There are cemeteries for both the Jews and the Mohammedans outside the walls and not far from the Mosque. The Mohammedan cemetery, which lies close to the walls, is just opposite the Garden of Gethsemane and includes the Place of the Skull where General Gordon located the site of Calvary. This site is now surrounded by a wall and fence, and Christians are not permitted to enter it. Within it is the grotto where Jeremiah is said to have written his Lamentations, and not far away, near the Damascus Gate, are Solomon’s quarries. Our walk has brought us back once more to the Jaffa Gate, where we join a pilgrim-throng entering the Holy City. CHAPTER VIII “THE TRIBES OF GOD GO THITHER” Jerusalem a city is Compactly built together; Unto this place the tribes go up The tribes of God go thither. The Holy Land is hallowed ground for three great religions of the world. Jews, Moslems, Christians—all of them worshippers of only one god—do reverence at its shrines. Jerusalem is the pilgrimage city of the world. Sacred to the Christians, the centre of Jewish religious devotion and national dreams, it is also a second Mecca to the Mohammedans. The Moslems locate the judgment seat upon the walls surrounding the Mosque of Omar, which stands on the site of Solomon’s great temple. They make their pilgrimages from all parts of the Mohammedan world to worship at this mosque, and prostrate themselves before the sacred rock within it as they do before the holy black stone of Mecca. The prophet Mohammed himself said that Jerusalem was the holiest place in the world, and that one prayer here was worth a thousand elsewhere. [Illustration: Outside of the walls of Jerusalem one often sees flocks of sheep being driven in to market. Nearly every flock has its goats, which are usually black. Palestinian shepherds go before their sheep, inducing them to follow by calling to them] [Illustration: Lepers beg at the gates of Jerusalem, under the walls of great stone blocks finely joined together] [Illustration: Down the hill from under the walls of Jerusalem goes the road to Jaffa and the sea: to the right is the way to Bethlehem] The Christians of the Eastern churches are brought up in much the same faith. They believe that the prayers said within the walls of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre at the foot of Mount Calvary have a wonderful efficacy, and they gather in Jerusalem every Easter by the tens of thousands. From the wilds of Abyssinia, from the flat plains of Egypt, from the mountain fastnesses of Greece, and from all over Russia, even to the borders of Siberia, they come to drop their tears upon the tomb, and to live over the terrible events of Passion Week. They come from all parts of Asia Minor, and the Syrians and the Armenians jostle the Copts and the Arabians on their way to prayers.