This is also the case in Jerusalem. The great barracks of Antonia are still barracks. The fortress of the Upper City is still a fortress. On the rock-scarp of the “Tower of the Corner,” a corner tower now stands. On the high ground, where the stronghold of Psephinus once stood, the Russians have erected buildings which are regarded by many as a menace to the city. The Upper Market is a market, the Lower Market (mentioned with the former in the Talmud) is the main bazaar of Jerusalem. The old Iron Gate retains its name in the present Bâb el Hadîd. The Temple Area is still a sanctuary; finally, the Rock of Foundation is still covered by a sacred building, and the “Place of the Skull” is now a cemetery, while close to it is the slaughter-house of the city. Knowing the immutability of sites in Palestine, we cannot, I would urge, consider these facts to be mere coincidences; they are rather strong confirmations of the accuracy of the more generally accepted views regarding the topography and monuments of ancient Jerusalem. [Illustration: GILGAL.] CHAPTER XIII. JERICHO. The 15th of November, 1873, dawned, and the tents of the Survey Camp were once more struck, on a rainy morning, and packed wet on the small Bedawîn camels, the loading of which gave us much more trouble than that of the larger pack animals of the peasantry. We were starting on an anxious and difficult undertaking, and were to attempt what no European had ever done before, in settling down for several months to life in the wild and unhealthy district of the Ghôr, in order to survey it with an amount of accuracy of detail equal to that which we had obtained in the more civilised country of the settled population. Through the white desert of the Bukei’a we marched north to a deep gorge, and descended into the broad flat plain of Jericho--a dusty expanse, with a black oasis of trees near the hills, and a black line of jungle round Jordan. In this descent we came for the first time upon beds of the curious “stink-stone,” or bituminous shale, probably part of the bed of a former Salt Sea at a higher level. It is a rock outwardly white like limestone, inwardly black, with a strong odour, and burning freely; here also the knolls and peaks of marl are striped with pink and yellow, and interstratified with great layers of flint.