merly been supposed to enter. I then observed a large opening entering the rock-hewn channel, just below the pool, which, though once a copious tributary, is now drj'. Being too much choked with tessene and rubbish to be penetrated far, I carefully noted its position and bearing, and, on searching for it above, soon identified it on the exterior, where it assumed an upward direc- tion towards the Temple, and, entering through a breach, traversed it for nearly a thousand feet, some- times erect, sometimes bending, sometimes inching my way snake-fashion, till at last I reached a point near the wall where I heard the donkeys tripjiing along over my head. I was satisfied, on subsequently locating our course above ground with the theodolite, that this canal derived its former supply of water, not from Moriah, but from Zion" {ibid. p. 523). Lieut. Warren, of the English party exploring Jerusalem, has more recently examined the water-passages from the Virgin's Fount, and found several outlets, all blocked up, however, with debris, except one which led up through the rock to the surface on the west. He is inclined to think that the supply of water came from the Temple rock {Jeru- salem Recovered, p. 194 sq.). Certain it is, at all events, that the water of both fountains is the same, though some travellers have pronounced the water of Siloam to be bad, and that of the Fountain of the Virgin good. It has a peculiar taste, sweetish and very slightly brack- ish, but not at all disagreeable. Late in the season, when the water is low, it is said to become more brack- ish and unpleasant. The most remarkable circumstance is the ebb and flow of the waters, which, although often mentioned as a characteristic of Siloam, must belong equally to both fountains. Dr. Robinson himself wit- nessed this phenomenon in the Fountain of the Virgin, where the water rose in five minutes one foot in the reservoir, and in another five minutes sank to its former level. The intervals and the extent of the flow and ebb in this and the fountain of Siloam vary with the season ; but the fact, though it has not yet been ac- counted for, is beyond dispute.
This conduit enters Siloam at the north-west angle ; or, rather, enters a small rock-cut chamber which forms the vestibule of Siloam, about five or six feet broad. To this you descend by a few rude steps, under which the
SILOAII
Ui
SILOAII
water pours itself into the main pool (Xdrrdlice of Mission to the Jtivs, i, 207;. Tliis pool is oUloiif;-; eigh- teen paces in length according to LatH {\'ia;/;/io id Santo Stpok-ro. A.l). 1C78), lil'ty leet according to Barclay, and titty-three accortling to Kobinson. It is eighteen feet broad and nineteen feet deep according to Kobin- son; but Barclay gives a more minute measurement: "fourteen and a half at the lower (eastern) end and seventeen at the upper; its western end side being somewhat bent. It is eighteen and a half in depth, but never lilkHl, tlie water either [lassing directly tliroiigh, or being maintained at a depth of three or four feet. This is eft'ected by leaving open or closing (with a few handfuls of weeds at the present day, but formerly by a tlood-gate) an aperture at the bottom. At a height of three or four feet from the bottom its dimensions be- come enlarged a few feet, and the water, attaining this level, falls through an aperture at its lower end into an tduct, subterranean at first, but soon appearing in a deep ditch under the perpendicular cliff of Uphel, and is re- ceived into a few small reservoirs and troughs" (Bar- clay, p. 524). Tliis large receptacle is faced with a wall of stone, now greatly out of repair. Several col- umns stand out of the side walls, extending from the top downward into the cistern, the design of which it is difficult to conjecture. The water passes out of this reservoir tlirough a channel cut in the rock, which is covered for a short distance; but subsequently it opens and discloses a lively copious stream, wliich is conducted into an enclosed garden planted with tig-trees. It is afterwards subdivided, and seems to be exhausted in irrigating a number of gardens occupied with Hg, apri- cot, olive, and other trees, and some flourishing legumes. 2. Coincidences with A ncient A ccounis, — The small basin at the west end, which we have described, is w'hat Some old travellers call " the fountain of Siloe" (F. Fa- bri, i, 420). "In front of this," Fabri goes on, "there is a bath surrounded by walls and buttresses, like a cloister, and the arches of these buttresses are supported by marble pillars," which pillars he affirms to be the remains of a monastery built above the pool. The pres- ent pool is a ruin, witli no moss or ivy to make it ro-
mantic; its sides falling in; its pillars broken; its stair a fragment; its walls giving way; the edge of every stone worn round or sharp by time ; in some parts mere debris; once Siloam, now, like the city wliich overhung it, a heap; tliough around its edges "wild flowers, and, among other plants, the caper-tree, grow luxuriantly" {.Xamilive of Mission, i, 207). The gray crumbling limestone of the stone (as well as of the surrounding rocks, which are almost verdureless) gives a poor and worn-out aspect to this venerable relic. The present pool is not the original buililing; the work of crusaders it may be; perhaps even improved by Saladin. whose affection for wells and pools led him to care for all these things; perhaps the work of later days. Yet the spot is the same. Above it rises the high rock, and beyond it the city wall; while eastward and southward the verdure of gardens relieves the gray monotony of the scene, and beyond these the Kedron vale, overshadowed by the third of the three heights of Olivet, '"the mount of corruption" (1 Kings x, 7 ; xxiii, 13), with the village of Silwan jutting out over its lower slope, and looking into the pool from which it takes its name and draws its water. This pool, which we may call the second, seems anciently to have poured its waters into a third, before it proceeded to water the royal gardens. This third is perhaps that which Josepluis calls '"Solomon's pool" {War, V, 4, 2), and which Nehemiah calls "the king's pool" (Neh. ii. 14) : for this must have been some- where about " the king's garden" (Josephus's iSaatXiKog TrapaStiffoc, A7it. vii, 14, 4); and we know that this was by "the wall of the pool of Siloah" (Neh. iii, 1.5). The Antonine Itinerary speaks of it in connection with Silou as " alia piscina grandis foras." It is now known as the Birket el-llamra, and may be perhaps some five times the size of Birket es-Silwan. Barclay speaks of it merely as a " depressed tig-yard ;" but one would like to see it cleared out.