Towards noon, Mount Tabor separated itself from the chain of hills before us, and stood out singly, at the extremity of the plain.  We watered our horses at a spring in a swamp, were some women were collected, beating with sticks the rushes they had gathered to make mats.  After reaching the mountains on the northern side of the plain, an ascent of an hour and a-half, through a narrow glen, brought us to Nazareth, which is situated in a cul-de-sac, under the highest peaks of the range.  As we were passing a rocky part of the road, Mr. Harrison’s horse fell with him and severely injured his leg.  We were fortunately near our destination, and on reaching the Latin Convent, Fra Joachim, to whose surgical abilities the traveller’s book bore witness, took him in charge.  Many others besides ourselves have had reason to be thankful for the good offices of the Latin monks in Palestine.  I have never met with a class more kind, cordial, and genial.  All the convents are bound to take in and entertain all applicants—­of whatever creed or nation—­for the space of three days.

In the afternoon, Fra Joachim accompanied me to the Church of the Virgin, which is inclosed within the walls of the convent.  It is built over the supposed site of the house in which the mother of Christ was living, at the time of the angelic annunciation.  Under the high altar, a flight of steps leads down to the shrine of the Virgin, on the threshold of the house, where the Angel Gabriel’s foot rested, as he stood, with a lily in his hand, announcing the miraculous conception.  The shrine, of white marble and gold, gleaming in the light of golden lamps, stands under a rough arch of the natural rock, from the side of which hangs a heavy fragment of a granite pillar, suspended, as the devout believe, by divine power.  Fra Joachim informed me that, when the Moslems attempted to obliterate all tokens of the holy place, this pillar was preserved by a miracle, that the locality might not be lost to the Christians.  At the same time, he said, the angels of God carried away the wooden house which stood at the entrance of the grotto; and, after letting it drop in Marseilles, while they rested, picked it up again and set it down in Loretto, where it still remains.  As he said this, there was such entire, absolute belief in the good monk’s eyes, and such happiness in that belief, that not for ten times the gold on the shrine would I have expressed a doubt of the story.  He then bade me kneel, that I might see the spot where the angel stood, and devoutly repeated a paternoster while I contemplated the pure plate of snowy marble, surrounded with vases of fragrant flowers, between which hung cressets of gold, wherein perfumed oils were burning.  All the decorations of the place conveyed the idea of transcendent purity and sweetness; and, for the first time in Palestine, I wished for perfect faith in the spot.  Behind the shrine, there are two or three chambers in the rock, which served as habitations for the family of the Virgin.