Leaving this beautiful and interesting building we crossed the platform southward, having on our right the old sun-dial, which the Crusaders held to mark the site of the Temple altar; and passing the beautiful summer pulpit we descended to the southern court. The most picturesque view is from this point. The Dome of the Rock is seen behind the venerable cypresses of the lower court--a great cupola on which sit innumerable doves, while, beneath it, the walls are resplendent with the harmonious colouring of the tiles--white, blue, green, black, and yellow, in elegant tracery which cannot now be imitated. In front are the flat steps leading up to the pillars and arches called "balancesâ by the Moslems, and below them are the little chambers of the Sheikhs who live in the enclosure.
The black fanatics who guard the holy place lounged among the trees, and a funeral procession was slowly marching, with subdued murmurs, round the Chapel of the Rock, while, by a curious coincidence, a gorgeous wedding-party in bright-coloured silks, was also approaching the same place.
The great enclosure outside the platform is not paved; it is covered with grass and planted with olives and cypresses. Only the platform is fairly level, and its flagging in parts is covered with Crusading masons'-marks. There is, as above noticed, only one mosque in the enclosure--the great building on the south wall. The whole area is called Haram esh Sherîf, "High Sanctuary,â and Masjid el Haram, "Praying-place of Sanctuary;â also sometimes Masjid el Aksa, "the far-off praying-place,â in allusion to its distance from Mecca and to the Prophet's long night journey. The mosque itself is called Jami'a el Aksa, or the "far-off meeting-house.â To it we next repaired.
The history of the mosque differs from that of the Dome of the Rock. Justinian, in the sixth century, erected a basilica in honour of the Virgin, partly supported by vaults beneath. The remains of such a basilica are distinguishable in the Aksa, and the vault beneath the mosque has the peculiarity of Byzantine vaulting--the narrow keystone, which is not found in the round arches of the Kubbet es Sakhrah, or Dome of the Rock.
In 637 A.D. the Church of St Mary was visited by Omar, and the "stationâ where he prayed is still shown in the Aksa. In 688 A.D. Abd el Melek covered the doors with gold and silver plates. Additions were made in the eighth century, and the width of the building was increased. The cupola bears the date 728 A.D. The Crusaders called the place Solomon's Palace, Solomon's Porch, or Solomon's Temple. The Templars remodelled it, adding an apse on the east and a long hall on the west. Again it fell into Moslem hands, and further alterations were made; thus at the present day it presents a confusion of style and plan requiring the eye of a practised architect to distinguish the various additions.