THE SOURCE OF THE NILE. 315 
of it, if you have any fuch curiofity, provided you are 
pure, z. 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. 
Aut perfons of both fexes, under Jewith difqualifications, 
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 confcience, and, if there was either great incon- 
venience in the one fituation, or great reas in the 
other, the cafe would be otherwife. 
WHEN you goto the church you put off your fhoes before 
your firft entering the outer precin& ; but you muft leave a 
fervant there with them, or elfe they will be ftolen, if good 
for any thing, by the priefts and monks before you come out 
of the church. At entry you kifs the threfhold, 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 amanner 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 
Rr2 wal] 
