Page:On the Desert - Recent Events in Egypt.djvu/121

 at Constantinople and thirty at Jerusalem. We were seated on the divan with our hosts, when a monk entered bearing a tray on which were the tiny cups of coffee always used in the East. After partaking of refreshments, we asked for lodgings, which were not so easily obtained, as the rooms set apart for that purpose were occupied by ecclesiastical visitors. Of late years travellers have more generally adopted the plan of camping outside the Convent. The monks offered us a place in the garden, where we could pitch our tents under the blossoming almond-trees. But no; I wished to be not outside, but "within the gates," and gently urged the matter, till the Archimandrite said he would see what they could do, and after sending to inquire, in a few minutes conducted us to a couple of rooms on the third story, at the end of a long corridor. My room was in the extreme angle, at the farthest corner, where, as I looked out of the window, it seemed as if I were perched up in the signal-tower of a fortress. The wall even on this story was three feet thick, and the window was secured by heavy iron bars — a precaution which was necessary in the grim old days, to keep an enemy from getting in, if not a prisoner from getting out. But no matter: though it had been barred like a dungeon, the window had a pretty lookout up the valley, and through it came a cool, refreshing breeze. The door opened on the corridor, which looked down upon the whole interior of the Convent. Our dragoman and cook found quarters in the court below, and served our meals on this corridor, and took the whole care of our rooms. A few feet from my door a cannon peered out of a port-hole (there were several small pieces of artillery along the corridor and mounted on the walls), and in my room was a picture of the Virgin, before which, as a shrine, a lamp was kept burning, so that I was protected both by earthly and