[450] Mejir-ed-Din, p. 123. [451] Plate XXXI. [452] Plate XXX. [453] Plate XXXVIII. [454] Descriptio Terræ Sanctæ. Pez. thes. anecd. noviss. Vol. I. pt. 3, col. 526. [455] William of Tyre, Lib. XIX. c. 4 (Gesta Dei, &c. Vol. II. p. 958). [456] De Vogüé, Les Églises, &c. p. 251. [457] Note XVI. [458] Note XVIII. [459] Early Travels in Palestine. Bohn's Ant. Libr. p. 168. CHAPTER V. INVESTIGATIONS IN THE VIA DOLOROSA (OR THE WAY OF THE CROSS). THE RELIGIOUS AND OTHER REMARKABLE BUILDINGS IN IT OR IN ITS NEIGHBOURHOOD AND IN THE REST OF THE CITY, TOGETHER WITH ALL THE CONVENTS OF THE DIFFERENT RELIGIOUS COMMUNITIES. The _Via Dolorosa_ is the street our Saviour is supposed to have passed along on his road from the Prætorium to Calvary. The following is the course assigned to it by the only tradition which mentions it. It begins in the street which passes by the northern side of the barrack of the _Haram_[460], and goes westward till it meets the central valley (Tyropoeon), which it follows for a short distance southward; it then turns along the first street to the west, and after going through the Judgement Gate, must have again turned to the south a short distance beyond it, (opposite to the little street running to the north,) in order to reach the Church of the Resurrection, just at the north-east angle inside the Chapel of S. Helena. The last part of its course, if this were its course, is now entirely covered by the buildings of the Greek Convent of S. Charalampes. The present Via Dolorosa is divided into fourteen stations: these are visited with religious care by pilgrims, because they are asserted to be the very places at which the last scenes of the Passion of Christ were enacted. They are as follows: (i). Prætorium of Pilate (Barrack of the Haram); _Jesus condemned to death_. (ii). Site of the 'scala sancta' (near to the north-east corner of the Barrack); _Jesus given His Cross to bear_. (iii). A column lying on the ground south of the Austrian hospice (at the north-west corner of the Armenian Catholics' property); _Jesus falls the first time_. (iv). South-west corner of the same property (a little street leading to the house of the Governor of the city); _Jesus meets His mother_. (v). A stone built into the south wall of the street going up to the Judgement Gate; _Simon the Cyrenian assists Jesus to bear the Cross_. (vi). The house of Veronica (in the above street); _Veronica wipes the face of Jesus_. (vii). The Judgement Gate; _Jesus falls the second time_. (viii). A small aperture in the wall of the Greek Convent of S. Charalampes (west of the above gate); marking the spot where _Jesus beheld the women weeping_. (ix). A column lying on the ground by the Copts' convent (at the north-east corner of the Church of the Resurrection); _Jesus falls the third time_.