to the personal piety of the applicant, the Church dismissed him on his journey with a service and a benediction. He was solemnly invested with the scrip and staff, he put on the long woollen robe which formed the chief part of his dress, the clergy and his own friends accompanied him to the boundaries of his parish, and there, after giving him a letter or a passport which ensured him hospitality so long as he was in Christian countries, they sent him on his way. " In the name of God," ran the commendatory letter, " we would have your highness or holiness to know that the bearer of the present letters, our brother, has asked our permission to go peaceably on pilgrimage to Jerusalem, either for his own sins, or to pray for our preservation. Thereupon, wô have given him these present letters, in which we salute you, and pray you, for the love of God and Saint Peter, to receive him as your guest, to be useful to him in going and coming back, so that he may return in safety to his house ; and as is your good custom, make him pass happy days. May God the Eternal King protect you, and keep you in his kingdom !" Thus provided, the pilgrim found hostels open for him, and every castle and monastery ready to receive him. Long and weary his journey may bave been, but it could not have been tedious to him with eyes to see and observe, when every city was a sort of new world, when a new country lay beyond every hill, and new manners and customs were marked on every day. The perils and dangers of the way were not until the Mohammedan conquest—nor indeed after it, until the time of Hakem— very great. True, the woods harboured wild beasts, but the pilgrims travelled in bands ; and there were robbers, but these did not rob those who had nothing. The principal dangers were those of which they knew nothing, the diseases duo to malaria, exposure, sun-stroke, fatigue, and chaDge of climate. These, and not the Turks, were