By 11.30 a.m. on the 19th of April, 1873, and by the same time on the 22nd of April, 1875, we had been marshalled to a place in the Latin gallery, west of the Sepulchre, and looking down on the rotunda. Between the Chapel of the Sepulchre and the rotunda wall is a space some fifteen paces wide; a double line of Turkish soldiers kept open a narrow lane, in the middle of this space, round the tomb--a lane sufficiently wide for three men to walk abreast. On either side the crowd was packed against the rotunda wall, and against that of the Sepulchre chapel, and packed so thickly, that it seemed impossible for one single body more to be squeezed in. To say that you could walk on the heads of the crowd conveys but a poor idea of its compactness; the whole mass seemed welded into one body, and any movement of a single individual swayed the entire crowd, which seemed to tremble like a huge jelly.
But who can describe this wonderful scene? The sunlight came down from above on the north side where the Greeks were gathered, while on the south all was in shadow. The mellow grey of the marble was lit up, and a white centre of light was formed by the caps, shirts, and veils of the native Christians.
A narrow cross-lane was made at the fire-hole on the north side, and here first two, and in 1875 six herculean guardians, in jerseys and with handkerchiefs bound to their heads, kept watch--the only figures plainly distinguishable among the masses.
The effect of colour was remarkable; it seemed to run in patches, as all of one nationality were near one another. In the sunlight, brown faces and arms, salmon colour, pink, light blue, and cinnamon in the clothing, were blended with the white; but, in the shadow, the dark blue uniforms, the black dresses of nuns, and the brown frieze and red sashes of the Armenians, were streaked across by the long line of the soldiers' red fezzes.
On the west a striking contrast was observable; here stood and sat the Abyssinians and Copts, silent and dusky, with many women among them, some with small babies in their arms, whose cries of half-suffocation were plainly heard above the din of many voices and many languages. The Coptic men were in loose dark robes, with white, twisted turbans, the women were closely veiled, in flowing indigo-coloured garments. The Abyssinians, swathed in voluminous white drapery, sat gloomily silent against the wall. On the east a few Arabs were gathered, also in dark robes, and behind them was seen the rich colouring of the Greek chancel, dark and dusky in the dim light.