K 
PREFACE. 
amplectendus Apostolorum commeatus, vel Martyrum 
sanguis effusus.” 
Yet, while the author is ready to acknowledge the im¬ 
pression made upon his mind by the peculiar sanctity of 
this memorable region, he is far from being willing to enu¬ 
merate, or to tolerate the degrading superstitions, which, 
like noxious weeds, have long pointed that land of “ milk 
and honey.” Those who have formed their notions of 
the Holy Land, and particularly of Jerusalem, from the 
observations of Adrichomius, Sandys, Doubdan, Maun- 
drell, from the spurious work of Thevenot, or even from 
the writings of Pococke, and the recent entertaining pil- 
grimage of Mons. De Chateaubriand,(T) will find their pre¬ 
judices 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, a 
tingle verse of the Gospel, than to all the legends and tra¬ 
ditions of the Fathers of the church. 
In perusing the remarks concerning Calvary and Mount 
Sion, the reader is requested to observe, that such were 
the authors 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 Jerusa¬ 
lem, to which he has subsequently had access. It is im¬ 
possible to reconcile the history of ancient 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 monu¬ 
ments to which those inscriptions belong, may assist in 
reconciling a confused topography !(w) Quaresmius, 
(0 Published in London, October 1811, when this volume was nearly completed. 
The author has not yet seen the original French edition of Mons. De Chateaubriand’s 
Fprk. 
£i«) The generality of readers, who haye perused the different accounts published 
