Page:Buried cities and Bible countries (1891).djvu/223

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
JERUSLAEM.
211

build and more barbarian in air, distinguished from every other nationality by their unkempt beards, their long locks, their huge fur caps and boots. Not less distinct are the Spanish, Mughrabee, Russian, and German Jews, each marked by a peculiar and characteristic physiognomy."

Ten sects or religions are established in Jerusalem, and if their various sub-divisions are counted they amount to a total of twenty-four, more than half of which are Christian. The late Mr C. T. Tyrwhitt Drake gives the different races and creeds as follows:—

  1. Abyssinians.
  2. Armenians: (a) Orthodox, (b) Catholic.
  3. Copts.
  4. Greeks: (a) Orthodox, (b) Catholic.
  5. Jews: (a) Ashkenazim, (b) Sephardim, (c) Karaite.
  6. Latin or Roman Catholics.
  7. Maronites.
  8. Moslems: Sunni,—(a) Shafii, (b) Hanefi, (c) Hambeli, (d) Maleki. Shiaï,—Metawili, &c.
  9. Protestants: (a) Church of England, (b) Lutheran.
  10. Syrians: (a) Jacobite, (b) Catholic.

All these sects have their churches, synagogues, monasteries, hospices, which take up no inconsiderable portion of the square half mile of space within the city walls. Yet the population of Jerusalem was estimated at 20,000 in 1878, and there has been further influx since. But many of the new comers build dwellings outside the walls, and there is now quite a large suburb on the north-west.

The Haram esh Sherif, or Noble Sanctuary, on Mount Moriah, is a large, open space, of peculiar sanctity in the eyes of all true Moslems. Its surface is studded with cypress and olive, and its sides are surrounded in part by the finest mural masonry in the world. At the southern end is the Mosque El Aksa, and a pile of buildings formerly