supplies it with water, and is about four hundred and eighty feet long. The second is about six hundred, and the third about six hundred and sixty feet in length; the breadth of all three being nearly the same, about two hundred and seventy feet. They are capable of containing a great quantity of water, which they finally discharge into a small acqueduct that conveys it to Jerusalem. This acqueduct is built on a foundation of stone: the water runs through round earthen pipes, about ten inches in diameter, which are cased with two stones hewn out, so as to enclose them, and these are covered over with rough stones, well cemented together. The whole is so sunk in the ground, on the side of the hill round which it is carried, that in many places nothing is to be seen of it.

The fountain which partly supplies the pools, is at the distance of about one hundred and forty paces from them. The descent to the spring is by steps leading into a vaulted room forty-five feet in length, and twenty-four in breadth; adjoining it is a room somewhat less. Both are covered with handsome stone arches of high antiquity. The water rises in three or four different places, and is

conveyed into a kind of basin, from which it is carried by a large subterraneous passage into the Pools. This is supposed to be the fons signatus, or “sealed fountain," to which Solomon compares his bride. (See Sol. Song iv. 12.)

At a few hundred yards distance from it, to the northwest of the upper pool, is a large fortified Khan or caravansery, the windows of which look into an interior court. From the solidity of its construction, and its great capaciousness, it was evidently built at a time when the intercourse with the countries lying south of Jerusalem was much greater than what it is at present; for we did not see a chamber that bore the appearance of having been tenanted for a long time past. At the present day, the only important town in this direction, within the limits of Judæa, is Hebron, anciently called Arba and KirjathArba, about twenty-seven miles south-west from Jerusalem, one of the most ancient cities of the world. In the vicinity of Hebron Abraham abode, after he parted with Lot, (Gen. xiii. 18,) and bought a field with a cave, in which to bury his dead. (Gen. xxiii. 3-20.) Besides Abraham and Sarah, his son Isaac, his grandson Jacob, with their wives

Rebekah and Leah, and his great grandson, were severally interred here. (Gen. xxiii. 19; xxv. 10; xlix. 29-33; 1. 10-12.) A splendid church was erected over the graves of the patriarchs by the empress Helena; bnt it has long since been converted into a Turkish mosque, and none but a Mahommedan is admitted within its revered precincts. The pseudo Ali Bey, however, visited it in 1807, and has given a detailed account of the interior. The rooms which contain the tombs are covered with rich carpets; the entrance to them is guarded by iron gates, and wooden doors plated with silver, having bolts and padlocks of the same metal. More than a hundred persons are employed in the service of the temple. Hebron is now called El-Khalil, "the beloved," the name by which Abraham is known in the East. It contains about five thousand inhabitants, and has dependent upon it fifteen or sixteen smaller villages, amongst which several nomadic tribes of Arabs are seen living under tents, and at peace with the surrounding country.

Twenty miles south of Hebron was Beersheba, "the well of an oath, or the well of seven," because here Abraham made an alliance with Abimeleck,

king of Gerar, and gave him seven ewe-lambs in token of that covenant to which they had sworn. (Gen. xxi. 28.) Here was a Roman garrison in the time of Eusebius and Jerome. The limits of the Holy Land are often expressed in scripture by the terms "from Dan to Beersheba," the former being the northern, the latter the southern extremity of the land bordering on I dumæa, or Edom*.

We had wished to proceed at least as far as Hebron, but as our Bethlehemite guards were at variance with its inhabitants, it appeared to be a journey

* "Idumea, to which, from the rocky nature of its territory, later ages have given the name of Arabia Petræa, was the cradle of the primitive generations of mankind. There the sciences and arts were first cultivated ;—there great commercial enterprises were carried on with success, before the merchants of Tyre or Sidon had emerged from the rank of fishermen ;-there the true God was known and worshipped, and the creations of his hand were appreciated, and described in language that has not yet been rivalled, at a period when the Jews were in bondage, and idolatry and ignorance reigned in every other part of the peopled regions of the earth. But upon that once favoured land a malediction of the most awful description was pronounced; from the height of worldly proSperity it was doomed to fall into the most abject state of wretchedness and desolation,-of desolation from which it is never to revive." Laborde, Translator's Preface-.

fraught with some danger; we therefore returned to the convent in Bethlehem.

As the stay of strangers here is seldom protracted beyond a day or two, they are not provided with separate cells as at the other convents. The refectory is converted at night into a sleeping-room, mattresses being laid out on the divans which run along the walls. Here we slept.