By the narrow entrance on the right we passed into the inner part of the chapel, dark and damp, equal in width, but double the depth of the outer part. It is only just about high enough to stand in: its altar is placed at the back of the last described, with a picture of St. Joseph. From this a narrow passage twenty feet long, with seventeen steps, leads up obliquely to the inmost part of the cave, a chamber of irregular shape, traditionally supposed to be the Virgin's kitchen, with a chimney hewn in the rock on the east, and an entrance, now walled up, on the west, by which the father informed me the Virgin used to go out to fetch water from the spring. The whole place is very dark and low, with a damp odour, and resembles the ancient cisterns of which many exist in Nazareth; yet for nearly twelve centuries this spot has been visited by millions from every Christian land as the early home of Christ and of His mother. I observed to the monk that it was dark for a dwelling-house, but he answered very simply, "The Lord had no need of much light.â
It is hardly worth while to describe the modern sanctuary of "St. Joseph's Workshop,â a Latin chapel, built only in 1859, about two hundred yards north of the monastery, in the Moslem Quarter; or the Mensa Christi, a block of rock rudely oval ten feet across and three feet high, in a church built in 1861 in the west quarter of the town. The only other ancient site is that of the Virgin's Fountain, six hundred yards north-east of the Latin Monastery at the end of a lane hedged with prickly pear, and near the flat camping ground among the olives.
As early as 700 A.D. we find Bishop Arculph visiting here a church over the spring. The present building is only about eighty years old, but occupies the same site. It is dedicated to St. Gabriel, and even the Latins admit it to be on the site where first the angel became visible. It is curious that no artist has pitched upon so charming a subject as that suggested by a meeting with the Heavenly messenger at the Fountain, an idea not discordant with the words of the Gospel. As in the eighth century, so now the spring is under the floor of the church, which is itself half subterranean. The water is led to the left of the high altar, past a well-mouth, by which it is drawn up for pilgrims, and so by a channel to the masonry fountain, where it comes out through metal spouts under an arched recess broad enough for fifteen women to stand side by side. A pool is formed below at the trough, and here the constant succession of the Nazareth women may be seen all day filling their great earthenware jars, standing ankle-deep in water, their pink or green-striped baggy trousers tucked between their knees; their heads are covered, if Moslems, with the moon-shaped tire, if Christians, with a gay handkerchief or the hair platted in long tails. A negress in blue here and there mingles with the crowd, which is chattering, screaming, gossiping, and sometimes fighting.