d hardly a drop of water anywhere to drink. No
wonder nobody went to Jerusalem, except Jews and Roman soldiers! There
were no gay caravans of Eastern merchants here. Galilee seemed very
far away.

Up one side of a hill, and down another, and then another higher hill
to climb! Up and up, over stones and bare earth and bushes and thorns,
until they were high above the Jordan--that was the road to Jerusalem.
Would they ever get there? What they would have given just to sit down
and wash the sand off their hot, tired feet!

Then all at once they saw it. From the top of the hill they saw it,
walls and roofs and towers gleaming in the morning sun. A shout of joy
went up. Every man and woman and child joined in the shouting.
Jerusalem, the city of David! King David built that city, a thousand
years ago. The enemies of God had come and burned it to the ground,
but the Jews built it up again. They were sure that it could never be
destroyed. It would always be there, for ever and ever. Someday the
Messiah would come, and all the peoples and nations of the world
would come to see Jerusalem, as these poor folk from Galilee were
doing now.

[Illustration]

The travelers began to march again, but faster this time; forgotten
were the weary miles behind. They marched, and as they marched they
sang. They sang one of the psalms that the boys had learned at school.
Everyone took up the song:

"'I was glad when they said unto me,
Let us go into the house of the Lord.
Our feet shall stand within thy gates, O Jerusalem....
Pray for the peace of Jerusalem:
They shall prosper that love thee.'"

There were so many visitors in Jerusalem that they could not all find
a place to stay in the city. Some of them stayed in the villages near
by, and others slept in tents out in the open air. At an ordinary time
of the year, there would be only about thirty thousand people living
in Jerusalem. But at the Passover there might be twice that, or even
more.

Even the Roman governor was in Jerusalem at Passover time. He lived in
another city, but he always came to Jerusalem for the great feast. It
was not that he cared about the Passover. It was because he was afraid
that with such great crowds in Jerusalem there might be trouble unless
his Roman soldiers were on guard. It would be especially bad if anyone
showed up claiming to be the Messiah. All the people might make him
king, and rebel against Rome, and great numbers would be