Page:Travels from Aleppo, to the city of Jerusalem, and through the most remarkable parts of the Holy Land, in 1776.pdf/8

 they say is the middle of the world. They have another place by the prison of Christ with two holes to put the feet in; and also a narrow passage between two pillars, in imitation of the straitnes of the path to heaven, which the Greeks creep through. In the church of the Syrians is the intended sepulchre of Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus; and near the anointing stone is a tomb where Godfrey and Baldwin kings of Jerusalem are buried. In the same place is the rent of the rock, which begins above, near the place where our Saviour was crucified; and in that rent they say Adam’s head was found when our Saviour gave up the ghost. Thus having seen the temple we returned to the convent.

May 28. we went out of the city at Damascus gate, and turning on the right came to one of the fish-ponds of the old city, and a quarter of a mile further to the grot where Jeremiah lived when he wrote his lamentations: on the left hand in the entrance, is a lodge in the rock, about a story high, where they say Jeremiah slept; and below, over against the door, is a hole intended for his sepulchre; passing through a ruinate door, you come into the yard where his well is, being a very good spring of sweet water, and there you pay one livre. Afterwards passing along the side of a mountain that lies level with the city, a little beyond Jeremiah’s tomb, we came to the sepulchre of the kings; the entrance into the first room is so small and low, that we were forced to creep, in which there were seven sepulchres cut out of the rock: in the second room there are eight, and in the third twenty six, and many more in several others. One of the rooms hath a door of stone cut out of the rock, and shuts and opens as a door with hinges: This door belongs to the room wherein Jehosaphat was buried, his coffin is of stone, with a cover to it, very neatly wrought on the sides with flowers, as severals are also in the first room; but they know not what kings they are. There is also another chamber into which we crept; so that there is in all forty-two burning places under ground, to which there is but one door to enter, all adorned with admirable workmanship, which I being unskill’d in, am unfit to express in proper terms; and so we return’d to the convent, entering the city at the same gate. May 29. we reposed, some of our company being a marking themselves. May 30. we took horse to go for Bethlehem, about six miles south of Jerusalem, and went out at the west gate, and turning on the left hand, and taking the lower path, we passed along the road that the Virgin Mary brought our Saviour when she came to offer him at the temple; and half a mile from the city is the place where the tree Tirabintha grew, which the Virgin Mary sat under to give him suck; but the tree being cut down the place is encompassed with a wall: On the left hand you see David’s house, whence he spied Bethsheba washing herself; on the right, a little of