Their journey across the desert to Gaza, and thence to Jaffa and Jerusalem, with excursions to Bethlehem, the Dead Sea, and the convent of St. Saba, lay over a more beaten track, and produced far less effect upon his mind. It could not fail to be full of interest, and gave opportunity for numberless sketches;[13] they carried on their examination with their usual vigour, visiting all the “Holy Places,”[14] and, as they arrived at Easter, had abundant evidence of the feuds of the Greeks and Latins, and witnessed the notorious miracle of the “Holy Fire.” They carried away from the Latin Patriarch certificates of their presence at the Easter ceremonies (which gave them a certain sacred character as pilgrims), and rosaries, blessed at the Holy Sepulchre, which were highly prized in Italy and France; but the journal adds, “I wish I could say that my faith had been strengthened by a pilgrimage in the Holy Land,” and goes on to express the predominant feeling of disgust at the superstitions and impostures, which swarm on that sacred ground, and mar its holy associations. A visit to Jerash, in Arab costume and under Arab guidance, had in it more of novelty. They found its remains situated in a well-wooded valley, and embosomed in trees. The ruins were then carefully examined, and some sketches made, but disputes between their Arab guards, and strong symptoms of violence, hastened their departure. “The remains (all of Roman origin) much resemble those of Antinoöpolis, and are probably of the same age; there is too great a profusion of ornament and feebleness of general design; but the effect of the great street, 740 yards in length, flanked by long colonnades of Roman, Ionic, and Corinthian, crossed by triumphal arches, and terminating in a circus surrounded by a peristyle of Ionic columns, must have been magnificent, in spite of many faults of detail.”