The Pilgrims Begin To Arrive In Palestine Some Weeks Before The
Easter Festival Of The Greek Church.
They come from Egypt, from
all parts of Syria, from Armenia and Asia Minor, from Stamboul,
from Roumelia, from the provinces of the Danube, and from all the
Russias.
Most of these people bring with them some articles of
merchandise, but I myself believe (notwithstanding the common taunt
against pilgrims) that they do this rather as a mode of paying the
expenses of their journey, than from a spirit of mercenary
speculation. They generally travel in families, for the women are
of course more ardent than their husbands in undertaking these
pious enterprises, and they take care to bring with them all their
children, however young; for the efficacy of the rites does not
depend upon the age of the votary, so that people whose careful
mothers have obtained for them the benefit of the pilgrimage in
early life, are saved from the expense and trouble of undertaking
the journey at a later age. The superior veneration so often
excited by objects that are distant and unknown shows not perhaps
the wrongheadedness of a man, but rather the transcendent power of
his imagination. However this may be, and whether it is by mere
obstinacy that they poke their way through intervening distance, or
whether they come by the winged strength of fancy, quite certainly
the pilgrims who flock to Palestine from the most remote homes are
the people most eager in the enterprise, and in number too they
bear a very high proportion to the whole mass.
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