from Egypt a day or two before, and now, unbroken, they were chased back again to their source, the mighty Nile. We wandered through the grounds, replanting the uprooted trees, and supporting the fallen ones, for none had escaped injury.
Before breakfast, I rode with my brother to the Convent of the Cross, in the lonely valley to which it gives a name. The convent has been lately very thoroughly restored by the Greeks, to whom it now belongs; and an excellent college has been established there for about forty or fifty students. It was formerly the property of the Georgians, and was founded by them in the fifth century, on the very spot where grew the tree which furnished the wood of the cross. This is, at least, the tradition which our monkish attendant gravely told as he led us into the church, a fine building, about seventy feet long, with a groined roof supported by four massive piers. The walls are covered with curious frescoes; and the altar-screen contains a pictorial history of the sacred tree, from the time it was planted by Abraham and Lot, till it was hewn down and formed into a cross. As sculpture is strictly forbidden in the Georgian and Greek churches, all the decorations depend on color; but in some of the pictures there was a compromise, the figures being cut out in thin wood, and mounted on appropriate backgrounds. The nimbus, in almost every instance, is formed of pure gold, and stones and jewels are introduced in the adornment of the dresses.
In the center of the church is a large square pavement of mosaic, the finest I met with in Palestine. Quaint birds, curious figures, and Christian symbols are represented, and in the lozenge-shaped spaces left by the intersecting lines of the frame-work of these devices, most beautiful designs are introduced. The tesseræ of which this pavement is composed are about three-quarters of an inch square, and are black, white, red, blue, and yellow. We hastened back to breakfast. The blue sky was flecked with fleecy clouds fastly moving, and the mountains round us were checkered
