DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.5074#0193
JERUSALEM.
175
gate into the Haram, said by an ancient tradition to be
the " Beautiful Grate of the Temple." Fine old Saracenic
arches enrich this long street at every step : at a third
pretty fountain, spoiled by whitewash, a lane turns up
to the so-called "Hospital of St. Helena," probably a
confusion between the Empress and Sultana, the wife
of the Sultan Selim, who erected this large and beautiful
building as a khan for all pilgrims; the exterior of this
building is beautiful of its kind — rich and yet simple,
precisely of the same style as the Mosque of Sultan
Hassan at Cairo: within are numberless halls and
chambers and terraces, with vaulted ceilings and marble
columns, and here and there a pretty bit of carving;
from the roof a fine view of the Haram is obtained :
soup and bread are still given away from the original
funds, though they have been much diminished by the
Government — still very many are fed every day: we
tasted the soup when cooking in an enormous cauldron,
and thought it, as well as the bread, very good.
A branch of the valley of the Tyropseon is observable
through the Jews' quarter to the end of the Bazaar,
where it is for a few steps steep enough, but it soon
stops, and all is level ground for a considerable distance
within the Jaffa Grate : while the measurements taken
at different times on reaching the actual rock beneath
the Armenian Convent, the English Church, the Latin
Patriarchate, the Casa Nuova, and some others, were all
so nearly the same as to show that there is no great
depth of soil accumulated here. It was probably this
connecting neck which caused the northern hill to be
called by many writers Zion, as well as the southern
hill: William of Tyre says that " the City is built on
two mountains divided by a moderately deep valley —
the western mountain is called Zion, and the eastern,
175
gate into the Haram, said by an ancient tradition to be
the " Beautiful Grate of the Temple." Fine old Saracenic
arches enrich this long street at every step : at a third
pretty fountain, spoiled by whitewash, a lane turns up
to the so-called "Hospital of St. Helena," probably a
confusion between the Empress and Sultana, the wife
of the Sultan Selim, who erected this large and beautiful
building as a khan for all pilgrims; the exterior of this
building is beautiful of its kind — rich and yet simple,
precisely of the same style as the Mosque of Sultan
Hassan at Cairo: within are numberless halls and
chambers and terraces, with vaulted ceilings and marble
columns, and here and there a pretty bit of carving;
from the roof a fine view of the Haram is obtained :
soup and bread are still given away from the original
funds, though they have been much diminished by the
Government — still very many are fed every day: we
tasted the soup when cooking in an enormous cauldron,
and thought it, as well as the bread, very good.
A branch of the valley of the Tyropseon is observable
through the Jews' quarter to the end of the Bazaar,
where it is for a few steps steep enough, but it soon
stops, and all is level ground for a considerable distance
within the Jaffa Grate : while the measurements taken
at different times on reaching the actual rock beneath
the Armenian Convent, the English Church, the Latin
Patriarchate, the Casa Nuova, and some others, were all
so nearly the same as to show that there is no great
depth of soil accumulated here. It was probably this
connecting neck which caused the northern hill to be
called by many writers Zion, as well as the southern
hill: William of Tyre says that " the City is built on
two mountains divided by a moderately deep valley —
the western mountain is called Zion, and the eastern,