IN JERUSALEM.

Otago Witness, Issue 1915, 3 August 1888, Page 31

IN JERUSALEM.

As the traveller walks on, he perceives that his footsteps are not upon the original ground of Jerusalem, but upon a mass of superimposed matter whioh has been strewn over the whole site. History enumerates 17 captures of the Holy City, 11 of which were attended by sieges more or less destructive. After many of these events the houses then standing were razed to the earth. These were in time succeeded by new houses, which in their turn were overthrown at the next siege, and so on, each capture adding to the accumulation of rubbish. Thus the traveller learns that a compact layer or solid coating,

from 30ft to 50ft in thickness, has been by degrees spread over the entire space. Even the valleys and ravines between the several hills on which the city was built have been so far filled up as to have partly lost their special character, as already mentioned. The lyropoeon brook is, perhaps, the most particular instance. The traveller will have heard of this brook, or read of it in Josephus, asa landmark in the interior of this city; but he will not find it. Nevertheless, it was so deep that at its exit from the city at Moriah the bridge-span was more than 100 ft above its bed. Its course has been traced by the discovery of the arch, and by deep excavations here and there which have exposed the bed now overlaid with ruins. — Sir Riohaed Temple.