There are many caves outside of Jerusalem and people live in some of them. The tombs of the kings on the edge of the city have been cut out of the solid rock, and some of them are so large that a city house could be dropped into one and not touch the walls. An excavation of the Pool of Bethesda has shown that it is eighty feet deep and covers nearly an acre. Right under the temple platform are enormous caverns known as Solomon’s Stables, and near by there is a space honeycombed with vast tanks which will hold millions of gallons of water. All of the water for the Holy City comes down in rain, and the trees and gardens of the town can be numbered on your fingers. The surrounding hills are almost as barren as some of the rocky slopes of New England, and the only foliage visible is the dark silvery green of the orchards on the Mount of Olives and along the hills between Jaffa and Bethlehem. The only grass to be seen is an acre or so of common inside the walls of the temple plateau, and here and there a house top, which by age has gathered a coating of dirt from the dust of the city, and on which the green grass has sprouted. Occasionally I see ruined arches, too dangerous to be inhabited by the bees of this human hive, on which grow moss and grass. There is one green bushy tree at the base of Mount Calvary, and a solitary palm beside the business street named after King David looks out over the city. Jerusalem is not an attractive looking town, and the glare from its cream-white buildings lying under the rays of this tropical sun makes my eyes sore. Jerusalem is the Mecca of millions of souls. It is to hundreds of millions the holiest spot on the face of the earth. Everywhere buildings have gone up both to accommodate pilgrims and to mark the most sacred places. On the very top of the Mount of Olives a great Russian church lifts its swelling domes toward heaven. In the Garden of Gethsemane, where Christ spent that night of “agony and bloody sweat” before His crucifixion, there is a resting place for pilgrims. The Roman Catholics have fifteen hundred brothers and sisters in their monasteries and convents, while the old Armenian church can accommodate a hundred and eighty monks and two thousand pilgrims. There are Greek Christians here by the thousands and Egyptian Copts by the hundreds. There are Abyssinian priests with faces as black as your hat. Indeed, among the worshippers who gather around the Holy Sepulchre you may see every costume and hear every language. Furthermore, the Jews are fast coming back into Palestine, and Jerusalem is again becoming a city of the Children of Israel. [Illustration: THE HOLY LAND AND SYRIA]