THE SOURCE OF THE NILE. 315 



of it, if you have any fuch curiofity, provided you are 

 pure, i. e. have not been concerned with women for 

 twenty- four hours before, or touched carrion or dead bodies, 

 (a curious affemblage of ideas) for in that cafe you are not 

 to go within the precincts, or outer circumference of the 

 church, but ftand and fay your prayers at an awful diftance 

 among the cedars. 



All perfons of both fexes, under Jewifh difqualifkations, 

 are obliged to obferve this diftance ; and this is always a 

 place belonging to the church, where, unlefs in Lent, you 

 fee the greateft part of the congregation ; but this is left to 

 your own confeience, and, if there was either great incon- 

 venience in the one fituation, or great fatisfaction in the 

 other, the cafe would be otherwife. 



When you go to the church you put off your flioes before 

 your full entering the outer precinct ; but you muft leave a 

 'fervant there with them, or elfe they will be flolen, if good 

 for any thing, by the priefts and monks before you come out 

 of the church. At entry you kifs the threlhold, and two door- 

 pofts, go in and fay what prayer you pleafe, that finifhed, you 

 come out again, and your duty is over. The churches are full 

 of pictures, painted on parchment, and nailed upon the walls, 

 in a manner little lefs flovenly than you fee paltry prints in 

 beggarly country ale-houfes. There has been always a fort of 

 painting known among the fcribes, a daubing much infe- 

 rior to the worft of our fign-painters. Sometimes, for a par- 

 ticular church, they get a number of pictures of faints, 

 on fkins of parchment, ready finifhed from Cairo, in a ftile 

 very little fuperior to thefe performances of their own. They 

 are placed like a frize, and hung in the upper part of the 



R r 2 wall 



