The massive valves had been wide open since dawn.
Business, always aggressive, had pushed through the arched entrance into a narrow lane and court, which, passing by the walls of the great tower, conducted on into the city.

As Jerusalem is in the hill country, the morning air on this occasion was not a little crisp.

The rays of the sun, with their promise of warmth, lingered provokingly far up on the battlements and turrets of the great piles about, down from which fell the crooning of pigeons and the whir of the flocks coming and going.
As a passing acquaintance with the people of the Holy City, strangers as well as residents, will be necessary to an understanding of some of the pages which follow, it will be well to stop at the gate and pass the scene in review.

Better opportunity will not offer to get sight of the populace who will afterwhile go forward in a mood very different from that which now possesses them.
The scene is at first one of utter confusion--confusion of action, sounds, colors, and things.

It is especially so in the lane and court.
The ground there is paved with broad unshaped flags, from which each cry and jar and hoof-stamp arises to swell the medley that rings and roars up between the solid impending walls.