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Pilgrimage in the Holy Land

St John Phocas, tr. Stewart, 1889

Chapter 25

Beyond the Jordan, opposite to the place of our Lord’s baptism, is much brushwood, in the midst of which, at the distance of about one stadium, is the grotto of John the Baptist, which is very small, and not capable of containing a well-built man standing upright, and opposite this, in the depth of the desert,¹ is another grotto, in which the Prophet Elias dwelt when he was carried off by the fiery chariot. Beyond these grottos, upon the banks of the Jordan, is said to be the wilderness wherein the venerable Zosimus was thought worthy to behold the angelic Egyptian lady.² Beyond the hills is the wilderness leading to Sinai, and Rhaetho, and the Red Sea. Here endeth my discourse about the wilderness.

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