hemists' shops. In most of these the owner
sits serenely smoking as if he had nothing on earth to do. In one we see
a chair tilted up against the merchandise, this is to signify that the
owner is away and that no one must touch anything till he returns. In
the third tunnel, which is the noisiest and darkest of all, there are
many silversmiths showing some wonderful work. It is no use our buying
any of it, for we cannot carry it round the world with us. Even if we
could, we should be rash to get it here, for every man asks about four
times as much as he expects to get. That is one of the things which is
so different in the East and West. Fancy going into one of the big
west-end shops in London where an article was marked at a fixed price
and trying to beat the shop assistant down. He would only smile, hardly
answer, and turn away. Such a thing is absurd, but in the East any
article is worth just as much as it will fetch, and the merchant says at
first an enormous price in the hope that his customer is ignorant and
will give it him, but if the customer bargains he will slowly come down.
It takes much time to shop in this way, and is not altogether
satisfactory, for you really have to know what the things are worth
first.

After this we must go back to the hotel, for we have wandered about all
the afternoon and are weary and bewildered, and we have many sights to
see to-morrow.

Thoroughly rested after a good night we start out next morning to see
something of the sacred places. Of course we know very well that when
the long lane is pointed out down which Jesus bore His cross, the very
spots where He stumbled and where Simon was made to carry it for Him,
that these things cannot be true. Speaking of Jerusalem Jesus said once,
"There shall not be left one stone upon another that shall not be thrown
down," and it came literally true, so the present streets are not those
He trod. Yet even so the scene is wonderfully interesting, for the old
Jerusalem must have been like the present town, and the sights Christ
saw must have resembled those we see, as for the first time we walk down
these narrow steep alleys. We are going to the Church of the Holy
Sepulchre built over the place where the sepulchre of Christ is supposed
to have been. As we go toward it we come across more beggars than we yet
have encountered. A perfect army of halt and maimed and lame and blind
crouch by the sides of the lane and live on the charity of the
pas