ABSTRACT
In 1834, when the Victorian traveler and aristocrat Robert Curzon described the high point of his journey to Palestine, he drew on a distinctly Protestant discourse of the sublime (Lock 2003: 112; cf. Coleman 2002):
As our train of horses surmounted each succeeding eminence, every one was eager who should be the fi rst who should catch a glimpse of the Holy City . . . It is not easy to describe the sensations which fi ll the breast of a Christian when, after a long and toilsome journey, he fi rst beholds this, the most interesting and venerated spot upon the whole surface of the globe . . . Everyone was silent for a while, absorbed in the deepest contemplation. The object of our pilgrimage was accomplished, and I do not think that anything we saw afterwards during our stay in Jerusalem made a more profound impression than this fi rst distant view.
