eld. After the Greeks had left the building, a procession
of Armenian priests appeared clad in black silk robes and peculiar
looking black silk hoods draped over their heads. They were led by a
venerable Patriarch arrayed in a magnificent embroidered robe. The
Patriarch knelt and kissed the Stone of Unction, then the procession
marched singing to the Sepulchre, which they entered, two priests at a
time. After this part of the ceremony was concluded the priests marched
singing three times around the room, while a bell in the gallery merrily
clanged an accompaniment. When the Armenians had withdrawn, a procession
of Roman Catholics entered singing. The chanting was accompanied softly
by an organ in an adjoining chapel. The censer bearers waved their
smoking bowls until the whole place was fragrant with the odor of the
incense. Tonsured monks with sandaled feet, in gowns of brown, girt with
hempen cord; censer bearers, cross bearers, brazier bearers, and choir
boys in white embroidered surplices and skirts of scarlet; priests in
black; bishops in purple; and higher dignitaries in capes of fur and
long-trained robes,--all these marched round and round bearing lighted
candles and chanting the ritual to the strains of the organ, and then
proceeded toward the Latin Chapel. Our Syrian neighbor and her children
lighted their candles and joined other worshipers with candles in the
rear of this procession, and we followed to the Chapel where all knelt
for service.

[Illustration: DAVID STREET IS ONLY HALF A MILE IN LENGTH.]

Palestine appeared to us to be a land where history and tradition were
so curiously mixed that it was difficult to know where history ended and
tradition began. During our tramps around the city of Jerusalem and its
vicinity the guides pointed out the spring where the Virgin Mary washed
the clothes of the infant Jesus in the same way that we saw other women
in the East washing clothes on the banks of public streams; the hill of
evil counsel where the avaricious disciple had been tempted by gold to
betray his Master, and the field where the horror-stricken traitor ended
his life; the place just without the Gate of St. Stephen where the
sainted Stephen knelt and prayed for his persecutors until the stones
cast by the infuriated Jews crushed out his life; the spot where the
Apostle James was beheaded, commemorated by the church of St. James
which now stands on that location; the large room outside the Zion Gate