XVIU 
PREFACE TO FIRST SECTION 
prejudices frequently assailed in the following 
pages. The author has ventured to see the 
country with other eyes than those of Monks ; 
and to make the Scriptures, rather than Bede or 
Adamnanus, his guide in visiting " the Holy 
Places;' — to attend more to a single chapter, 
nay, to a single verse, of the Gospel, than to 
all the legends and traditions of the Fathers 
of the Church. In perusing the remarks con- 
cerning Calvary and Mount Sion, the Reader is 
requested to observe, that such were the 
author's observations, not only upon the spot, 
but after collating and comparing with his own 
notes the evidences afforded by every writer 
upon the topography of Jerusalem, to which he 
lias subsequently had access. It is impossible 
to reconcile the history of antient Jerusalem with 
the appearance presented by the modern city ; 
and this discordance, rather than any positive 
conviction in the author's mind, led to the 
survey he has ventured to publish. If his 
notions, after all, be deemed, by some readers, 
inadmissible, as it is very probable they will, 
yet even these, by the suggestion of new 
documents, both in the account given of 
the . inscriptions he found to the south of 
what is now called Mount Sion, as well as of 
the monuments to which those inscriptions 
belong, may assist in reconciling a confused 
