324 Clarke's .^ra¥el^ 8 
thrown open to receive our whole cavalcade. Mere, when we 
were admitted into a court, with ail our horses and camels, 
the vast portals were again closed, and a party of the most 
corpulent friars we had ever seen from the warmest cloisters 
of Sppin and of Italy waddled round us, and heartily wel¬ 
comed our arrival. 
From the court of the convent we were next conducted, by 
a stone staircase, to the refectory, where the monks who had 
received us introduced us to the Superior, not a whit less cor¬ 
pulent than any of his companions. In all the convents I had 
ever visited (and these are not few in number) I had never 
beheld such friars as the Franciscans of St. Salvador. The 
figures sometimes brought upon the stage, to burlesque the 
monasterial character, may convey some notion of their ap¬ 
pearance.* The influence which a peculiar mode of life ha$ 
upon the constitution, in this climate, might be rendered evi¬ 
dent by contrasting one of these jolly fellows with the Pro¬ 
paganda Missionaries. The latter are as meagre and as pale, 
as the former are corpulent and ruddy. The life of the mis¬ 
sionaries is necessarily a state of constant activity and of pri¬ 
vation. The guardians of the Holy Sepulchre, or, according 
to the name they bear, the Terra Santa friars, are confined to 
the walls of their comfortable convent, which, when compared 
with the usual accommodations of the Holy Land, is like a 
sumptuous and \vell*furnished hotel, open to all comers \Vhorn 
curiosity or devotion may bring to this mansion of rest and 
refreshment. 
After being regaled with cofFee, and some delicious lemon¬ 
ade, we were shown to our apartments, to repose ourselves un¬ 
til supper. The room allotted to our English party we found 
to be the same which many travellers have before described. 
It was clean, and its walls were whitewashed. The beds, 
also, had a cleanly appearance; although a few bugs warn¬ 
ed us to spread our hammocks upon the floor, where we 
slept, for once, unmolested. Upon the substantial door of 
this chamber, whose roof w as of vaulted stone, the names of 
many English travellers had been carved. Among others, we 
bad the satisfaction to notice that of Thomas Shaw, the most 
learned writer who has yet appeared in descriptions of the 
Levant. Dr. Shaw had slept in the same apartment seventy- 
nine years before our coming.f 
* Those who remember seeing the late inimitable actor, Palmer, sen. of Drur 3 r 
'Jane Theathre, as the Friar in Mr. Lewis’s drama of “ The Castle Spectre,” may ! 
a correct idea of the figures presented by these monks, both as to the dress | 
they wear, and their personal appearance. 
f Dr. ©feaw visited Jerusalem ia 1725, 
