On Maundy Thursday came the ceremony of washing the pilgrims' feet by the warden, and great was his disgust if he found that he had washed and kissed the feet of a Protestant. Some spent the next three nights in the church of the Holy Sepulchre, some only Easter Eve; a survival of the pre-Christian idea of the healing influence of passing a night in a temple.[91] Those who could not afford, or borrow, the heavy entrance-fee, never entered but stood outside and wept, or looked through the round hole in the door through which food was passed. Inside, it made all the difference whether or no the Oriental Palm Sunday or Easter Day fell on the Frank Easter. If so, the Frank would find the number in the church of the Holy Sepulchre anything between one and two thousand, many belonging to nations he had never heard of, all frantic with excitement, dancing, leaping, and lamenting by torchlight, in garments that he had never dreamt of, to the sound of kettle-drums and horns and other instruments as strange to him as their languages and manner of singing; all combining, with their flags and banners, in a general cumulative effect of inexpressible weirdness, without a single touch to bring it into relation with ordinary life, except the Turks bringing to reason with sticks those who were really too outrageous even for the occasion. And so the pilgrims spent the three nights, on the floor, in as utter disregard of decency and sanitation, and sometimes of morality, as of silence. The descent of the Holy Fire was no more than an interesting sight to the European tourist; Roman Catholic and Protestant alike expressed disbelief in its actuality as openly as the Turk.