washed in Jordan. The benefit expected was not to be immediately
spiritual. No earnest prayerfulness was considered necessary after
the ceremony. To these members of the Greek Christian Church it had
been handed down from father to son that washing in Jordan once
during life was efficacious towards salvation. And therefore the
journey had been made at terrible cost and terrible risk; for these
people had come from afar, and were from their habits but little
capable of long journeys. Many die under the toil; but this matters
not if they do not die before they have reached Jordan. Some few
there are, undoubtedly, more ecstatic in this great deed of their
religion. One man I especially noticed on this day. He had bound
himself to make the pilgrimage from Jerusalem to the river with one
foot bare. He was of a better class, and was even nobly dressed, as
though it were a part of his vow to show to all men that he did this
deed, wealthy and great though he was. He was a fine man, perhaps
thirty years of age, with a well-grown beard descending on his
breast, and at his girdle he carried a brace of pistols.

But never in my life had I seen bodily pain so plainly written in a
man's face. The sweat was falling from his brow, and his eyes were
strained and bloodshot with agony. He had no stick, his vow, I
presume, debarring him from such assistance, and he limped along,
putting to the ground the heel of the unprotected foot. I could see
it, and it was a mass of blood, and sores, and broken skin. An
Irish girl would walk from Jerusalem to Jericho without shoes, and
be not a penny the worse for it. This poor fellow clearly suffered
so much that I was almost inclined to think that in the performance
of his penance he had done something to aggravate his pain. Those
around him paid no attention to him, and the dragoman seemed to
think nothing of the affair whatever. "Those fools of Greeks do not