We will now take the road to the west, leading to S. John in the Mountains (_Ain Karim_), and visit the Greek convent of S. Cross, called by the Arabs _Deir el-Mar-sullabi_, which we reach in about twenty minutes. Its name is derived from the tradition that the tree grew here from which the Cross of Christ was made. Quaresmius[857] informs us that the Empress Helena built a church here to mark the spot. Dositheus, Greek Patriarch of Jerusalem towards the close of the seventeenth century, who wrote the history of his predecessors in that office, is of opinion that the monastery of S. Cross was built by Justinian I. at the prayer of S. Saba, who had gone to Constantinople to refute some calumnies which had been promulgated by the Samaritan, Arsenius, in order to bring the people of Palestine into bad repute with the Emperor. He supposes also that the Georgians, who occupied it for a long time, were the builders. The Persian invaders under Chosroes II. utterly destroyed the monastery, but spared a part of the church; murdering, nevertheless, all the monks who had fled there for refuge, so that the tesselated pavement, of great antiquity, still preserves the stains of their blood. The Reverend Dionysius Cleopas, a most courteous and learned man, the director of the school of S. Cross, pointed out these stains to me, informing me of the tradition concerning them. Though I am far from yielding a blind assent to it, I cannot but remember how long the stain of blood remains upon marble or stone, if it has lain and dried up there. In this case the blood of more than a hundred victims must have been shed and left there. At the same time it must be remarked that the stains, which extend below the surface of the tesseræ in the pavement, are not red but of a blackish colour.