The United Greek Church, which is so important in the north, is making a small beginning in Palestine. It uses the Arabic language in the service. It is that section of the old Greek Orthodox Church which was won over to papal allegiance, and is being used as a sort of bridge between the Greek Church and the Roman. Protestants find the Greek Orthodox Christians much less hostile than the Roman Catholics. However, a priest of the United Greeks (Roman Catholic) has been known to bring boys to one of the Protestant boarding-schools for entrance for the sake of the training there afforded. The Greek monasteries in the lonely country districts are often penal establishments, such as those in the Wâdy Kelt, on Mt. Quarantana (the traditional site of the temptation of Jesus), and at Mâr Sâbâ. Though they are so small a sect as scarcely to be counted in the enumeration of present-day religious bodies in Palestine, yet the Samaritans, because of their historical connection with the country and its religious genius, have a significance for us and a description of their great feast may be interesting.[123] ----- ----- About 5.30 o’clock in the afternoon of May 1, 1901, a small party of us who had been riding all day through the hill-country of Ephraim, came in sight of Jacob’s Well,[124] or rather in sight of the walled enclosure about the premises, which the Greek Church has secured. For the first time in some weeks we saw also a line of telegraph poles and wires, that from Nâblus to the east of Jordan. We rounded the lower slopes of Mount Gerizim and in a short time were going down the valley, having Gerizim on our left and Ebal on our right. This valley, in which modern Nâblus, ancient Shechem, lies, runs east and west. The city of over twenty thousand inhabitants is about eighteen hundred feet above the sea-level, picturesquely lodged between the two mountains. The valley is narrow, so that a few minutes’ ride from the center of the city would lead one to the slopes of either mountain, and an hour’s climb to the top of either. The ascent of Gerizim is a simple matter; that of Ebal would be less pleasant on account of the prickly-pear (cactus) which grows very thickly on its sides. Approaching the city as we did from the east end of the valley, one sees an attractive group of cheerfully tinted buildings, some quite high for a Palestinian city, built rather towards the Gerizim side of the valley. Several tall palm-trees stand among the buildings. A little to the right, and quite prominent, is a Moslem cemetery, its graves covered with stones set up to look like small sarcophagi. The first building reached contains the barracks of the soldiers who do the police duty of the country round. Presently we join the road from Jacob’s Well, which forms a V with our own. Rooms were secured at the Latin monastery. We had timed our visit so as to be present at the Passover celebrations of the Samaritans. The once