tesselated pavement, and was, I believe, formerly used as a mortuary chapel. Quitting it we enter the transverse arm of the cross, which lies east and west. In the eastern arm[578] the tomb of the Virgin stands by itself, as I have already described it. Near it on the south is a small niche, especially allotted to the Mohammedans, who visit the place for prayer, as I have often seen. This is the only Christian church in Jerusalem in which the Mohammedans abstain from smoking, or from using it, if needful, as a place for conversation; a mark of respect which they do not pay to the Sepulchre of Christ. Inside the north wall, near the tomb, is the grotto, from which water falls down in drops; this is carefully caught by the Greeks, and sold to visitors with the reputation of possessing many virtues. I tasted it in 1857, when I was making a plan of the building, and found it very good[579]. Opposite to the great staircase is the northern arm of the cross. This has been divided by the Greeks into two stories by means of a wooden floor; the lower serving for a sacristy, the upper for the chamber of the lay-brother who takes care of the place. Here also we find a window, closed with masonry, because it is blocked up on the outside with the accumulated earth. At the extremity of the western arm is the walled-up doorway, which I mentioned[580] in speaking of the subterranean passage, said to exist between the Church of S. Ann and this place. The description annexed to the Plan will shew the places where the different religious sects perform their services, and the other points of detail; therefore I pass on at once to the Grotto of the Agony[581], which came into the keeping of the Franciscans A.D. 1392, together with the Tomb of the Virgin, and is still held exclusively by them. This is said to be the scene of the Agony of Christ on the night before He suffered[582]. It is true that the Evangelists make no mention of a grotto; but tradition and its situation are in favour of this place. Its situation, I say, because it is a stone's throw (according to S. Luke) from the place (also traditional) where the three Apostles awaited him. The tradition is very ancient, and I firmly believe that the Apostles themselves informed the first converts both of this spot and of that where our Lord was betrayed to those who came to take Him prisoner. It seems impossible that His followers would forget the incidents of that night. Gethsemane was outside the city on the slopes of the Mount of Olives, across the Kidron; and its position is clearly defined[583]. We must also remember that there have never been at Gethsemane the same materials for the enemy to lay waste and destroy as there were within the city; so that the spot would not here, as elsewhere, be concealed under ruins and earth.