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We could recognize the Tower of Hippicus, the Mosque of Omar, the Damascus Gate, the Mount of Olives, the Valley of Jehoshaphat, the Tower of David, and the Garden of Gethsemane and dating from these landmarks could tell very nearly the localities of many others we were not able to distinguish. I record it here as a notable but not discreditable fact that not even our pilgrims wept.
From before the well the ground sank to a plain of pale grey sand, which stretched away to a village hard in aspect, as if carved out of bronze and all in one piece. In the centre of it rose a mosque with a minaret and a number of cupolas, faintly gilded and shining modestly under the fierce rays of the sun.
She said she was three duros and a half old, as who should say three dollars and a half, and she had a grim amusement in so translating her seventy years. It was hard by her cottage that we saw our first mosque, which had begun by being a Gothic church, but had lost itself in paynim hands for centuries, in spite of the lamp always kept burning in it.
It is over a hundred feet in width, and extends for a distance of three miles in a nearly straight line to the Alexander Nevsky Monastery, forming a most magnificent avenue. On this street may be seen the churches of several sects of different faiths, such as Roman Catholics, Protestants, Armenians, and a Mahometan mosque.
The most attractive of the many parts of this palace is the Pearl Mosque, which "owes its charm to its perfect proportions, its harmony of designs, and its beauty of material, rather than to richness of decoration and ornament.
Mohammed is said to have often prayed here; and, for the convenience of the inhabitants of the suburbs who are at a distance from the great mosque, the Khotbe, or Friday's prayer, is likewise performed in it. The other mosque, called Mesdjed Omar, to which a public medrese, or school, was attached, serves at present as a magazine, and quarters for many soldiers.
The great dome of the mosque is the grandest in all the Orient, but the body of the edifice, made to resemble an octagonal tent, and covered with blue and white tiles, is not high enough to do it justice. The first court is paved with marble, and has four porticoes, each of five light Saracenic arches, opening into the green park, which occupies the rest of the terrace.
The granite minaret of the Mohammedan mosque, the carved dome of a Buddhist temple, the slender spire of an English cathedral, the bold projections of Government House, and the wide, white sides of the Municipal buildings all hold the eye.
The storm now began to rage more furiously; the waves towered higher, and threw their spray far on to the shore and high upon the rock, as though determined to make known its dread majesty to the inhabitants of the city of Cavalla, which stands with its little houses, narrow streets, and splendid mosque, on the plateau of the rock of Bucephalus.
Every one to his taste, even in matters of religion; Philip reared a temple to the life beyond this, and as if with the splendor of the mausoleum which it enshrines he hoped to overcome the victorious grave; the Caliph who built the mighty mosque at Cordova, which outlasts every other glory of his capital, dedicated it to the joy of this life as against the gloom of whose who would have put it under the feet of death.
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