The city of Bethlehem in Judea is six miles to the north of Jerusalem. The Saracens have left nothing there habitable, but every thing is destroyed (as in the other holy places without the walls of the city of Jerusalem) except the monastery of the blessed Virgin Mary, which is a large and noble building. In the church there is a crypt under the choir, about the middle, in which is seen the place of our Lord's nativity, as it were to the left. A little lower, to the right, near the place of the nativity, is the manger where the ox and ass stood when the child was placed before them in it; and the stone which supported the head of our Saviour in the sepulchre, which was brought hither from Jerusalem by St. Jerome the Presbyter, may be seen in the manger. St. Jerome himself rests in the same church, under the altar, to the north-east; and the innocents who were slain for the infant Christ, by Herod, lie under the altar on the north part of the church, as well as the two most holy women, Paula and her daughter Eustochium, the virgin. There is the marble table on which the blessed Virgin Mary eat with the three Magians, after they had given their offerings. There is a cistern in the church, near the crypt of our Lord's nativity, into which the star is said to have fallen. There, also, is said to be the bath of the blessed Virgin Mary.
Bethany, where Lazarus was raised by our Lord from the dead, is distant from the city about two miles to the east, on the other side of Mount Olivet, and contains the church of St. Lazarus, in which is seen his sepulchre, as well as those of many bishops of Jerusalem. Under the altar is the place where Mary Magdalene washed the feet of our Lord Jesus with her tears, and wiped them with her hair, and kissed his feet and anointed them with ointment. Bethphage, where our Lord sent forward his disciples to the city, is on Mount Olivet, but nearly all traces of it have disappeared. Jericho, where is the garden of Abraham, is ten leagues from Jerusalem, in a land covered with trees, and producing all kinds of palms and other fruits. There is the well of the prophet Elisha, the water of which was most bitter to drink and productive of sterility, until he blessed it and threw salt into it, when it became sweet. This place is surrounded on every side by a beautiful plain. From thence we ascend a lofty mountain, to the spot where our Lord fasted forty days, and where he was afterwards tempted by Satan, about three miles from Jericho.