The period of the recurrence of the Jubilee has been altered several times ; some popes reduced it to twenty-five years, in order that each generation should have the advantage of it. There are foundations at Rome for receiving and feeding the poorer class of pilgrims who resort there at jubilee time ; one of these institutions or hospitals is called la Trinita dci Pellegrini. The fashion of devotional pilgrimage however has very much decreased in our time ; hut yet there are annual " excursion " pilgrimages to the Holy Land from France, &e. The popes granted to several monasteries the privilege of holding jubilee, with the indulgences attached to it, every fifty years ; among others to that of Canterbury. Concerning former pilgrimages, many notices are found in the ancient chroniclers, especially those of the Crusades. Chaucer, in his ' Canterbury Tales,' has given sketches of the pilgri mage to Thomas it Becket's shrine. Erasmus wrote a 'Pilgrimage to Walsingham and Canterbury,' republished in 1849, edited by J. G. Nichols. Henry Watson wrote' Instructions for Pilgrims to the Holy Land.' Timberlake wrote the ' Travel's of Two English Pilgrims to Jerusalem, Gaza; &e.
The Mohammedans have also their pilgrimages. According to a precept of the Koran, every Mussulnian who possibly can, ought once in his life to visit the tomb of the prophet at Mecca and the Holy Kaaba. [Moriammen, in Rion. Div.] The ceremonies performed by
I the pilgrims at Mecca are minutely described by Major Burton in his 'Pilgrimage to El Medinah and Mecca.' There are also sanctuaries for the Mohammedans of the sect of Ali at Mushed in Khorasan, and loom in Irak Ajemi, which contains the tomb of Fatima, the sister of Luau Reza, which are visited yearly by numbers of Persian pilgrim.
The Hindus likewise have their places of pilgrimage, the most celebrated of which is that of Juggernaut or Jagathnatha, on the coast of Orissa in Coromandel, where extensive buildings are allotted for the idol and his priests. The statue of the idol is brought forth at certain periods, and mounted upon an enormous car sixty feet high, which is dragged along by the devout multitude amidst crowds of pilgrims; who resort thither from every part of Hindustan. The procession is attended by dancing girls and dissolute young men, who perform acts of obscenity, while, until the practice was discountenanced by the English authorities, fanatics threw themselves under the wheels of the car to be crushed to death. The whole scene, of which Buchanan, Laurie, and other writers give a full account, is a frightful com pound of superstition, cruelty, and lust.
The Japanese are said to have their pilgrimages to the temples of Moto or Xaca, of which accounts,,aro given by Thunbcrg and other travellers. 4...