442 Notes of a Tour through Palestine. [Aug. 



palm trees grew. Ein-us-Sultdn is a beautiful spot, abounding with 

 game, and flowing out of the ruins of Jericho, which are here, 

 and not at the village of Rihhah, as generally said. It put me exactly 

 in mind of the Diamond fountain described in the Crusaders, and must 

 indeed have been the identical spot where Saladin and the Knight 

 of the Leopard met ; for it is directly in the way from Ascalon and 

 Jerusalem to the wilderness of Engeddi, on the shores of the Dead 

 Sea, whither, if I mistake not, the gallant knight was wending ! It 

 may be so with as much probability as the spot pointed out to us by 

 the monks on our way back to Jerusalem, which they asserted to be 

 the identical place where the traveller fell among thieves, and was 

 relieved by the Good Samaritan in the parable — a mishap which 

 actually occurred to your friend Sir Frederick Henniker, who was 

 severely wounded and robbed here in 1818. 



I was quite disgusted with the monkish legends at Jerusalem, as- 

 signing a locality to every act, however trivial, that is mentioned in 

 Scripture ; and also to many that are not mentioned at all. Here 

 Peter heard the cock crow ; here our Saviour fell when bearing the 

 cross ; here he rested his hand on the wall, and made a large hole in 

 it ; here the holy maid Saint somebody gave him a pocket handker- 

 chief to wipe his brow. Then the whole locale of the Holy Sepulchre, 

 Mount Calvary, &c. crowded within the space of one church, is a 

 manifest and absurd fiction, and completely paralyzes all one's sensibi- 

 lity and enthusiasm. The gross superstition of the Christians here 

 exceeds belief, and is only equalled by the hatred and animosity which 

 the different sects, Greeks, Armenians, Latins, Copts, Maronites, 

 entertain towards each other. This both explains and justifies the 

 contempt with which the Turks treat them, and all other Franks, in 

 consequence. As for the English, they say they have no religion at 

 all, and both Catholics and Musalmans concur in calling them Deists 

 and Atheists. Yet there are some excellent Protestant missionaries in 

 the country, (particularly Mr. Nicolaysen at Jerusalem,) whose lives 

 testify to the contrary. The Latin, that is the Roman Catholic, monks, 

 of the Franciscan convent at Jerusalem, were guilty of a most abo- 

 minable act about two years ago. An English traveller, Mr. Bradford, 

 arrived at the convent very sick, and asked for the medicine, and the 

 medical attendant of the convent. They refused, unless he would 



conform to the Roman Catholic faith : this he declined ; but as he got 

 worse, he said he would do any thing, only give him medicine. He 

 died, and was buried in the Catholic burying- ground, with a fine Latin 

 inscription, abounding in false concords, recording his conversion 

 from the Protestant to the Roman creed ! We were present at the 



