They were also written in anticipation of this hour and scene; so that he who has read them with attention can now see all Ben-Hur saw of the going to the crucifixion--a rare and wonderful sight! Half an hour--an hour--the flood surged by Ben-Hur and his companions, within arm's reach, incessant, undiminished.

At the end of that time he could have said, "I have seen all the castes of Jerusalem, all the sects of Judea, all the tribes of Israel, and all the nationalities of earth represented by them." The Libyan Jew went by, and the Jew of Egypt, and the Jew from the Rhine; in short, Jews from all East countries and all West countries, and all islands within commercial connection; they went by on foot, on horseback, on camels, in litters and chariots, and with an infinite variety of costumes, yet with the same marvellous similitude of features which to-day particularizes the children of Israel, tried as they have been by climates and modes of life; they went by speaking all known tongues, for by that means only were they distinguishable group from group; they went by in haste--eager, anxious, crowding--all to behold one poor Nazarene die, a felon between felons.
These were the many, but they were not all.
Borne along with the stream were thousands not Jews--thousands hating and despising them--Greeks, Romans, Arabs, Syrians, Africans, Egyptians, Easterns.

So that, studying the mass, it seemed the whole world was to be represented, and, in that sense, present at the crucifixion.
The going was singularly quiet.

A hoof-stroke upon a rock, the glide and rattle of revolving wheels, voices in conversation, and now and then a calling voice, were all the sounds heard above the rustle of the mighty movement.

Yet was there upon every countenance the look with which men make haste to see some dreadful sight, some sudden wreck, or ruin, or calamity of war.