The later history and legend of the cross in Palestine is one of singular and tragic interest. First of all there is the preposterous story of St. Helena’s dream--the miraculous discovery of the three crosses, and the miracle of healing which enabled her to distinguish the cross of Christ from those of the robbers. Since then the sacred wood has been tossed about from hand to hand, hunted for, bargained for sinned for, died for. Its presence in their army comforted the Crusaders in their misery; the sight of it in the hands of the Saracens filled them with despair. The restoration of it was among the chief demands conceded by Saladin when he surrendered Acre to Richard; and when he failed to deliver it, hostages to the number of 2700 were slaughtered in sight of the Saracen camp. All through the Crusades it was the badge of self-devotion to the holy wars, and a strange tale is told of an occasion on which Louis IX., presenting robes to his courtiers according to an ancient custom, had crosses secretly embroidered on them, so that the wearers found themselves committed unawares to the Crusade. For 1500 years that symbol pointed to the site which the buildings of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre cover. Godfrey was buried there, and many a devout soul regarded it as the holiest of holy places. In the middle of the nineteenth century the question of its authenticity was raised; and General Gordon, who spent part of the last year before he went to Khartoum, in Jerusalem, championed the identification of the hill of Jeremiah’s Grotto, just outside the Damascus Gate, with Calvary. His point of view was a strange one. It was suggested by the words “place of a skull,” from which he developed the idea of the Holy City as the body of the bride of Christ, this hill being the head, Zion the pleura, and so on. The theory, so far as it regards Calvary, has appealed to many competent judges who were very far from adopting the mystical and emblematic views of Gordon. The hill is an old quarry, within which Jeremiah is supposed by tradition to have written his Lamentations. It is quite a little hill, whose short and scanty grass was burnt up with drought when we saw it, leaving a surface of loose sandy soil. A man crucified here would have the Mount of Olives in his eyes behind some roof-lines of the city. By a curious coincidence a rock-hewn tomb, with a groove running in front of the face of it for a great stone which would close its entrance, has been discovered close by. It is a grave with only one loculus in it, and it is temptingly like one’s idea of the Garden Tomb of Joseph; but it is said to be undoubtedly of later date than the death of Jesus. From one point in the road, somewhat nearer the Valley of Jehoshaphat, the hollows and caves of the hill, which here breaks along its length into a small precipice, bear a striking resemblance to a chapfallen skull. Not that the features can be examined in anything like accurate detail. But in the evening,