Page:The Romance of Isabel, Lady Burton.djvu/516

480 his preaching. It was a small cave, and there is a bench in it cut in the stone, which served the Baptist as a bed. The priests now celebrate Mass on it.

On Easter Tuesday one of Her Majesty's man-of-war arrived at Jaffa, and a number of sailors rode up to Jerusalem in the evening, and kept high festival. It sounded strange in the solemn silence of the Holy City to hear the refrains of "We won't go home till morning" until past midnight. But a truce to sentiment; it did me good to hear their jolly English voices, so I ordered some drink for them, and sent a message to them to sing "Rule Britannia" and "God save the Queen" for me, which they did with a hearty good-will. They made the old walls ring again.

On Wednesday we went to Bethlehem. There is a monastery over the holy places where the Nativity took place. You descend a staircase into the crypt, which must have formed part of the old khan, or inn, where Mary brought forth our Lord. The centre of attraction is a large grotto, with an altar and a silver star under it, and around the star is written, "Hic de Yirgine Maria Jesus Christus natus est." The manger where the animals ted is an excavation in the rock.

The next day, having exhausted the objects of interest in and about:hem, we continued our travels. We rode on to Hebron, an ancient town lying in a valley surrounded by hills. The houses are old and ruinous. One cannot go out upon one's root without all the other roofs being crowded, and cries of "Bakshísh" arise like the cackle of fowls. There is a mosque