which hath forty-eight pillars of marble, about three yards long, all in one piece. At evening we went to visit the place of our Saviour’s birth, formerly belonging to the Latins, till the Greeks bought it out of their hands; so that now the Latins, when they go to their procession, pray at that door by which they formerly entered. The precipio has two doors one over against the other, well lined with carved iron, and strengthened with iron spikes; we went in barefoot. On the right hand in the entrance is the place they say were our Saviour was born, which is lined with silver.
Having seen what was rare at Bethlehem, May 13th, early in the morning we proceeded in our journey, in which we saw the following places: 1. The grot where the virgin Mary hid herself when she was warned to flee into Egypt. 2. David’s cisterns. 3. The grot wherein the virgin Mary and Joseph lived, before they got a house. 4. The tomb of Rachel. 5. The field of Senachrib the place where the pillars of the convent of Ramah were made, the vineyard whence the spies of the land of Canaan took the cluster of grapes, &c. the desart of John Baptist, Zechariah’s house, a stone where John Baptist preached, where John Baptist
