In connection with the Prussian consulate is Pastor Valentiner, chaplain to Dr. Rosen, one of the most learned men in Palestine. Under the auspices of the consulate is a school for children and a hospital for poor pilgrims. The building is pleasantly situated on Mount Zion, and contains forty-one girls and as many boys, who are taught five different languages, with other branches of knowledge. These children are required to remain, by contract, from five to eight years, and, if the contract is broken by their parents, they are to pay the amount of expense incurred. The pupils represent nearly every nation, whose pilgrim parents have either abandoned them in a strange land, or died far from home. The “House of Charity” is governed by six deaconesses, principally Prussians. They dress in a simple blue gown and a clean white cap. They are excellent women and efficient teachers. The rules of their order require them to remain single during a fixed term of years, at the expiration of which most of them marry. Their home is often the scene of the most thrilling events. Shortly prior to our arrival in Jerusalem, a Turk had reached the city, and having squandered his money in pleasure, was compelled to abandon his two slave girls――one a beautiful Circassian, the other a dark Abyssinian. Touched with their sad condition, the kind deaconesses received them to their “House of Charity.” The former, after a brief time, embraced religion, was baptized, and died happy. The latter appeared stupid, and, when addressed on the subject of religion, declared herself “a donkey.” She had attained her fourteenth year, and, after six months under the tuition of those Christian women, who watched her last moments with the fondness of sisters, she died of scrofula. Every effort to enlighten her mind had been unavailing, eliciting her only reply, “I am a donkey.” But, to the surprise of all, on the night of her death she requested baptism at the hands of Pastor Valentiner, to whose inquiry why she desired the holy rite administered to her, referred him to the death of the Circassian slave, whose experience she had watched, and whose last joyful accents she had carefully cherished. Expressing as her last wish on earth to go where slaves are free and where woman is loved, she passed from earth to heaven. CHAPTER VII.