From one part of the wall you can drop a penny or a pebble in a sheer fall of five hundred feet. The building is an extraordinary one, as it is stuck against and over a cliff, full of natural and artificial caves in such a way that it is impossible to tell what is masonry and what is natural rock.
To visit the convent, one needs a permit from the Superior at Jerusalem. We had the proper document, and it was delivered; the monks carefully surveyed us from a wall far above our heads, and then gave orders for the opening of a massive and strongly-bolted door.
No woman is allowed, under any circumstances, to cross the threshold of Mar Saba. Harriet Martineau says the monks are too holy to be hospitable, and another has added that they are too pious to be good. We were not admitted until the one lady of our party had walked a sufficient distance away to prevent the possibility of her darting in when the door was opened.
There are sixty monks in all at Mar Saba. The convent is reported to be rich, but the monks are not a corpulent lot, and have a general indication of living in a bad boarding-house. They never eat flesh, and their exercises are very severe. One of them showed us about, and a dozen or more of the rest spread out on the pavement of the court, a quantity of canes, beads, crosses, shells, and olive-wood ornaments, in the hope of selling some of them.
We gave our guide a couple of francs for showing us around. He was particular to ask if it was for himself or the convent. Of course we told him it was personal, and he thereupon asked us again, in a voice sufficiently loud to make his companions hear and understand the situation.
There is a very old palm-tree, said to have been planted by the saint in person; they showed us the tomb of St. Saba, two or three chapels, and a quantity of bones, belonging to the monks that lived there in the seventh century, and were massacred by the Persians, There is a curious picture of the massacre, and it hangs over the skulls and arm-bones of the unhappy victims. The convent was captured two or three times during the crusades, but for several centuries it has rested in peace. It is in the midst of the country of the Bedouins, but the monks never permit the Bedouins inside the door, and the walls are strong enough to resist any attacks they might make.
