The Argosy, August 1905 — page 89: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

| __ Even the walled confines of the Holy y seemed to oppress her. She wanted to be in the open country. Of Jerusalem’s six modern entrances, the Jaffa Gate lies nearest to the Grand Hotel. The warder had just opened it for the day as May appeared. The stolid Syrian stared . open- mouthed at the unprecedented specta- cle of a woman walking abroad alone and at dawn. Grumbling something to himself about the “madness of all feringhi’ (foreigners), he watched her as she struck out with the free, grace- Yul stride of the Anglo-Saxon pedes- trian along the by-road that skirts the city’s walls to the north. Jerusalem long ago outgrew its walls, and the overflow has spilled in dis- orderly fashion to the west and south of the city, in the shape of all sorts of irregular, untidy structures from pack- ing-box shanties to mud and _ stucco community buildings. To the north and the east the Holy City cannot spread. The deep and precipitate sides of the valley, in whose center lies the Brook of Kedron and whose farther slope culmi- nates in the Mount of Olives, eut off further building on the east, while a Mohammedan cemetery and irregulari- ties of ground render growth almost equally impracticable on the north. With this conformation vaguely in mind, yet half-unconscious as to her direction, May Farrar rounded thes northwestern buttresses of the gray old walls and turned east toward Kedron. Scavenger dogs prowled in the ditch at the base of the wall. An occasional peasant leading a donkey laden with wares for the morning’s market passed May in the narrow road and eyed her in stupid wonder. But her self-possession and the absence of all furtiveness from her manner served almost as effectively as did the dumb misery in her face to avert insult. She moved on unmolested, this slen- der, sad-eyed American girl, where a woman df any race save the Anglo- Saxon would have been subjected to a thousand perils. Only once she paused. She was op- posite the Damascus Gate and stopped to aze for an instant at a low, skull-shaped ie north of the ditch-road. The little hill was dotted by a number of Srivis and in its sides were the scars ot abandoned quarries. The summit presented the one green spot in all that dreary, grayish landscape. It was in a cave at the base of this hill that Gordon discovered the tomb and other evidences which led him and a large portion of the Christian world to identify the spot as the real Mount Cal- vary. The presence of Moslem graves on the sacred ‘hill have prevented its demolition before the encroachment of building enterprises. The sun, rising over the Mount of Olives, gilded the green crest of Calvary as the girl gazed reverently. She bowed her head and stood thus a mo- ment in silence before hurrying on. A long string of mangy, mouse- colored camels, laden with bales and led by a furry little gray donkey, was toil- ing up the steep hill leading from Kedron as May began her descent, and she stood aside to let the ugly brutes and their grinning, shouting drivers pass. Then she picked her way along the stone-strewn dusty highway to the valley below. Later in the day the dried bed of Kedron Brook at this point would be alive with traffic, discordant with the yells of vendors, and infested by loathsome lepers and other more or less unsightly mendicants. But now over the whole scene brooded the solemn peace and hush of the dawn. The Mount of Olives loomed up before her, somber and _ beautiful. About its lower slopes clustered olive orchards and the white walls of monas- teries. Breasting the slope, May checked herself to look in through the wide- open gates of a walled garden. Wind- ing natural paths intersected the neg- lected, flower-sprinkled turf, and enormous gnarled ancient olive trees cast a soft shade along the reaches of swaying grass. The whole enclosure breathed of peace, repose, silence. Passing through the gateway, May Farrar entered the garden. Here for the first time her restlessness vanished. A mystic sense of calm crept over her. The tension of the past twelve hours comicbooks.com