The plot of land on which are the ruins of S. Mary Latin was acquired by the Russians in 1858. In 1860 they began to clear away a quantity of rubbish and earth, the accumulation of centuries, in order to lay the foundations of a house for the Consulate; and, in the course of the removal, fragments of walls and buildings were found of an earlier date than the Crusades. History informs us that some houses were erected on this spot by native labourers for the Amalfi merchants; and in accordance with this we do not find in these remains that precision and perfectness of execution which characterizes work executed with European aid. I endeavoured to connect the walls with the mutilated building; but I found it impossible to restore them sufficiently to draw out a plan of any sort; the ruin wrought by time and man is too complete. I have already mentioned that some remains of an ancient Jewish wall were found during the excavations in this same plot of land, and now add that, below it, near to the street on the east, there seems to have been a portico, some fragments of columns of black granite having been found there. M. de Vogüé, who arrived at Jerusalem after my departure, and during the progress of the excavations, will no doubt have made further discoveries; and it is to be hoped that before long we shall have them described by so able and learned an explorer. The 'House of the Prince' is a house to the north of S. Mary Latin, shewing on the exterior architectural features of a period before the Crusades; these, however, have all disappeared from the interior, where now nothing is to be seen but some party-walls of Arab workmanship, built at different periods, most of them not long ago, in order to divide it into small separate tenements. It belongs to the Franciscan convent, which gives free lodging there to the poorest of their nation. How and when it obtained its name I have not been able to ascertain: there is, however, a tradition that Godfrey of Bouillon occupied it during his short reign; this is not improbable in itself, but is unconfirmed by history; and William of Tyre[437] states that the palace of the Latin king was near the Temple on the south side; meaning by the Temple the present area of the _Haram es-Sherîf_. In a manuscript belonging to the Franciscans (preserved in the Convent of S. Saviour) we find that "from the House of the Prince to the Sepulchre was a subterranean passage, through which they went to the Church of the Sepulchre." From this I was led to examine the spot, and found, on the west side of the house, an aperture level with the ground leading into a subterranean passage, bearing the appearance of antiquity; but it was so filled up with rubbish that I was unable to examine it thoroughly; nevertheless I believe that it communicated with the Chapel of S. Helena, just at the doorway now walled up, and that its entrance is covered by the altar nearest to the north-east corner. On the west of