d worthier reason. And too often we have been glad when it
was time to go home and be distressed no more about illustrious
localities.
Our pilgrims compress too much into one day. One can gorge sights to
repletion as well as sweetmeats. Since we breakfasted, this morning, we
have seen enough to have furnished us food for a year's reflection if we
could have seen the various objects in comfort and looked upon them
deliberately. We visited the pool of Hezekiah, where David saw Uriah's
wife coming from the bath and fell in love with her.
We went out of the city by the Jaffa gate, and of course were told many
things about its Tower of Hippicus.
We rode across the Valley of Hinnom, between two of the Pools of Gihon,
and by an aqueduct built by Solomon, which still conveys water to the
city. We ascended the Hill of Evil Counsel, where Judas received his
thirty pieces of silver, and we also lingered a moment under the tree a
venerable tradition says he hanged himself on.
We descended to the canon again, and then the guide began to give name
and history to every bank and boulder we came to: "This was the Field of
Blood; these cuttings in the rocks were shrines and temples of Moloch;
here they sacrificed children; yonder is the Zion Gate; the Tyropean
Valley, the Hill of Ophel; here is the junction of the Valley of
Jehoshaphat--on your right is the Well of Job." We turned up
Jehoshaphat. The recital went on. "This is the Mount of Olives; this is
the Hill of Offense; the nest of huts is the Village of Siloam; here,
yonder, every where, is the King's Garden; under this great tree
Zacharias, the high priest, was murdered; yonder is Mount Moriah and the
Temple wall; the tomb of Absalom; the tomb of St. James; the tomb of
Zacharias; beyond, are the Garden of Gethsemane and the tomb of the
Virgin Mary; here is the Pool of Siloam, and----"
We said we would dismount, and quench our thirst, and rest. We were
burning up with the heat. We were failing under the accumulated fatigue
of days and days of ceaseless marching. All were willing.
The Pool is a deep, walled ditch, through which a clear stream of water
runs, that comes from under Jerusalem somewhere, and passing through the
Fountain of the Virgin, or being supplied from it, reaches this place by
way of a tunnel of heavy masonry. The famous pool looked exactly as it
looked in Solomon's time, no doubt, and the same dusky, Oriental women,
came down in their old O
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