_ 63 _ main door of the church, along the wall, were seven small bells. The captain said his prayers here and we with him. We did not enter the chapel because it is their custom that only certain men who serve the churches can enter and who are known as quafes [priests]. These wear some threads thrown over the left shoulder and passed beneath the right-hand shoulder, just like the deacons wear their stoles. These sprinkled us with holy water. They gave us a white clay, which the Christians of that land customarily use to spread on their foreheads, chests, necks and upper arms. They performed this entire ceremony for the captain and gave him the clay. He accepted it and had it put away, indicating that he would make use of it later. Many other saints were painted on the walls of the church, depicted with diadems. The paintings were executed in a strange way because their teeth were so large that they stuck out an inch from their mouths, and each saint had four or five arms. Underneath the church there was a large cistern carved in stone, just like many others that we had seen on route. When we left there, they took us to another one at the city gates that had the same characteristics mentioned
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