The pilgrim is still extant. For well-nigh two thousand years he has come and gone, a tourist who has always had an immense commercial value for the Holy Land. The levy made on pilgrims at the gate of Jerusalem was one of the principal causes of the Crusades, and it is hardly more than a hundred years since a heavy tax was imposed upon every pilgrim when he reached the gate of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. The greater part of those who come now are Russians. Jaffa is full of them, but they are to be seen in long caravans of pedestrians, with a donkey or two bearing all their scanty luggage, as far north as Samaria and Galilee. The men are typical Russian peasants, in the blouses and caps that are so familiar. Their long hair may be fair or dark, but it is always matted and coarse. The women, with their good, weather-beaten faces, are uncommonly like old-fashioned peasant women from the northern Scottish countrysides. Their head-dress is a simple kerchief, and their hands grasp a rude pilgrim staff polished with much wear. The privations of such pilgrimages must be very great. They involve the expenditure of a lifetime’s savings, and a journey in many cases of at least six months. Most of this is done on foot, and largely by people who are growing old. There is no nation that could send forth such multitudes except “rough but believing Russia.” The belief is everything. They are very poor people, and very ignorant and simple. Yet many whose minds’ conflict seems only to grow sterner in this land of contradictions, may own without shame to a touch of something like envy as they see the exaltation of their childish faith. They encompass the walls of Jerusalem to the strains of Psalms, and march triumphantly to the sand south of Jaffa for shells to authenticate their travels, such as those which appear on the coats-of-arms of some European families, telling of former pilgrimages. Mere children in intellect, the gleam in their eyes tells that in their own pathetic way they have entered here into a veritable kingdom of heaven. The objects of pilgrimage are somewhat gruesome in [Illustration: THE DOME OF THE ROCK (MOSQUE OF OMAR), AS SEEN FROM THE PORCH ON THE NORTH SIDE OF THE MOSQUE EL AKSA.]