A straggling olive-tree occasionally
appeared, and then a group, and soon the groups swelled into a grove.
His way wound through the grateful and unaccustomed shade. He emerged
from the grove, and found that he had proceeded down more than half
the side of the mountain. It ended precipitously in a dark and narrow
ravine, formed on the other side by an opposite mountain, the lofty
steep of which was crested by a city gently rising on a gradual slope.
Nothing could be conceived more barren, wild, and terrible than the
surrounding scenery, unillumined by a single trace of culture. The city
stood like the last gladiator in an amphitheatre of desolation.
It was surrounded by a lofty turreted wall, of an architecture to which
the pilgrim was unaccustomed: gates with drawbridge and portcullis,
square towers, and loopholes for the archer. Sentinels, clothed in steel
and shining in the sunset, paced, at regular intervals, the cautious
wall, and on a lofty tower a standard waved, a snowy standard, with a
red, red cross!
The Prince of the Captivity at length beheld the lost capital of his
fathers.[35]
A few months back, and such a spectacle would have called forth all the
latent passion of Alroy; but time and suffering, and sharp experience,
had already somewhat curbed the fiery spirit of the Hebrew Prince.
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