about forty-five thousand pilgrims every year. It is
situated at Tenos, and Miss Hamilton tells us what she saw during her
visit there in 1906:

"On the morning before Annunciation Day this year, the
pilgrims could be seen making their way to the church.
Among them were cripples, armless, and legless,
half-rolling up the street; blind people groping their
way along; men and women with deformities of every kind;
one or two showing the pallor of death on their faces
were being carried up on litters. These evidently were
coming to Tenos as a last resource, when doctors were of
no avail. Other pilgrims were ascending after their own
fashion, according to vows they had made. One woman
toiled laboriously along on her knees, kissing the
stones of the way, and clasping a silver Madonna and
Child. Last year her daughter had been seized with
epilepsy, and she vowed to carry in this way this
offering to the Madonna of Tenos if she would cure her
daughter. The girl recovered and the other now with
thankful heart was fulfilling her part of the bargain.

"The eve of Annunciation Day is the time when the
Panagia is believed to descend among the sick and work
miraculous cures among them. Then all the patients are
gathered together in the crypt or in the upper church.
The Chapel of the Well is the popular place for
incubation. There is more chance for miraculous cure
there than in the church. The little crypt can
accommodate only a comparatively small number, but they
are packed together as tightly as possible. From the
entrance up to the altar, they lie in two lines of three
or four deep, with a passage down the middle large
enough for only one person. Down the narrow way two
streams of people press the whole evening. They worship
at the shrines along the wall, purchase holy earth from
the spot where the picture was discovered, drink at the
sacred well, and are blessed by the priest at the altar.
The cripples and the sick desiring healing have been
engaged all day in such acts of worship; they have
received bread and water from the priests in the upper
church, paid homage to the all-powerful picture, offered
their candles to the Madonna, and all the time sought to
endue themselves with her presence. Now at night, still
fixing their thoughts upon her, and permeated by this
spirit of worship, they settle down to sleep in order
that she may appea