7]

9. Steps leading down into the church.

10. Screen before the Altar.]

The ancient divisions of the church are also more strictly preserved in
this edifice than in the churches of the West; the priests or monks
standing above the steps (marked No. 5), the celebrant of the sacrament
only going behind the screen (No. 10); the bulk of the congregation
stand, there are no seats below the steps (No. 5), and the place for the
women is behind the screen marked No. 4. The church is very dimly
lighted by small apertures in the walls of the clerestory, above the
columns, and the part about the absis is nearly dark in the middle of
the day, candles being always necessary during the reading of the
service. The two Corinthian columns are of brick, plastered; they are
not fluted, but are of good proportions and appear to be original. The
absis is of regular Grecian or Roman architecture, and is ornamented
with six pilasters, and three niches in which are kept the books,
cymbals, candlesticks, and other things which are used for the daily
service. Here I found twenty-three manuscript books, fifteen in Coptic
with Arabic translations, for the Coptic language is now understood by
few, and eight Arabic manuscripts. The Coptic books were all liturgies:
one of them, a folio, was ornamented with a large illumination, intended
to represent the Virgin and the infant Saviour; it is almost the only
specimen of Coptic art that I ever met with in a book, and its style and
execution are so poor, that, perhaps, it is fortunate that they should
be so rare. The Arabic books, which, as well as the Coptic, were all on
cotton-paper, consisted of extracts from the New Testament and lives of
the saints.

I had been told that there was a great chest bound with iron, which was
kept in a vault in this monastery, full of ancient books on vellum, and
which was not to be opened without the consent of the Patriarch; I
could, however, make out nothing of this story, but it does not follow
that this chest of ancient manuscripts does not exist; for, surrounded
as I was by crowds of gaping Copts and Arabs, I could not expect the
abbot to be very communicative; and they have from long oppression
acquired such a habit of denying the fact of their having anything in
their possession, that, perhaps, there may still be treasures here which
some future traveller may discover.

While I was turning over the books, the contents of which I was able to
decypher, from