commentators. He remarked that they always seemed to be particularly interesting to English people, provoking laughter and anger by turns. The pages had evidently been translated to him.
We gratefully rested that night in clean, comfortable, neatly-furnished rooms, and on French musketo-curtained beds. In the morning I heard the swell of the organ and the chanting of the monks at an early hour. A servant brought café au lait to my room at seven, and told me my brother had already gone down to Hâifa. Frère Charles and our fellow-travelers conducted me to the chapel, which has a finely-proportioned dome and marble floor, and a few sculptured figures in alabaster.
The ground floor of the convent is occupied by offices, kitchens, pharmacy, and surgery. A large portion of it is set apart for a place of shelter for poor pilgrims. The first-floor, consisting of a fine suite of lofty rooms, is nicely furnished, and prepared for travelers, who are expected to pay first-class hotel prices; but no direct charge is made. The second floor is reached by a narrow staircase, at the foot of which an inscription, in Italian and French, proclaims that females are not admitted. The monks told me that there was an excellent library of English, Latin, French, and Italian books up there, as well as a large refectory and a great number of cells; and the terraced roof made a fine promenade for the recluses.
Presently a kawass came, bringing a horse for me, and an invitation to spend the day with Mr. Finn, whose tents were pitched just outside Hâifa; so with Katrîne, in her purple dress and white vail, by my side, and the kawass leading the way, I emerged from the convent buildings, and gradually descended, on the north-east side, by a winding path almost like a rocky staircase. The upper part of the hill was covered with wild flowers, fragrant herbs, shrubs, artichokes, acanthus, and dwarf oaks, and on the lower terraces a fine grove of olives and some fig trees flourished.
