saw those of Elisha and Abdias, as well as that of St. John the Baptist. To the latter were brought, from all parts, people possessed with demons, to be cured. St. Paula went subsequently to Egypt, to visit the hermits of the desert, whence she returned to Bethlehem, where she built cells and hospitals for pilgrims, and there she lived in retirement till her death[2]. St. Antoninus visited the Holy Land early in the seventh century; his life contains some absurd legendary stories relating to the cross, which he saw in the church of Golgotha; and he tells that there stood on one part of Mount Sion an "idol of the Saracens," made of very white marble (no doubt an ancient sepulchre), which, at the time of the festival of that idol, suddenly became black as pitch, and after the festival was restored to its original colour. At Nazareth, St. Antoninus praises the beauty of the Jewish women who resided there; and he tells us that the land round that place was prodigiously fertile, and that it produced excellent wine, oil, and honey. The millet grew there to a greater height than elsewhere, and the straw was stronger. After visiting all the holy places, St. Antoninus, like all the other pilgrims who went to the east before the conquests of the Saracens, repaired to Egypt, to visit the hermits of the Thebaid. He landed at Alexandria, a very fine city, the people of which were light in disposition, but friendly to the travellers who came thither. He saw there, in the Nile, a multitude of crocodiles, a great number of which were collected together in a pond. Perhaps this was some remnant of the ancient worship of the Egyptians. On his return to Jerusalem, St. Antoninus fell sick, and was received into a hospital destined for poor pilgrims; he then went into Mesopotamia, and returned by sea to Italy, his native country. Soon after this period, the circumstances of the pilgrims who arrived in the Holy Land were entirely changed, in consequence of the conquests of the Saracens, who, under Omar, obtained possession of Jerusalem in 637, by a capitulation, however, which allowed them the use of their churches on payment of a tribute, but forbade them to build new ones. This interdiction could not be in itself a great grievance, for the whole of Palestine must have been literally covered with churches when it passed under the Mohammedan yoke. The conquerors soon saw that greater advantages would be reaped by preserving the holy places, and encouraging pilgrimage, than by destroying them; many of them, indeed their own creed taught them, were to be considered as objects of reverence; and thus for two or three centuries the Christians of the west continued to flock to the Holy Sepulchre as numerously as before, subject, perhaps, to not much greater taxation at the holy places than in former times, but exposed on their way to more or less insult and oppression, according to the political or local circumstances of the moment.