On reaching Jaffa they lay for some days awaiting permission to land.  At length all was ready.  The ship’s officers collected the tips due to them, and the pilgrims were put on shore:  falling to kiss the ground as they struggled out of their boats through the surf.  One by one they were brought before Turkish officials, who took record of their names and their fathers’ names—­an occasion on which noblemen often tried to pass themselves off as of low degree, to escape the higher fees due.  Fabri notes that his Christian name, Felix, gave the official recorders some trouble:  that he pronounced it again and again for them, but they could get nothing at all like it.  Each pilgrim, when entered, was hurried off by Saracens, like sheep into a pen, and thrust into a row of caves along the sea-shore, known as St. Peter’s Cellars.  If they had suffered on board ship, their sufferings were multiplied now tenfold.  Strict watch was kept upon them, and no one was allowed to leave the caves.  Within, the ground was covered with semi-liquid filth.  From the ship, as they lay waiting to land, Fabri had noticed the Saracens running in and out of the caves; and he argued that they were intentionally defiling them, to make it more disagreeable to the Christian dogs.  But this seems hardly necessary.  There had doubtless been other pilgrims before them.  Droves of mankind can tread ground into a foul swamp as cattle tread a farmyard.  With their feet the poor pilgrims managed to collect some of the impurities together into a heap in the centre; each man clearing enough space to lie down upon.  Fabri found solace to his offended senses in thinking of his dear Lord lying in a hard manger, amongst all the defilements of the oxen.

After a time came traders selling rushes and branches of trees to make beds, unguents and perfumes and frankincense to burn, and attar of roses from Damascus.  Others brought bread and water and lettuces and hot cakes made with eggs, which the pilgrims gladly bought; and, as the day wore on, with the much going to and fro the ground was slowly dried under their feet.  At nightfall appeared a man armed, whom they took to be the owner of the caves.  With menaces he extorted from each of them a penny, and in the morning again, before they could come out, another penny; to their great indignation against the captains and dragoman, who were sleeping in tents higher up the hill, and had by contract undertaken all these charges.  So long as they were there, the pilgrims suffered continual annoyance from the Turks, who ran in among them pilfering, breaking any wine bottles they found, and provoking them to blows, in order to secure the fines of which the pilgrims would then be mulcted.  One young man was so disgusted at it all that he went back on board and gave up his pilgrimage; living with the crew till the party came back from Jerusalem.  They were indeed entirely in the hands of the Turks.  It was not a case of moving when they were inclined.  When the Turks wished, they were allowed to go forward:  till then they were confined like prisoners.  No date was fixed:  the pilgrims just had to wait in patience, hoping that tomorrow or tomorrow or tomorrow would see them start.