of the members of the communities which are not represented at the party; and scandalous stories and ill natured remarks are retailed to the visitor, who is soon wearied and disgusted. Hence it will appear that Jerusalem offers but slight attractions to one who is not contented with the memories of the past, and the love of archæological research. These, however, supply an unceasing field of enjoyment and constant occupation.