VII 
318 THE HOLY LAND. 
CHAP, room above. There they will shew him the 
same crack again; and immediately in front 
of it, a modern altar. This altar they venerate 
as Mount Calvary, the place of crucifixion; 
exhibiting upon this contracted piece of ma- 
sonry the marks, or holes, of the three crosses^ 
without the smallest regard to the space neces- 
sary for their erection. Afterwards he may 
be conducted through such a farrago of ab- 
surdities, that it is wonderful the learned men, 
who have described Jerusalem, should have 
filled their pages with any serious detail of 
them. Nothing, however, can surpass the 
fidelity with which Sandys has particularized 
every circumstance of all this trumpery; and 
his rude cuts are characterized by equal exact- 
ness . Among others, should be mentioned 
the place where the Cross was found ; because 
the identity of the timber, which has since sup- 
plied all Christendom with its relics ^ was con- 
firmed by a miracle ^ — proof equally infallible 
(1) These designs wefe first cut for Cotovicus, in brass; and re- 
engraved, on the same metal, for Sandys. 
(2) " Another time he was telling of an old sign-post that belonged 
to his father, with nails and timber enough in it to build sixteen 
large men of war." Tale of a Tub. See Swiff's Works, vol. I. p. 79. 
Edinh. 1761. 
(3) The Jews, being tortured, by the doting old Empress and her 
priests, to make known, three hundred years after the Citici/ixion, the 
situation 
