168 THE HOLY LAND. 
pouring in the corn ; and, by the side of this, 
an upright wooden handle, for moving the stone. 
As the operation began, one of the women, 
with her right hand, pushed this handle to the 
woman opposite, who again sent it to her com- 
panion, — thus communicating a rotatory and 
very rapid motion to the upper stone ; their left 
hands being all the while employed in supplying 
fresh corn, as fast as the bran and flour escaped 
from the sides of the machine. 
Franciscan Thc Couvcnt of Nazareth, situate in the lower 
Convent. n • •in r • 
part of the village, contams about fourteen friars, 
of the Franciscan order. Its church (erected, as 
they relate, over the cave in which the Firgin 
Mary is supposed to have resided) is a hand- 
some edifice; but it is degraded, as a sanctuary, 
by absurdities too contemptible for notice, if 
the description of them did not oifer an in- 
structive lesson, by shewing the abject state to 
which the human mind may be reduced by 
superstition. So powerful is still its influence 
in this country, that, at the time of our visit, the 
Franciscan friars belonging to the Convent had 
been compelled to surround their altars with an 
additional fencing, in order to prevent persons 
infected with the plague from seeking a mira- 
culous cure, by rubbing their bodies with the 
