Thence they went to Galgala, a journey of five miles, where is a moderate-sized wooden church, in which are the twelve stones which the children of Israel carried out of the Jordan to Galgala, and placed there as a memorial of their passage. Here also they performed their devotions, and then proceeded to Jericho, above seven miles from the Jordan, and saw there the fountain which was blessed by the prophet Elisha, and hence to the monastery of St. Eustochium, which stands in the middle of the plain between Jericho and Jerusalem.
On their arrival at Jerusalem, they first visited the spot where the holy cross was found, where there is now a church which is called the Place of Calvary, and which was formerly outside of Jerusalem; but when St. Helena found the cross, the place was taken into the circuit of the city. Three wooden crosses stand in this place, on the outside of the wall of the church, in memory of our Lord's cross and of those of the other persons crucified at the same time. They are without the church, but under a roof. And near at hand is the garden in which was the sepulchre of our Saviour, which was cut in the rock. That rock is now above ground, square at the bottom, but tapering above, with a cross on the summit. And over it there is now built a wonderful edifice. And on the east side of the rock of the sepulchre there is a door, by which men enter the sepulchre to pray. And there is a bed within, on which our Lord's body lay; and on the bed stand fifteen golden cups with oil burning day and night. The bed on which our Lord's body rested stands within the rock of the sepulchre on the north side, to the right of a man entering the sepulchre to pray. And before the door of the sepulchre lies a great square stone, in the likeness of the former stone which the angel rolled from the mouth of the monument. Our bishop arrived here on the feast of St. Martin[34], and was suddenly seized with sickness, and lay sick until the week before the Nativity of our Lord. And then, being a little recovered, he rose and went to the church called St. Sion, which is in the middle of Jerusalem, and, after performing his devotions, he went to the porch of Solomon, where is the pool where the infirm wait for the motion of the water, when the angel comes to move it; and then he who first enters it is healed. Here our Lord said to the paralytic, "Rise, take up thy bed, and walk!"[35] St. Mary expired in the middle of Jerusalem, in the place called St. Sion; and as the twelve apostles were carrying her body, the angels came and took her from their hands and carried her to paradise.
