CHAP. XI.

SILOAM.

If we pass down the steep of Mount Zion on its eastern side, we arrive at a slight "wady," or valley, passing from the south-west corner of Moriah down into the channel of the Kedron, very near the place where it is joined by the valley of Hinnom; and this wady is the ancient Tyropœon, or valley of the cheesemongers, once much larger and better defined, but now scarcely perceptible in Jerusalem itself, where it was filled. up by the Asmonœans, as Josephus tells us (Wars, v. 4.). Just where this valley is lost in

the

greater one of the Kedron, is the reservoir and spring of water which is called the pool of Siloam.

This is undoubtedly the Siloam of Scripture' and of Josephus, and its sequestered position, though destitute of the beauties of verdure, gives it a charm superior to any other fountain round Jerusalem. On the one side is the declivity of

* See Dr. Robinson, vol. i. p. 493.

Zion, and on the other the bluff rock of Ophel, through whose base a channel has been cut for cool Siloam's waters.*

An oblong tank, receiving and discharging a not very copious stream, with ruined sides, worn steps down to the water, and a few broken columns, without capitals on one side, rising from the bottom of the pool, these are the materials which now compose Siloam's fount. Women and children with their water-pots, and fellaheen (Arabs of the field) filling their quat coarse waterskins, scarcely disturb your thoughts, though not unfrequently they break the solitude of that little glen; for the dark-skinned, blackhaired Arab, with his rough white shirt, his sinewy limbs, his bright eyes, and his scarlet turban, and the white flowing head-dress, loose drapery, and majestic gait of the women, impart a living character to the scene, not inconsistent with its old associations. 'Twas to this pool our Lord sent that poor blind man whose cure we read of in the Gospel (John, ix. 7.); and as it is probable that Siloam was close to, if not

*The indefatigable Robinson scrambled through this channel, a work of great difficulty, and found that it communicated with the fountain to the north-east, called the fountain of the Virgin.

within the wall of ancient Jerusalem*, no doubt its margin was trodden by our Lord and his disciples.

Not many yards below the spot where the valleys of Jehoshaphat and Hinnom join, in the channel of the Kedron, is another fountain, consisting of a deep well, with a domed covering of Saracenic times, supplied by a slow spring of living water. This is a very important reservoir for Jerusalem, although the quantity of water which daily collects is not enough for half the day, when it is left again to accumulate. It now bears the name among the natives of the "Well of Job," but it is undoubtedly the "En-rogel" of Scripture, the border of the tribes of Judah and Benjamin (Joshua, xv. 7, 8. ; xviii. 16, 17.), and is the scene of the attempt of Adonijah to elevate himself, instead of Solomon, to the throne of his father David (1 Kings, i. 9.). Here we find a coincidence illustrative of the truth of the Scripture narrative, for when Solomon was taken by Zadok, Nathan, and Benaiah, with a stately and sacerdotal train, down to Gihon †, the sound of

* If Mr. Williams's theory of Siloam be esteemed correct, or most probable, then this pool was between two walls, which he supposes girdled this part of the city.

† It seems to have been a custom to anoint monarchs by

the trumpets and the shouting of the people at his proclamation reached the ears of Adonijah and his guests at En-rogel, and struck terror into their hearts. And the distance is just such as by this account we might expect, near enough to hear the noise, but not so close at hand as to convey at once its meaning. * All the way from this well up the valley of Jehoshaphat, until you have passed the village of Siloam, are the best cultivated gardens I saw about Jerusalem, terraced and taken care of. A fine old mulberrytree, hedged in by stones, has given rise to all sorts of legends, changed and abandoned every few years. In the gardens themselves are fine fig-trees, olives, pomegranates now (in April) scarlet with blossom, and mulberries, while on the ground are lettuces, artichokes, gourds, and many vegetables for the use of the city.

pass

As we are without the city walls, we will up the valley of Jehoshaphat by the rugged road near the channel of the Kedron, the steeps of Zion, and then of Moriah, rising inaccessibly on the left, and pouring their heaps of pulverised rubbish quite down to the very bottom of the

the side of water; so this, I suppose, was the pool of Gihon, before it had been stopped by Hezekiah.

* Mr. Williams's Gihon is about the same distance from En-rogel.

dry watercourse. On our right rises first the lofty hill called the Mount of Offence by the Christians, on the overhanging side of which is the naked, half-excavated village of Siloam, where the savage men and children scowl upon the Frank passer-by like sea-birds perched upon a rock.

After passing the village, the hill becomes less lofty until we get round the south-western angle of Moriah, where, in the side of a rising rock on our right, we see the three ancient tombs given respectively to Absalom, St. James, and Zacharias by the believers in legendary Jerusalem, for no other reason than, because they did not like to confess the truth, that nobody knows any thing whatever about them. Surrounded by a profusion of scattered stones, which cover the whole side of the mountain from Siloam to the road from Jerusalem to Bethany, stones inscribed with Hebrew characters (some as old as 400 years), the memorials of those Jews who come from all parts of the wide world to lay their bones here in this valley of Jehoshaphat, we might speculate at great length on the real age of these three remarkable structures. Had they been in Italy, I should at once have concluded them to be of Hadrian's time, the massive semi-Egyptian charac