142 THE HOLY LAND. 
a relic. We therefore inquired concerning it, 
of the Arab to whom this place principally 
belonged : he told us the picture had been 
found in moving a heap of rubbish belonging 
to the church; and that there were others of 
the same kind, which were discovered in 
clearing some stones and mortar out of an old 
vaulted lumber-room belonging to the building, 
where the villagers had since been accustomed 
to keep their plaister bee-hives' and their 
labouring tools. To this place he conducted 
us. It was near to the altar. The Arab opened 
it for us ; and there, in the midst of bee-hives, 
implements of husbandry, and other lumber, 
we found two pictures upon wood, of the same 
kind, almost entire, but in the condition which 
might be expected from the manner of their 
discovery. Of these curious relics, highly 
interesting, from the circumstances of their 
origin, and their great antiquity as specimens 
of the art of painting, a more particular descrip- 
tion will now be given. 
(l) Hassclquist was at this place upon the fifth of May 17ol. The 
niouks who were with him alighted to honour the ruins of the church. 
" The inhabitants," says he, " breed a great number of bees. They 
make their hives of clay, four feet long, and half a foot in diameter, 
as in Egypt." This sort of bee-hive is also used in Cvpkus. See 
p. 57 of this Volume. 
