As we loiter about the city, now alone, now under the discreet and unhampering escort of the Bethlehemite; watching the Mussulmans at their dinner in some dingy little restaurant, where kitchen, store-room and banquet-hall are all in the same apartment, level and open to the street; pausing to bargain with an impassive Arab for a leather belt or with an ingratiating Greek for a string of amber beads; looking in through the unshuttered windows of the Jewish houses where the families are gathered in festal array for the household rites of Passover week; turning over the chaplets, and rosaries, and anklets, and bracelets of coloured glass and mother-of-pearl, and variegated stones, and curious beans and seed-pods in the baskets of the street-vendors around the Church of the Holy Sepulchre; stepping back into an archway to avoid a bag-footed camel, or a gaily caparisoned horse, or a heavy-laden donkey passing through a narrow street; exchanging a smile and an unintelligible friendly jest with a sweet-faced, careless child; listening to long disputes between buyers and sellers in that resounding Arab tongue which seems full of tragic indignation and wrath, while the eyes of the handsome brown Bedouins who use it remain unsearchable in their Oriental languor and pride; Jerusalem becomes to us more and more a symbol and epitome of that which is changeless and transient, capricious and inevitable, necessary and insignificant, interesting and unsatisfying, in the unfinished tragi-comedy of human life. There are times when it fascinates us with its whirling charm. There are other times when we are glad to ride away from it, to seek communion with the great spirit of some antique prophet, or to find the consoling presence of Him who spake the words of the eternal life. _A PSALM OF GREAT CITIES_ _How wonderful are the cities that man hath builded: Their walls are compacted of heavy stones, And their lofty towers rise above the tree-tops._ _Rome, Jerusalem, Cairo, Damascus,-- Venice, Constantinople, Moscow, Pekin,-- London, New York, Berlin, Paris, Vienna,--_ _These are the names of mighty enchantments: They have called to the ends of the earth, They have secretly summoned an host of servants._ _They shine from far sitting beside great waters: They are proudly enthroned upon high hills, They spread out their splendour along the rivers._ _Yet are they all the work of small patient fingers: Their strength is in the hand of man, He hath woven his flesh and blood into their glory._ _The cities are scattered over the world like ant-hills: Every one of them is full of trouble and toil, And their makers run to and fro within them._ _Abundance of riches is laid up in their store-houses: Yet they are tormented with the fear of want, The cry of the poor in their streets is exceeding bitter._ _Their inhabitants are driven by blind perturbations: They whirl sadly in the fever of haste, Seeking they know not what, they pursue it fiercely._