A little farther along the western wall we come to the Wailing Place of the Jews. It is close to the Jewish quarter—the foulest, most squalid and wretched part of the city. The masonry here is the finest, and in the best preservation, of any part of the enclosure. Many of the stones are twenty-five feet in length and apparently have remained undisturbed since the time of the first builder.[153] Here the Jews assemble every Friday to mourn over their fallen state, especially their exclusion from “the holy and beautiful house,” where their fathers worshipped God. Some press their lips against crevices in the masonry as though imploring an answer from some unseen presence within, others utter loud cries of anguish. Here is one group joining in the prayers of an aged rabbi; yonder another sitting in silent anguish, their cheeks bathed in tears. The stones are in many places worn smooth with their passionate kisses. The grief of the new-comers is evidently deep and genuine. But with the older residents it has subsided into little more than a mere ceremonial observance and an empty form. But in either case the scene is strangely affecting, leading back our thoughts to the self-invoked curse of eighteen hundred years ago—“His blood be on us, and on our children.”[154] [Illustration: JEWISH ALMSHOUSES, ERECTED BY SIR MOSES MONTEFIORE, NEAR THE JAFFA GATE.] The northern wall has nothing to detain us, except the pool of Bethesda, so called, but of which the identification is doubtful.[155] There are still traces of what may have been “the five porches,” but the pool is now little more than a pit or ditch choked with filth and ordure, and, only after heavy rains, containing a little stagnant, fetid water.