Within the same enclosure there is another house of prayer called El Aksa, which, though a fine building, is greatly inferior to El Sakhara. Between the two there is a beautiful fountain, which takes its name from a clump of orange-trees overshadowing its water. The mosque is composed of seven naves supported by pillars and columns, and at the head of the centre nave is a fine cupola. Two others branch off at right angles to the principal body of the edifice. Before it is a portico of seven arches in front and one in depth, supported by square pillars. Ali Bey, who in his character of Mussulman was permitted to examine the holy fane at leisure, describes the great central nave of the Aksa as about 162 feet long and 32 broad. It is supported on each side by seven arches lightly pointed, resting upon cylindrical pillars, in the form of columns, but without any architectural proportion, with foliaged capitals which do not belong to any order. The fourth pillar to the right of the entrance is octangular, and enormously thick. It is called the pillar of Sidi Omar. The walls rise 13 feet above the tops of the arches, and contain two rows of twenty-one windows each. The roof is of timber, without being vaulted. The cupola is supported by four large arches resting upon four square pillars. It is spherical, with two rows of windows, and is ornamented with arabesque paintings and gilding of exquisite beauty. Its diameter is equal to that of the central nave. M. Burckhardt describes the Holy House in Jerusalem as a union of several buildings erected at different periods of Islamism, bearing upon them demonstrative proofs of the prevailing taste of the various ages in which they were successively constructed. It is not precisely one mosque, but a group of mosques. Its name in Arabic, El Haram, strictly signifies a temple or place consecrated by the peculiar presence of the Divinity. The profane and the infidel are forbidden to enter it. The Mussulman religion acknowledges but two temples, those, namely, of Mecca and of Jerusalem; both are called El Haram; both are equally prohibited by law to Christians, Jews, and every other person who is not a believer in the Prophet. The mosques, on the other hand, are considered merely as places of meeting for certain acts of worship, and are not held so especially consecrated as to demand the total exclusion of all who do not profess the true faith. Entrance into them is not denied to the unbeliever by any statute of the Mohammedan law; and hence it is not uncommon for Christians at Constantinople to receive from the government a written order to visit even the Mosque of St. Sophia. But the sultan himself could not grant permission to an infidel either to pass into the territory of Mecca, or to enter the Temple of Jerusalem. A firman granting such privileges would be regarded as a most horrid sacrilege: it would not be respected by the people; and the favoured object would inevitably become the victim of his