Page:On the Desert - Recent Events in Egypt.djvu/310

296 son, and wrapped him in swaddling-clothes, and laid him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn." This first resting-place of the Holy Family is supposed to have been under ground, which at least is possible. The hillsides of Palestine are full of caves, which were often used for storing grain and feeding cattle. Sometimes a spacious cavern was turned into a kind of hostelry. If the impression be conveyed that there was an indignity offered to Mary and Joseph, in that they were obliged to take refuge in such a place, this will not be so interpreted by those who have lived in the East, and who know how in the great khans or caravanserais men and animals are often herded together in the same enclosure or under the same roof. Several weeks after this I was on Mount Carmel, where is a small but substantial stone building designed for the use of pilgrims, with but one large room, whose only division is that the place for men and women is two or three feet higher than that for the beasts of burden. On this raised platform the pilgrims sit and eat and sleep, while but just below them stand "the beasts of the stall." Along the edge of the raised platform is a long stone trough, in which, when not crowded with the heads of cattle feeding, children are laid down to sleep as the most convenient place of rest, and for safety, as its depth makes it a secure cradle, in which a child would be as safe from falling as in its mother's arms. Indeed at the moment that we entered, there was a child sleeping quietly in this stone manger, which gave us an exact image of the manger-cradle of Bethlehem, in which they laid the holy child Jesus.

As to this crypt under the church, whether it be the very place of the manger, there is a further question, not so easily answered. Tradition may not be conclusive, but certainly it is entitled to weight; and so far