The well-known story of the old woman of Berkeley has been read with wonder and dread for at least four hundred years: it is to be found in early manuscripts; it is related by Olaus Magnus, and is to be seen illustrated by a woodcut, both in the German and Latin editions of the 'Nuremberg Chronicle,' which was printed in the year 1493. There is no variation in the legend, which is circumstantially the same in all these books. Without doubt it was partly founded upon fact, or, as in the case of the story of the Theban tomb, some circumstances have been omitted which make all the difference; and a natural though perhaps extraordinary occurrence has been handed down for centuries, as a fearful instance of the power of the evil one in this world over those who have given themselves up to the practice of tremendous crimes.
There are many supernatural stories, which we are certain cannot by any possibility be true; but which nevertheless are as well attested, and apparently as fully proved, as any facts in the most veracious history. Under circumstances of alarm or temporary hallucination people frequently believe that they have had supernatural visitations. Even the tricks of conjurers, which have been witnessed by a hundred persons at a time, are totally incomprehensible to the uninitiated; and in the middle ages, when these practices were resorted to for religious or political ends, it is more than probable that many occurrences which were supposed to be supernatural might have been explained, if all the circumstances connected with them had been fairly and openly detailed by an impartial witness.
The White Monastery--Abou Shenood--Devastations of the Mamelukes--Description of the Monastery--Different styles of its exterior and interior Architecture--Its ruinous condition--Description of the Church--The Baptistery--Ancient Rites of Baptism--The Library--Modern Architecture--The Church of San Francesco at Rimini--The Red Monastery--Alarming rencontre with an armed party--Feuds between the native Tribes--Faction fights--Eastern Story Tellers--Legends of the Desert--Abraham and Sarah--Legendary Life of Moses--Arabian Story-tellers--Attention of their Audience.
Mounting our noble Egyptian steeds, or in other words having engaged a sufficient number of little braying donkeys, which the peasants brought down to the river side, and put our saddles on them, we cantered in an hour and a half from the village of Souhag to the White Monastery, which is known to the Arabs by the name of Derr abou Shenood. Who the great Abou Shenood had the honour to be, and what he had done to be canonized, I could meet with no one to tell me. He was, I believe, a Mahomedan saint, and this Coptic monastery had been in some sort placed under the shadow of his protection, in the hopes of saving it from the persecutions of the faithful. Abou Shenood, however, does not appear to have done his duty, for the White Monastery has been ruined and sacked over and over again. The last outrage upon the unfortunate monastery occurred about 1812, when the Mamelukes who had encamped upon the plains of Itfou, having no better occupation, amused themselves by burning all the houses, and killing all the people in the neighbourhood. Since that time the monks having returned one by one, and finding that no one took the trouble to molest them, began to repair the convent, the interior of which had been gutted by the Mamelukes; but the immense strength of the outer walls had resisted all their efforts to destroy them.