On the day of preparation it was customary in Jerusalem to take an early meal, in order to have time for the arrangements necessary before the evening. The time of this meal, however, had been long past, when they returned to the house; the unleavened bread had been already baked and lay on the tables in the women’s saloon, and the cakes designed for the festival had been taken from the oven in the adjacent room. That which was the portion of the priest, was of greater size than the rest; it was baked the first, and lay on a separate table, adorned with flowers. The father of the family was to carry it to the temple in the afternoon. “The first and best of every thing,” said he, “belongs to Jehovah; in honouring his servants we think we honour him, and we set apart the first portion for the priest who lives by the law.” A short meal, at noon, was taken under the palm-trees in the inner court, beside the fountain. The greatest neatness reigned in the whole house—all the furniture and vessels, all the floors had been washed. Only the white unleavened bread was seen at table. The pilgrims had eaten it on their journey, but this was the day on which it began to be exclusively used. It consisted of thin flat crumbling cakes, made of water and meal, full of little holes, that not the smallest tendency to acidity might be occasioned. It was the food of haste and sorrow, and they had been commanded to eat it, as a memorial of their being thrust out of Egypt, without time for the preparation of their food. Immediately after the removal of the dishes and carpets, a fire was made behind the women’s saloon, in a small garden belonging to the house. When it blazed up, the guests and members of the family came and placed themselves around it, and Iddo, bringing the dish which contained the leaven, threw it into the fire, saying at the same time, “May all the leaven which I have seen or not seen, which I have brought out or not brought out, be scattered and destroyed, and accounted as the dust of the earth!” This ceremony had just been ended, and some other trifling preparations for the festival been made, when the trumpets from mount Moriah announced the commencement of the Passover, and a thousand horns, in the streets, from the houses and the tents, replied to the signal. The walls of the front court were hung with tapestry, which had before been suspended between the holy and most holy place. Our pilgrims went up to the temple to complete their purifications, and to show the impatient Helon at least its general arrangement. It was now about the eighth hour.