This Holy Staircase Is Composed Of Eight-And-Twenty Steps, Said To Have Belonged To Pontius Pilate's House And To Be The Identical Stair On Which Our Saviour Trod, In Coming Down From The Judgment- Seat.

Pilgrims ascend it, only on their knees.

It is steep; and, at the summit, is a chapel, reported to be full of relics; into which they peep through some iron bars, and then come down again, by one of two side staircases, which are not sacred, and may be walked on.

On Good Friday, there were, on a moderate computation, a hundred people, slowly shuffling up these stairs, on their knees, at one time; while others, who were going up, or had come down--and a few who had done both, and were going up again for the second time-- stood loitering in the porch below, where an old gentleman in a sort of watch-box, rattled a tin canister, with a slit in the top, incessantly, to remind them that he took the money. The majority were country-people, male and female. There were four or five Jesuit priests, however, and some half-dozen well-dressed women. A whole school of boys, twenty at least, were about half-way up-- evidently enjoying it very much. They were all wedged together, pretty closely; but the rest of the company gave the boys as wide a berth as possible, in consequence of their betraying some recklessness in the management of their boots.

I never, in my life, saw anything at once so ridiculous, and so unpleasant, as this sight--ridiculous in the absurd incidents inseparable from it; and unpleasant in its senseless and unmeaning degradation.

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