“I know, but most people don’t get the opportunity you gave me. He’ll be my final interview, I promise you.”

I had my way.

Despite Joseph’s concern for my safety, he could not resist assuming his role as guide when we entered the squalor of the lower city, which inexplicably included the most ambitious and varied marketplace in the entire civilized world. No pilgrimage by the faithful to the Holy City was considered complete without a visit to the great market. On loosely cobbled streets, barely wide enough for our carriage to pass, Joseph, time and again, would command Shem to halt while he pointed out colorful sites and even more colorful strangers from distant lands. Jews from Babylon lifted their long velvet robes to avoid animal droppings while they jostled against their Persian brethren liveried in silk brocade. Worshipers from Anatolia wrapped their goat’s-hair tunics dose to their bodies to avoid the clutching hands of shrill vendors or the stumbling bodies of Galilean peasants who had eyes only for the gaudiest of merchandise, of which there was no shortage. I watched as a pair of Roman soldiers, probably Syrian auxiliaries, Joseph said, passed silently through the milling pre-Sabbath shoppers, their shining helmets and colored capes most prominent in the shifting maze of costumes. Visitors and natives alike looked the other way.

The market had something for everybody. Open stalls and booths, some so small that even the merchant stood outside, catered to any need or desire. One could have sandals repaired or a cloak mended or a tunic dyed or purchase a bracelet of the finest silver or a necklace of the basest metals or even exchange gold for an equal weight of silk. Rugs were woven before one’s eyes by skilled artisans, while the next stall might display gross statues of Greek and Roman gods. Everywhere the din of raucous haggling could be heard as the headiest of perfumes and salves and fruits and oils and even livestock changed ownership.

Beggars, crippled, diseased, and even sightless, confronted every shopper. Only the menacing sight of Shem, sitting high in his seat with his whip in his hand, kept us from being overwhelmed by the mob. Meat and cheese, stacked on flimsy tables, collected swirling dust and sand as we rode by. Restaurants, Joseph pointed out, abounded on every street, serving a wide variety of lamb’s meat and venison, partridge, quail, geese, yogurt, lentils, peas, lettuce, coarse bread, fresh fish, fruitcake, and fried locusts, with a wide choice of wines from Cyprus and Samaria and Canaan and also Egyptian beer. There were even prostitutes for the lonely traveler or soldier, all colors and all races, stalking back and forth in front of their stalls, whispering sweet words of seduction and promise to the wandering and wide-eyed pilgrims.