They passed on to the southern cloister, which, like the eastern, was built upon a vast substructure of masonry rising in massive grandeur from the valley below. “This,” said Rufus, “bears the name of the Royal Colonnade, as being the grandest of all, for whereas the other cloisters have but two rows of pillars, this has four. And mark them! Each column is a monolith, fifty feet in height, and as to its thickness, three men with joined hands can scarcely encircle it.” This Royal Colonnade, open on the side towards the temple, was closed upon the other by a wall. The two, therefore, mounted a staircase and walked along its roof. “Those houses whose roofs you see beneath us extending far to the southward, form the suburb of Ophel, the residence of the priests and their servants, the Levites and Nethinim, whose duty necessitates their living near the temple.” “It seems to me,” muttered Crispus, as he gazed downwards, “that he would be a bold general who would venture to make his attack from the south side.” Walking onward, they came to the last, or western cloister, whose edge overhung the ravine known as the Valley of Tyropæon, a deep cleft that completely severed the temple-mount both from Acra or the Lower City, which lay due west, and from Zion or the Upper City, which lay to the southwest. The temple-hill and Mount Zion were joined by a stone bridge, a magnificent structure, being in length 354 feet, and having a roadway 50 feet broad; in the center the depth of the valley beneath was 225 feet! “Well, what think you of this--the fourth side?” “Destroy the bridge, and you make this part of the temple inaccessible.” “Yet this was the side--there was no bridge then--that our great Pompey successfully stormed.” “It speaks ill for the skill of the defenders.” “But well for the courage of the Romans--eh? But I doubt whether even Pompey would have carried his assault had not Jewish superstition favored him.” “In what way?” “He was told that the Jews had such reverence for the Sabbath that they would not fight on that day unless actually attacked. He therefore spent every Sabbath in raising huge mounds, and the rest of the week in guarding them; at the end of twelve months he made his triumphal attack.” “Would the Jews again act so supinely, think you?” “I doubt it. Since then they have seen the folly of their ways.” Having walked all round the colonnades to the point whence they set out, the two friends now passed into the spacious court open to the sky. In the middle of this court rose the Sanctuary, or the Temple properly so called. “It stands, if you will believe the Jews, upon the very center of the earth’s surface,” remarked Rufus. “In the adytum the stone upon which the high priest deposits his censer upon the Day of Atonement is regarded as the navel of the earth.”