In One Of The Walls Which Now Surround Us There Is A Low And Shrinking Doorway.

Can this be the entrance to the basilica?

The idea seems absurd. And yet some of the pretty creatures in the black veils and bracelets of gold, who were in front of us, have disappeared through it, and already the perfume of the censers is wafted towards us. A kind of corridor, astonishingly poor and old, twists itself suspiciously, and then issues into a narrow court, more than a thousand years old, where offertory boxes, fixed on Oriental brackets, invite our alms. The odour of the incense becomes more pronounced, and at last a door, hidden in shadow at the end of this retreat, gives access to the venerable church itself.

The church! It is a mixture of Byzantine basilica, mosque and desert hut. Entering there, it is as if we were introduced suddenly to the naïve infancy of Christianity, as if we surprised it, as it were, in its cradle - which was indeed Oriental. The triple nave is full of little children (here also, that is what strikes us first), of little mites who cry or else laugh and play; and there are mothers suckling their new-born babes - and all the time the invisible mass is being celebrated beyond, behind the iconostasis. On the ground, on mats, whole families are seated in circle, as if they were in their homes. A thick deposit of white chalk on the defaced, shrunken walls bears witness to great age.

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