Our conversation took place in the heart of the city in the synagogue of the Samaritans. I had to go through vaulted passageways and cave-like streets to reach it. I had an interpreter with me, and as we talked the high priest showed me what he said were the original parchments of the five books of Moses as they were written by Abou, the son of Ben Hassan, the son of Eleazar, who, you remember, was one of the two sons of Aaron by Elisheba, his wife. The high priest tells me that these five manuscripts were written only twelve years after the Israelites came into the Promised Land, and that they are now nearly four thousand years old. They are the oldest Bible manuscripts in existence. They are written in the Hebrew of the times of Moses, upon long sheets of parchment about two feet in width. The scrolls are rolled upon three rods each tipped with a silver knob as big as a teacup, and they can be rolled and unrolled as they are read. The ink is still clear and the letters are distinct although the parchment is yellow with age. The manuscript is treasured by the Samaritans, being kept in a brass case inlaid with gold. It is said to have been dug up about three hundred years ago, and has formed a subject of controversy among oriental scholars. The Samaritans believe that it was written by the grandson of Aaron, as the high priest here claims; but the Jews reject it as false, denouncing the Samaritans as pagan outcasts from the tribes of the Children of Israel. I was surprised to find that there were any Samaritans living. I had supposed that they had been swallowed up by the people of other faiths. I find, however, that there are about two hundred in Nablus, and that they practise the same religion as they did when Christ came. They annually celebrate the feasts of the Passover and Pentecost on Mount Gerizim. These feasts are different from those of the latter-day Jews. At the time of Jesus the Feast of the Passover was eaten reclining and as though at the end of a journey rather than at the beginning. The Samaritans eat their Passover with their shoes bound upon their feet and staves in their hand as though ready to start out on their wanderings in the wilderness.