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crowd, all come to a halt before a wall with a little black doorway about three feet high.  They point to this entrance, their laughing and jabbering well intermixed with a demand for "backsheesh." You have arrived. 

A smiling Arab, with small tapers and a large stout stick, comes forth.  The stick is whirled in the air, the crowd disperses (not disappears)–you are saved. They will soon reassemble upon your return to daylight. The plain fact is, you are simply passed along, each one "letting" (getting)  as much "blood" (piasters) as is possible, the last man to meet you having always the strongest claim. The fact that he has rendered you no service is of absolutely no importance- you are a Christian, a legitimate victim. 

If you give little, he tells you how miserably small the amount is, not worth taking, but holds to it, nevertheless; if much, he immediately sends others, "post haste," who are more persistent than the first, because you have proved that you can be "bled–" that the amount warrants all the energy he can put into his effort.

The tomb is reached by a descent of twenty or more slippery, worn, and, of course, dirty steps.

The Moslems regard Lazarus as a Saint, and have erected a mosque over the place of burial. Christians are, of course, forbidden to enter this mosque, and thus steps (made in the 16th century) down which we have entered, are accounted for. In fact, there is now, I believe, no entrance from the mosque. The stairway leads to a small, square, ante-chamber. Turn to your left through a doorway, and you are in the tomb proper, which is made to hold three or four bodies. On the East side is possibly the original entrance, now walled up. The tomb is high enough to stand upright in, and is cut in the solid rock and lined with masonry. It is large enough to hold quite a company.

As to its identity with the historic tomb of Sacred Writ, opinion is divided.  We have accounts of its being visited in the Twelfth century. That it is a very ancient tomb, and one of the same character, cannot possibly be well disputed.

However, we accept it for what we have known it to be for at least seven or eight centuries–the tomb of Lazarus.

H. O. TANNER.