Towards the close of the century the accounts of pilgrims show that these now came in large parties. In 1479 the Nürnberg patricians Hans Tucher and Sebald Rieter, went to Gaza where they entered into an agreement with a dragoman that was set down in writing to convey them to the convent or Cairo. This agreement is worded exactly in the same way as these agreements are worded at the present day. They travelled with seven Franciscan friars, and on their arrival at the convent Latin mass was celebrated (Tucher, p. 365). Again, in 1483 two parties of Germans, numbering twenty persons in all, visited Palestine and Syria. They included Bernhard von Breydenbach († 1493), of the Chapter of Mayence, who came east with the artist Rewich of Utrecht, whose drawings served to illustrate his patron’s account of his journey. The other party included Felix Fabri, who acted as chaplain to the young Count Solms. Fabri became a friar in 1452 “out of love of St. Katherine, his spouse.” On the arrival at the convent of their party mass was also celebrated in the chapel set apart for Latin use (Fabri, ii. 547). Another pilgrim was Jan van Aerts of Malines, who sailed from Venice for the East in 1484, with a party of twenty Franciscan friars travelling with a Portuguese whom Jan referred to as the _grand facteur_. It was customary at the time for each visitor to deposit two ducats in the chest of St. Katherine. In addition to this, the grand facteur gave a thousand ducats to the monks. From the convent he and his party proceeded to Tur, where they took boat for India. But at the port of Medina they were forced to turn back owing to the enmity of the Arabs. The desire to penetrate to the far East was increasing. Mynher Joos van Ghistelles visited the convent in 1485, and went on to Tur, where he met the Venetian Bonajuto del Pan (Albani) and the Milanese Benedetto da Navara, who were on their way to Ormuz on the Persian Gulf, in order to visit the coral and pearl fisheries (Joos, p. 227). In 1487 the two Portuguese, Pedro da Cavillan and Alfonso da Paiva, came from Cairo to Tur, from where they sailed for Aden, Alfonso on his way to Ethiopia, the lesser India, in search of Prester John; Pedro on his way to the coast of Malabar, in order to see the spice-growing districts and to collect information on Madagascar and Calicut, which he laid before his king.[279] In 1489 Joannes de Hese passed through the convent and Tur on his way to India. The Ritter von Harff went from the convent with a letter of introduction to the monks at the convent of St. John in Tur, where he left for Mecca and Madagascar, returning to Egypt by way of the Mountains of the Moon and the course of the Nile. Von Harff illustrated the account of his journeys with many cuts, of which the one here reproduced shows the knight before St. Katherine (Fig. 21). These various writings supply information on the cost and routes of travel at the time. According to the English _Information for