"The ceremony of the passion being over, and the guardian's sermon ended, two friars, personating, the one Joseph of Arimathea, the other Nicodemus, approached the cross, and with a most solemn, concerned air, both of aspect and behaviour, drew out the great nails, and took down the feigned body from the cross. It was an _effigies_ so contrived that its limbs were soft and flexible, as if they had been real flesh; and nothing could be more surprising that to see the two pretended mourners bend down the arms which were before extended, and dispose them upon the trunk in such a manner as is usual in corpses. The body being taken down from the cross was received in a fair large winding-sheet, and carried down from Calvary; the whole company attending as before to the stone of Unction. This is taken for the very place where the precious body of our Lord was annointed and prepared for the burial. Here they laid down their imaginary corpse; and casting over it several sweet powders and spices, wrapped it up in the winding-sheet. While this was doing they sang their proper hymn, and afterward one of the friars preached in Arabic a funeral-sermon. These obsequies being finished, they carried off their fancied corpse and laid it in the Sepulchre, shutting up the door till Easter morning. And now, after so many sermons, and so long, not to say tedious, a ceremony, it may well be imagined that the weariness of the congregation, as well as the hour of the night, made it needful to go to rest."[83] Easter-eve passed without any remarkable observance,--a period of leisure which was employed by many of the pilgrims in having their arms marked with the usual ensigns of Jerusalem. "The artists who undertake the operation do it in this manner; they have stamps of wood of any figure that you desire, which they first print off upon your arm with powder of charcoal, then taking two very fine needles tied close together, and dipping them often, like a pen, in certain ink compounded, as I was informed, of gun-powder and ox-gall, they make with them small punctures all along the lines of the figure which they have printed; and then, washing the part in wine, conclude the work. The punctures they make with great quickness and dexterity, and with scarce any smart, seldom piercing so deep as to draw blood. In the afternoon of this day the congregation was assembled in the area before the holy grave; where the friars spent some hours in singing over the Lamentations of Jeremiah; which function, with the usual procession to the holy places, was all the ceremony required by the ritual of the place."