the city was unfit to breathe. The open streets were bad enough, but underground Jerusalem was a perfect charnelhouse. To stay the progress of disease, the traps and vents were stopped. Shafts leading into tanks were closed, and openings into secret passages walled up. Old cisterns were in time forgotten, and the great gallery leading underground from the citadel on Zion to the Temple on Moriah was partly lost. I say partly lost, because a legend long survived among the natives that David Street above ground was so named from the fact that it ran over and along a subterranean passage which David had caused to be made from his great tower on Zion to that part of the Temple which is now entered by the Gate of the Chain."

Captain Wilson in his explorations brought to light this secret passage. One day, while burrowing underground in front of this gateway, outside the Haram, he came upon a pool of water, named by the Arabs ElBurak, from the neighbouring mosque of that name. On lighting a magnesium wire, Wilson found himself standing under the roof of the arch previously seen by Tobler, and noticed that it was formed of massive stones fixed without mortar, like the blocks of David's Tower.

The arch, on measurement, was found to be fortythree feet wide, with a span of forty-two feet, while the stones composing it measure from seven to thirteen feet in length. It springs from the Temple wall, like Robinson's Arch, at a point six hundred feet north of the southwest angle. Captain Wilson says that, "Whatever date

is given to the masonry of the Wailing Place must be ascribed to this."

Captain Warren subsequently pursuing investigations at this spot, sank a shaft alongside the Sanctuary wall, beneath the southern end of Wilson's Arch, and at a lower depth of twenty-four feet he came upon the fallen voussoirs of a more ancient arch. At a depth of fiftyone feet below the spring of the arch he reached the foundation-stones of the Haram Wall, and found them, as in other places, laid upon the native rock. Captain Warren is of opinion that when the first wall of the Temple Court was built, in the days of King Solomon, the Valley of the Tyropoon was empty, and the stupendous western wall was exposed to view throughout its whole height, measuring, as it did, eighty-four feet from the rock to the level of the pavement of the Outer Court, and above this the cloister's wall rising high above the Court. Thus the depth of the valley and the great height of the wall seems to confirm Josephus' description of the masonry-a description hitherto thought strangely exaggerated. Further explorations brought to light an extensive series of arched vaults adjoining Wilson's Arch, and running westwards one hundred and fifty feet, evidently connected with the viaduct or causeway which in ancient times crossed the valley at this place.

Beyond the arches a subterranean tunnel twelve feet wide was found, running westwards from the Temple precincts in the direction of the citadel and the Jaffa

Gate. The explorers followed it for about a hundred yards, but could not get farther. Probably by this secret way troops were hurried down into the Temple area from the military barracks on Mount Zion, in times of emergency.

Fifty feet below the causeway Captain Warren found an old city gate, and near to it an ancient building, which, from certain symbolical marks found upon the stones, he named the Masonic Hall. This building has been a very handsome structure in its day, built as it is of large well-cut stones with marginal drafts, with carved double doors, and at the angles inside pilasters surmounted by carved Ionic capitals. The causeway spanning the valley is thought by Warren to date from the days of the Maccabees, while the Masonic Hall is probably of the time of the Kings of Judah.

The west wall of the Haram north of the Gate of the Chain is almost entirely enclosed by buildings, so that little or nothing has been done here in the way of excavation by the Palestine Exploration Fund. There are several entrances to the Sanctuary, which come in the following order. Eighty yards north of Wilson's Arch is the Bab el-Matera, or Gate of the Bath, named from its proximity to a well called Hamman es-Shefa, an intermittent spring, said by some to have fed the Pool of Bethesda.

A very old tradition identifies the gate Bab al-Kattanin, or Gate of the Cotton Merchants, with the Beautiful Gate of the Temple, where Peter and John healed the

impotent man. Hence Christians are permitted more freely to approach this entrance than any other leading into the sacred enclosure. The next gate is the Bab elHadid, the Iron Gate, situated fifty yards north of the Cotton Gate, and apparently of a late date. The Bab el-Nazir, or Gate of the Inspector, is two hundred and fifty feet farther north. It is near to the Serai, the resience of the Pasha, and the State prison of Jerusalem.

The survey of the exterior western wall of the Haram Area, from the Cotton Gate southwards to the southwest angle, a distance of six hundred feet, shows that the foundations are of great antiquity. The masonry underground runs in courses, as in the southern wall, and in the eastern wall as far north as the Golden Gateway; and this seems to indicate that the whole of that work constituted one building, probably dating from the era of the Jewish kings.

Stones with marginal drafts and projecting faces are found underground at the south-west angle; but the smooth-faced masonry, similar to that found at the south-east angle, occurs for the most part in the substructures of the western wall as far north as the Cotton Gate.

iv. The North Wall of the Haram Area.

At the north-west angle stands a pile of building used as a barrack. The building stands on a rock twenty feet higher than the Haram Area, and covers the Haram wall for a distance of three hundred and seventy

feet, extending eastwards from the north-west angle. On the eastern side of the barrack is a small entrance, known as the Gate of the Secretary, and one hundred and fifty feet farther east is a larger entrance, called Bab el-Hitta, the intervening space being covered with old houses. It is generally thought that on this rock, now covered by the military barrack, stood the ancient Jewish fort of Baris, which was situated at the north-west angle of the Temple precincts. In 37 B.C. Herod the Idumæan captured the city of Jerusalem, after a gallant defence made by the inhabitants. The Jews, driven from place to place, took refuge in the Baris, and obstinately defended themselves until overpowered by superior numbers. Herod, on becoming King of the Jews, rebuilt the Temple, and re-fortified Baris, as it commanded the Temple precincts. He caused the Castle to be flanked externally with strong turrets, and named the fortress Antonia, after his friend and patron Antony.

A short distance east of the Bab el-Hitta is a large excavation, extending eastwards nearly the whole length of the Haram wall. This excavation, called Birket Israil, or Pool of Israel, is a huge fosse or tank, three hundred and sixty feet long, one hundred and thirty feet broad, and eighty feet deep. The sides and bottom are covered with a thick coating of cement, which indicates that it has been used as a reservoir. Roman Catholic tradition and many modern travellers regard this reservoir as the Pool of Bethesda, described as being by the Sheep Market, where infirm people lay waiting for the