368 SKETCHES OF PALESTINE. 



equally well. Dr. Richardson conjectures that, were the historians 

 of the sacred premises to exercise the same degree of candor as 

 their guide, it would turn out that the stone trough called the Sereer 

 Sidn Aisa by the Turks, was the sarcophagus originally exhibited 

 as the tomb of Christ. 



The walls of the sepulchral chamber itself are of greenish ir.arble, 

 the species of breccia vulgarly called verd-antique. It is pretend' 

 ed that this exterior is only a casing to protect the internal surface 

 of the rock, which externally has been cut into the shape, to use 

 Dr. Clark's expression, of a huge pepper-box; all the surrounding 

 rock being levelled to the floor of the building, except this * grotto 

 above ground,' as Maundrell terms it. Thus, all that the pilgrim is 

 permitted to see, is a marble casing of a supposed rock, which rock 

 has, in fact, all the appearance of a building, as no doubt it really is. 



From the sepulchre, the visiter is led to the place where Christ 

 appeared to Mary Magdalen ; to the * chapel of apparition,' where 

 he appeared to the Virgin ; and then to the Greek chape! facing the 

 sepulchre, in the centre of which the Greeks have set up a globe, to 

 mark out the spot as the centre of the earth ; thus transferring, as 

 Dr. Richardson remarks, the absurd notions of their ancient hea- 

 then priests respecting the navel of the earth, from Delphi to Jeru- 

 salem. A dark, narrow stair-case of about twenty steps conducts 

 the pilgrim to Mount Calvary. Here are shown the place where 

 Christ was nailed to the cross, where the cross was erected, the 

 hole in which the end was fixed, and the rent in the rock, all cov- 

 ered with marble, perforated in the proper places. * To complete,' 

 says Dr. Clarke, * the naivete of the tale, it is added, that the head of 

 Adam was found within the fissure.' ' Mount Calcary ' is, by that 

 learned traveller, stated to be in fact a modern piece of masonry ; a 

 sort of altar, within the contracted dimensions of which are exhib- 

 ited the marks or holes of the three crosses, without the smallest re- 

 gard to the space necessary for their erection. 



Descending from Calvary, the pilgrim enters the chapel of St. 

 Helena, in the low rocky vault beneath which the cross is said to 

 have been found. In this murky den, the invention (or finding) 

 of the cross is celebrated,in an appropriate mass by the Latins on 4 tho 

 3d of May. It is large enoughio contain about thirty or forty per- 

 sons, wedged in close array, and on that occasion it is generally 

 crowded. The year that Dr. Richardson was at Jerusalem, it hap- 

 pened that the day on which the festival was to be celebrated by 

 the Latins, was the same as that on which it was to be celebrated 

 by the Greeks ; and he witnessed the tug of war between the ec- 

 clesiastical combatants, who, with brick-bats and clubs, teeth and 

 nails, fought for their chapel like kites or crows for their nest. The 

 Romans were routed. The devil aids the Greeks,' exclaimed the 

 superior of the Latin Convent, panting from the effects of a blow ; 

 1 they are schismatics ; and you Englishmen, who live in our con- 

 vent, see us beaten and do not assist us.' ' How can you expect it,' 

 it was rejoined, ' when, if we fell in your cause, you would not al- 



