I write these words on the housetop of a bishop’s residence on the summit of Mount Zion and in the centre of the Holy City. My typewriter stands within thirty feet of the great square Tower of David the base of which was undoubtedly built before the time of Christ. At my left, surrounded by the yellow stone walls of the houses, is the dark green pool Hezekiah made to supply Jerusalem with water in case of siege, and beyond it, out of the jumble of buildings, shines the huge bronze dome erected over the spot where Christ was crucified. Not half a mile away on a plateau covering thirty-five acres is a big octagonal tower with a bulbous bronze dome. That is the Mosque of Omar which rises on the very site of Solomon’s temple. At its left is the church built over the Roman mosaic floor of the house of Pontius Pilate. Jerusalem lies in a nest of mountains. It is built on an irregular plateau with valleys all about it and steep hills rising straight up from these to the city and to the higher hills on the opposite sides. The site of the city runs over height and hollow, and was probably chosen for the capital of Judea on account of the great gorges about it, by which it could be the more easily defended against attack. [Illustration: Jerusalem lies in a nest of hills which seem flattened out when viewed from an airplane. It is on a plateau twenty-five hundred feet above sea-level, and the city is divided into four quarters, each on its own hill] [Illustration: The walls of the Holy City were breached at the Jaffa gate to provide a special entrance for the German Kaiser when he visited Jerusalem. He was arrayed as a crusading knight and rode a prancing snow-white steed] Around the edge of the plateau is a wall about thirty feet high enclosing the Jerusalem of to-day. The wall runs along the rims of the valleys, climbing up hill and down, making its way around the Holy City until it comes again to the Jaffa Gate which is just below me. The Holy City now covers twice as much space as it did when I was first here a good many years ago. It has doubled in size and has some sixty thousand people. At that time most of the inhabitants were crowded together inside the walls. They are crowded still, but to the north, south, and west large Jewish settlements have sprung up, and among and beyond them have been built great hospices, hospitals, convents, cathedrals, and hotels, so that the population outside the walls almost equals that within. The new buildings have extended to the Mount of Olives, and are working their way toward the east along the road to Jaffa.