the convent may he made some agreeable acquaintances. Although the blasphemous fraud of the " Descent of the Holy Fire " on Easter Sunday, is countenanced by the Armenians, it is really kept up by the Greeks, and performed by the Greek Patriarch. A more degrading spectacle than this can scarcely be imagined : the Church of the Holy Sepulchre crammed to suffocation with eager, half-mad pilgrims, and the Chief Dignitary of the Orthodox Church of Christ solemnly entering into His tomb to juggle with a box of lucifer matches ! What wonder that the " infidel " soldiers, who keep the peace in the church, gaze on the scene with a supercilious and derisive smile. About Easter time the city begins to swarm with Russian pilgrims. These are, perhaps, the only real religious enthusiasts among the crowds who annually come to worship at the Holy City, and no one who has seen the reverence with which they look upon everything in the place—even to the drunken monk who admits them into the church—or the genuine emotion and awe which they display when kneeling before the site of some absurd tradition, can doubt for one moment of their sincerity. Many a weary mile must they tramp along in their native land, many an unheard of hardship must they encounter before they can toil up the sides of Mount Sinai, or reach the foot of Calvary ; and yet they never seem to grow sick or faint-hearted, but plod, on with a marvellous steadiness of purpose, and whenever you meet a Russian pilgrim, whether it be in the midst of the scorching desert or by the shady banks of Jordan, he will greet you with a respectful salutation and a bright contented face. At Jerusalem itself they may well be content, for the Russian government has built a hospice near the Jaffa gate where thousands of these poor pilgrims are taken in and cared for. This immense establishment is furnished with dormitories, refectories, chapel, reading-rooms, hospitals, &c ,