ed in his leathern water bags will no longer endanger the
lives of the citizens, and the deadly perils of stagnant cistern water
have been to a large extent removed.

For its water Jerusalem used to rely mainly upon the winter rainfall
to fill its cisterns. Practically every house has its underground
reservoir, and it is estimated that if all were full they would
contain about 360,000,000 gallons. But many had fallen into disrepair
and most, if not the whole of them, required thorough cleansing. One
which was inspected by our sanitary department had not been emptied
for nineteen years. To supplement the cistern supply the Mosque of
Omar reservoir halved with Bethlehem the water which flowed from near
Solomon's Pools down an aqueduct constructed by Roman engineers under
Herod before the Saviour was born. This was not nearly sufficient, nor
was it so constant a supply as that provided by our Army engineers.
They went farther afield. They found a group of spring-heads in an
absolutely clean gathering ground on the hills yielding some 14,000
gallons an hour, and this water which was running to waste is lifted
to the top of a hill from which it flows by gravity through a long
pipe-line to Jerusalem, where a reservoir has been built on a high
point on the outskirts of the city. Supplies of this beautiful water
run direct to the hospitals, and at standpipes all over the city the
inhabitants take as much as they desire. The water consumption of the
people became ten times what it was in the previous year, and this
fact alone told how the boon was appreciated.

The scheme did not stop at putting up standpipes for those who fetched
the water. A portion of the contents of the cisterns was taken for
watering troop horses in the spring--troops were not allowed to drink
it. The water level of these cisterns became very low, and as they
got emptied the authorities arranged for refilling them on the one
condition that they were first thoroughly cleansed and put in order.
The British administration would not be parties to the perpetuation
of a system which permitted the fouling of good crystal water. A
householder had merely to apply to the Military Governor for water,
and a sanitary officer inspected the cistern, ordered it to be
cleansed, and saw that this was done; then the Department of Public
Health gave its certificate, and the engineers ran a pipe to the
cistern and filled it, no matter what its capacity. Two cisterns were
repl