Following the street southward from the Station of the First Fall, we come to the spot pointed out as the place where the Virgin Mary met Jesus. There is no mention of this circumstance in the Evangelists; it is therefore only a tradition; and how can it be true of a place in a street which has only existed a few centuries (as is shewn by the houses on each side), and runs over a mass of ruins? Moreover, in this direction the Roman armies under Pompeius, and again under Titus, made their attacks on the Temple; it is therefore very improbable that after the time of the latter there would be any traces of a street left. When Hadrian rebuilt the city he set up idols in the principal sacred places to insult the Jews and Christians; and we may therefore believe that, in laying out the streets afresh, he would have swept away every trace of the tradition, if any had then existed. Close to the station, on the south, is a great pointed arch with delicately executed details, supported by two well-built piers. It dates from the Crusades, and very probably was the entrance to some religious building, erected to commemorate one of the events of the Passion; or perhaps a convent may have been at this place. Arab houses are built on each side of it facing the street, so that nothing can be made out there. I entered these to see if I could ascertain anything, but my examination produced little result, because an Arab wall completely masks it; while a number of small longitudinal and transverse party-walls, all of Arab work, have entirely transformed the appearance of the place. However, in these I found some polished stones, and fragments of ornaments, with mutilated capitals and broken columns; all proofs of the existence of a building of the time of the Crusades. Perhaps a nunnery[480], dedicated to S. John, once stood on this spot, belonging to the Benedictines of Bethany, and used by them as a refuge in time of war. Here the guides not unfrequently point out the house of the beggar Lazarus, opposite to the arch; and also shew the palace of the wicked Dives, at a little distance to the south in the same street. This is a house built of different coloured stones. These 'Jerusalem antiquarians' have converted the parable into a historic fact, and so endeavoured to preserve the traces of the dwellings! I suppose they think that the poor men "full of sores" were of more importance in former times than now. There are still numbers of lepers, who, from morning to evening, wait outside the Jaffa Gate to beg; and many give them an alms, but who now ever bestows a second thought on them, or would remember where they lived? The 'palace of Dives' is a handsome building of the sixteenth century, erected by the liberality of Solyman for a hospital. It is still used for the same purpose by the soldiers belonging to the garrison; but if not soon repaired, it will share the usual fate of Mohammedan government property, and fall into ruins.