t
period, cased with a handsome altar of white marble, upon which the
priests daily said mass.

To the south of this holy Mussulman temple, on the extreme edge of the
summit of Mount Moriah, and resting against the modern walls of the town
of Jerusalem, stands the venerable Church of the Virgin, erected by the
emperor Justinian, whose stupendous foundations, remaining to this day,
fully justify the astonishing description given of the building by
Procopius. That writer informs us that in order to get a level surface
for the erection of the edifice, it was necessary, on the east and south
sides of the hill, to raise up a wall of masonry from the valley below,
and to construct a vast foundation, partly composed of solid stone and
partly of arches and pillars. The stones were of such magnitude that
each block required to be transported in a truck drawn by forty of the
Emperor's strongest oxen; and to admit of the passage of these trucks it
was necessary to widen the roads leading to Jerusalem. The forests of
Lebanon yielded their choicest cedars for the timbers of the roof; and a
quarry of variegated marble, seasonably discovered in the adjoining
mountains, furnished the edifice with superb marble columns.

The interior of this interesting structure, which still remains at
Jerusalem, after a lapse of more than thirteen centuries, in an
excellent state of preservation, is adorned with six rows of columns,
from whence spring arches supporting the cedar beams and timbers of the
roof; and at the end of the building is a round tower, surmounted by a
dome. The vast stones, the walls of masonry, and the subterranean
colonnade raised to support the southeast angle of the platform whereon
the church is erected are truly wonderful, and may still be seen by
penetrating through a small door and descending several flights of steps
at the southeast corner of the enclosure. Adjoining the sacred edifice
the Emperor erected hospitals, or houses of refuge, for travellers, sick
people, and mendicants of all nations; the foundations whereof, composed
of handsome Roman masonry, are still visible on either side of the
southern end of the building.

On the conquest of Jerusalem by the Moslems this venerable church was
converted into a mosque, and was called D'Jame al Acsa; it was enclosed,
together with the great Mussulman "Temple of the Lord" erected by the
caliph Omar, within a large area by a high stone wall, which runs around
the edge of