1&57] FOREIGN LIFE 451
were opened. The scene Inside was most sinirular — the huge expanse quite dark, except where a blaze of light under the dome illuminated the marble casing
of the Santa Casa, or where a solitary lamp permitted a picture or an image to loom out of the chaos. The
great mass of pilgrims knelt together before the shrine, but here and there a desolate figure, with arms outstretched in agonising prayer, threw a long weird shadow down the pavement of the nave, while
others were crawling on hands and knees round the side walls of the house, occasionally licking up the sacred dust with their tongues, which left a bloodv
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trail upon the floor. _ At either door of-the House,
the lamplight flashed upon the drawn sword of a soldier, keeping guard to prevent too many people pressing in together, as thev ceaselessly passed in
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single file upon their knees, to gaze for a few seconds upon the rugged walls of unplastered brick, blackened with soot, which they believed to be the veritable walls of the cottage at Nazareth. Here, in strange contrast, the negress statue, attributed to St. Luke, gleams in a mass of diamonds. At the west end of the House was the window by which the angel entered! The collection of jewels and robes in the sacristy was enormous, though the priests lamented bitterly to us over the ravages of the Revolution, and that now the Virgin had only wardrobe sufficient to allow of her changing her dress once instead of three times every day of the year.
We travelled afterwards through a country seldom visited now — by hill-set Macerata and Recanati, and picturesque Tolentino with its relics of S. Nicholas,