These stories are silly, but they are only a few of many which are told us when we are inside the mosque. Nevertheless, the average Mohammedan of this side of the world believes them, and we see bearded, gowned, and turbaned men and white-sheeted, veiled women praying over these holy places. They kiss the marks of Mohammed’s footprints and run their handkerchiefs and beads over the rock. They pray as they do so, for the Prophet said that one prayer here is worth a thousand uttered anywhere else, and he prayed here himself. The greatest interest of Mount Moriah, however, arises from the fact that we know this was the actual site of Solomon’s Temple as well as that of the two other Jewish temples which succeeded it. The first house of God erected by the Israelites was the Tabernacle. This was constructed at the direction of Moses just after he had received the Commandments. It is said to have been just about half the size of the Temple of Solomon, although there are passages in the Scriptures which lead us to think the latter must have been very much larger. The Tabernacle was a movable building. It was about fifty feet long and sixteen or seventeen feet wide. The roof and walls were formed of curtains made of linen or wool beautifully sewed and fastened in places with gold buckles. There were also curtains of goat’s hair and of ram’s wool dyed red. Some suppose the roof of the Tabernacle to have been flat, and others that it was ridged like a tent, with a cube inside about sixteen feet square, which was the Holy of Holies. In the latter were the Ark of the Covenant and the Tables of the Law. Solomon’s Temple was planned by David, who collected much of the material used. Solomon himself made a bargain with Hiram, King of Tyre, to aid him in supplying the timber and certain classes of the mechanics. Hiram was a Phœnician king who lived up the coast and who controlled the forests of Lebanon. He gave Solomon a concession of certain tracts of cedar and fir, and the Hebrew king sent men in parties of ten thousand each to go to the mountains and cut down the trees. The servants of Hiram helped them, and they carried the lumber to the shores of the Mediterranean and floated it down to Jaffa, whence it was brought up to Jerusalem. The Bible says that Solomon gave King Hiram every year two thousand measures of wheat and twenty measures of oil as his part of the contract, and that the two kings were associated together.