The voyage too must be made in winter, in
order that Jerusalem may be reached some weeks before the Greek
Easter, and thus by the time they attain to the holy shrines the
pilgrims have really and truly undergone a very respectable
quantity of suffering. I once saw one of these pious cargoes put
ashore on the coast of Cyprus, where they had touched for the
purpose of visiting (not Paphos, but) some Christian sanctuary. I
never saw (no, never even in the most horridly stuffy ballroom)
such a discomfortable collection of human beings. Long huddled
together in a pitching and rolling prison, fed on beans, exposed to
some real danger and to terrors without end, they had been tumbled
about for many wintry weeks in the chopping seas of the
Mediterranean. As soon as they landed they stood upon the beach
and chanted a hymn of thanks; the chant was morne and doleful, but
really the poor people were looking so miserable, that one could
not fairly expect from them any lively outpouring of gratitude.
When the pilgrims have landed at Jaffa they hire camels, horses,
mules, or donkeys, and make their way as well as they can to the
Holy City. The space fronting the Church of the Holy Sepulchre
soon becomes a kind of bazaar, or rather, perhaps, reminds you of
an English fair.
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