and Armenian priests were performing their
different rites in various nooks, and crowds of disciples were rushing
about in all directions--some laughing and talking, some begging, but
most of them going about in a regular, methodical way to kiss the
sanctified spots, speak the appointed syllables, and lay down their
accustomed coins. They seemed to be not "working out," but "transacting"
the great business of salvation.

The Holy Sepulchre is under the roof of this great church. It is a
handsome tomb of oblong form, partly subterranean. You descend into the
interior by a few steps, and there find an altar with burning tapers.
When you have seen enough of it you feel, perhaps, weary of the busy
crowd, and ask your dragoman whether there will be time before sunset to
procure horses and take a ride to Mount Calvary.

"Mount Calvary, signor! It is upstairs--on the first floor!" In effect
you ascend just thirteen steps, and then are shown the now golden
sockets in which the crosses of our Lord and the two thieves were fixed.

The village of Bethlehem lies prettily couched on the slope of a hill.
The sanctuary is a subterranean grotto, and is committed to the joint
guardianship of the Romans, Greeks, and Armenians, who vie with each
other in adorning it. Beneath an altar gorgeously decorated, and lit
with everlasting fires, there stands the low slab of stone which marked
the holy site of the Nativity, and near to this is a hollow scooped out
of the living rock. Here the infant Jesus was laid. Near the spot of the
Nativity is the rock against which the Blessed Virgin was leaning when
she presented her babe to the adoring shepherds.

_V.--To Cairo and the Pyramids_

Gaza is upon the edge of the desert, to which it stands in the same
relation as a seaport to the sea. It is there that you charter your
camels, "the ships of the desert," and lay in your stores for the
voyage. The agreement with the desert Arabs includes a safe conduct
through their country as well as the hire of the camels. On the ninth
day, without startling incident, I arrived at the capital of Egypt.

Cairo and the plague! During the whole time of my stay, the plague was
so master of the city, and showed himself so staringly in every street
and alley, that I can't now affect to dissociate the two ideas. I was
the only European traveller in Cairo, and was provided with a house by
one Osman Effendi, whose history was curious. He was a Scotchman born,
and l