Through a beautiful archway, we reenter the Temple area. The heavy wooden gate is locked, but a part is still open. An old man, striking the pavement with his stick, calls on "the name of God" as he bends to enter.

TWILIGHT IS THE PRAYERTIME OF THREE

FAITHS

Two Mohammedans are saying their evening prayers. Little groups of people are also at worship. Women, their veils fluttering in the wind, press homeward along the short cut through the Temple area. Chimes from the tiny church bells of the Sisters of Zion float across the air. A wee Moslem child is heard repeating the wisdom of his fathers, Allah el Akbar "God is Greatest."

Passing an imam with a white kerchief bound about a red fez, we mount the raised plateau, on which rises the Dome of the Rock; he wishes us "the peace of God." A lamp throws the Mosque el Aksa (see illustration, page 638) into relief beyond black cypress trees. A feeling of peace, of dignity, of hope, of the mercifulness of God, comes over us, as we leave the Dome, descend the steps and enter an old vaulted building which overlooks the Wailing Wall.

Through a barred window, in deep shadows, we see the ancient wall. A chorus of lamentations beats the air like the wave roar of a distant sea, but from time to time a staccato voice, rising above the others, carries a sound of pulsating, throbbing, poignant sorrow. The voices die away, but each time a fresh burst of lamentation echoes through the vaulted room (see illustration, page 670).

The wall is in almost complete darkness, but as the eyes become accustomed, figures of individuals gradually stand out. Women leaning against the great stones are silent except for dull, half-stifled moans: a few old Yemenites, sitting at the back of the alley, nod their heads in unison to the fervent dirge of those who bemoan the fate of Israel.

There they stand, in long coat and skullcap trimmed with fur, wide felt hat. or modern straw. The worshipers continually throw their heads backward and forward and from side to side, shaking

themselves as they pour forth fervent lamentations to God. The throbbing sound follows us like a poignant plea for pity, as we ascend to David Street.

Restaurants and coffee shops are aglow, and an Arabic song from a gramophone strikes harshly on the ear. A richly saddled donkey stands across our path, waiting to take his master home. Men squatting on low coffee stools exchange gossip. A merchant with a shop below street level lifts himself up by a chain to close the shutters.

A CITY OF SHADOWS AND PEACE

Color has gone from the bazaar and the arcade of the silversmiths. The arched tunnel is black, with a point of light at the far end; the color and charm of the merchandise have disappeared behind wooden bars. Smells of sandalwood, spices and curry alone remain.

A blind man comes slowly along, tapping the timeworn stones. Near the entrance to the courtyard of the Holy Sepulcher a tailor works late finishing a job for the early morning and a heavy iron. sizzles on damp cloth.

From the low entrance to the courtyard, an old man emerges, calling, "Allah, Allah." The courtyard is almost deserted; the great doors of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher are about to be closed. In the darkness, a tiny lamp flickers over the Stone of Unction. Little groups, shadowy phantoms, stand about chanting, "Kyrie eleison" ("Lord, have mercy upon us and bless us"). A man says his prayers before the shrine, which is outlined by olive-oil lamps. Calvary is flooded with light from candles of the faithful. As we pass through the church, the groups fade into the background. Peace reigns.

As we reach the Damascus Gate, the "Last Post" sounds from the police camp on Scopus.

Our walk gives meaning to the city's pageantry. Christian, Moslem, Jew, each is maintaining in his own way, and by customs hallowed through the centuries, his relationship with God. The vivid daytime is superseded by the beauty of a starlit night. And so we leave it, Capital of three great Faiths, in the peace of eventide-the Holy City still.

F

ORTUNATE the man who can help to preserve something of the life of the Holy City. More fortunate is he who can record in natural colors bright spots in the life of a city whose appeal is world-wide.

He must approach his task with sympathy and reverence, for his model is loved and idealized by Moslems from the Near and Far East, Sunday-school teachers from the Far West, and Jews from half the world. Unless he pictures with understanding the city where world brotherhood was proclaimed, he may engender dissension. The pictured city must ever remain the Holy City.

Neither brush nor camera has fully recorded the color of Jerusalem. From blinding light to gloom runs the bright ribbon of oriental life, now vivid and moving, now stilled in tone and tempo by the murk of arched tunnel or the peace of quiet mosque. In ever-changing sunshine and shadow, no two eyes see the same, no two brains retain like memories.

Before the World War, Jerusalem was my vacation home, the lodestone of my dreams, its bustling life a constant challenge to my untrained lens. At Easter time and in the heat of summer I haunted favorite corners, marking the sun's path along the Via Dolorosa, begging Arab, Jew, and Christian to pose for an instrument whose very look they dreaded, or trying to separate from mobs of pilgrims the brocaded robes of sectarian princes.

Fierce contrasts of light, the passive resistance of those to whom the picturing of a human face is anathema, the stiffness Orientals show before a camera, so different from the freedom of their unstudied life-a thousand drawbacks could not down the desire to share with homeland friends the never-ending charms of this shrine of beauty and of dreams.

But each time I returned I found the Holy City changed. Where queenly peasant women had stalked along, their tattooed faces shaded by wide trays of vegetables, short-skirted cosmopolites carried parasols to save their complexions. Derby was replacing tarboosh, and trousers the flowing robes that still made desert men seem Biblical.

Here was a city, sacred to Moslem, Jew, and Christian, losing the character for which it had been distinguished for centuries. I longed to record something of it before it was too late.

Then came an unparalleled opportunity. A friend who knew of the National Geographic Society's efforts to preserve the very colors of a changing world was made governmental head of Jerusalem.

Mere authority could not have broken down the barriers. Not even the District Commissioner could order a rabbi to sit for his portrait or a Moslem girl to risk the criticism of the ignorant or the unfriendly. But Major Keith-Roach (see "The Pageant of Jerusalem," pages 635681) had established relations of friendship with all classes and sects, and he undertook to enlist the coöperation of those individuals shown in autochrome in succeeding pages. Moslem and Jew and Christian eagerly collaborated to record something precious in oriental life that is slowly fading.

PRINCES POSE FOR THEIR COLOR PORTRAITS

One cannot ask an ecclesiastical prince to take his priceless jewels and rich brocades away from his residence, and, since color photographs require sixty times the amount of light of ordinary portraits, he could not be pictured inside his palace. At the Orthodox Patriarchate, the one spot determined by the position of the sun and the age of my model was on a balcony outside his rooms. To pose in the full heat of a June sun is trying work; so I focused on another churchman, and when His Beatitude stood on the same spot, I exposed two plates so quickly that he was amazed to learn that the ordeal was over (Plate VI).

The Latin Patriarch (Plate II) was also photographed on a narrow balcony, but with the head of the Abyssinian Church I was more fortunate. The monastery of these Christians from near the Equator is on the roof of the Chapel of St. Helena, Roman empress and Christian patron. The Superior (Plate I). awaited me with eight gorgeously gowned attendants. Brocades and jewels made a striking confusion of details.