Journey to Upper Egypt-Return-Colonel Prokesch Visit to Me- Return to Alexandria-Travelling Plans-Cardinals Gregorio and Pedicini - Indiscretion- Farewell Visit to Mehemet Ali - Mummy- PILGRIMAGE ΤΟ JERUSALEM AND MOUNT SINAI. LETTER XXXV. MONASTERY OF ST. SAVIOUR AT JERUSALEM - TABLE OF THE FATHERS -LENT KEPT BY THEM — - EXTORTIONS OF THE TURKS-LETTER ON THIS SUBJECT TO THE FRENCH AMBASSADOR AT CONSTANTINOPLEFRANCISCAN MISSIONARIES-LETTER AND DONATION OF HENRY VIII. OF ENGLAND-GIFTS OF THE SOVEREIGNS OF EUROPE TO THE ESTABLISHMENTS IN THE HOLY LAND PILGRIMS OF DISTINCTION IN THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY ANNOYANCE OF THE CATHOLICS BY THE GREEKS COMPARISON BETWEEN THE GREEK AND LATIN CLERGY REFLEXIONS ON THE SITUATION OF THE LATIN FATHERS OF THE HOLY LAND. - Jerusalem, May 1, 1832. I HAVE as yet said scarcely any thing to you of the monastery of St. Saviour, which I make my home: I will now give you some particulars concerning it. This monastery is one of the most ancient. It has been erected at different times, and without any regular plan. It consists of buildings added to buildings: they enclose three courts, and two very small gardens. Every VOL. II. B 2 MONASTERY OF ST. SAVIOUR. thing in it is simple, and even poor. The rooms of the monks are small and scantily furnished. The lodging of the Father warden of the Holy Sepulchre, on whose splendour certain authors, as I have already told you, have thought fit to dilate, is neither larger nor better furnished; and the meanest tradesman in Italy would certainly not be satisfied with it. The only decent apartment is the Divan, where the community assembles, and where the Father warden receives such persons as have occasion to speak with him. Strangers are lodged in a totally separate house. There are, however, two or three rooms in the convent, which are assigned to such of them as the Fathers wish to distinguish; they are far apart from the cells of the monks, quite as poor as the rest, and, I must say, too naked for the purpose to which they are destined, especially as the lay pilgrims who occupy them always leave some tokens of their munificence. Upon the whole, such are the poverty and the simplicity of life prevailing in the monastery, that I never saw any thing which presented a more striking contrast with the lying reports of writers by whom it is slandered: of this a circumstance relating to myself will serve better than any thing else that could be said to convey a correct idea. As I had come hither with several letters of recommendation, and, among them, one from the Sacred Congregation of Rome, it was thought right to pay me particular deference and respect; and I was, therefore, offered one of the best cells opposite to the apartment of the Father warden. This cell is allotted to such of the monks only as hold some office. Well-all the furniture LENT KEPT BY THE FRANCISCANS. 3 I had there consisted of a common chair and an old broken arm-chair; and the secretary remarked that he had given me, as a favour, one of his towels. When I wanted water, I had to fetch it myself; and, to sweep my room, I borrowed a broom from the monk in the adjoining cell. The fare of the Fathers is extremely frugal. The mutton, the only meat they can procure, is very bad; vegetables are scarce: every thing is cooked with oil, and that of the country is not good. Besides the Lent instituted by the Church, and which is generally observed as a preparation for Easter, the Franciscan Fathers have another of about two months, from the first of November to Christmas, and not less do they sanctify the rest of the year by religious austerities. Immortification is certainly a sin everywhere; but at Jerusalem it becomes a crime, especially in a monk, and this the Franciscan knows: he knows that a disciple of Jesus Christ, feasting himself here, and pampering his sensual appetites, would be an object as worthy of horror as a parricide, perfuming and crowning himself with roses, on the very spot where he had murdered his father. But the privations imposed by the seasons specially devoted to penitence, and those added under other circumstances by zeal or the rules of the order, are nothing in comparison with the hardships and privations of another kind, to which the monk of the Holy Land is doomed. On leaving his country to come hither through a thousand dangers, he must have made up his mind to a life of trouble, far from all that is dearest to him, with |