"Intimately connected with the water supply is the drainage of the city, of which it is hardly too much to say that there is none. Those drains which exist are little more than cess-pits, and, except after heavy rain, there is no discharge from the mouth of the present main. Few cities have more facilities for good drainage than Jerusalem, and it seems formerly to have been as well managed as the water supply, the mouth of the main being in the valley of the Kedron, where the sewage was probably used as manure for the gardens. This old drain is still perfect for more than 700 feet, and might be made use of in any system of drainage. The great difficulty in the way of any improvement is the enormous quantity of sewage which is now collected in the rubbish beneath the town, and which, if opened or disturbed, would probably give rise to an epidemic."

The survey was completed and plans were published in 1866, being drawn on the same scale and with the same accuracy as cadastral or parish plans of England. The interest awakened by the survey and the indications of the certainty of the discovery of ancient works if sufficient excavations were undertaken, led to the institution of a formal attempt to excavate the mass of rubbish gathered during the past ages. For that purpose a working party, under the command of Captain Warren, reached Jerusalem in February, 1867. Such a work could only be carried on under great difficulties. Apart from the inherent difficulties in the work itself, the explorers had to contend both with the jealous and obstinate opposition, and also with the superstitions, of the people. For unhallowed hands to touch a grave is to the Moslem a bitter desecration. Nor could they see the use of all this trouble. It was perfectly absurd for us to come and dig about Jerusalem when their traditions gave every information. The military Pasha, for instance, could explain, and did, to his own satisfaction certainly, explain the whole structure of the noble sanctuary, the first and chief object which the party wished to examine. The scientific value of his explanation, however, may be tested by his concluding statement, for he wound up with the interesting fact, "that the sacred rock, the Sakhra, lies on the top leaves of a palm tree, from the roots of which spring all the rivers of the earth, and that the attempt of a Frank to pry into such matters could only be attended by some dire calamity befalling the country." Evidently no small amount of tact, judgment, and decision was required to deal with people of whom this Pasha was a fair specimen, and these qualifications Captain Warren possessed in no slight degree. The Governor of Jerusalem had, on their arrival, given them permission to dig except actually in the interior of the Sanctuary; but after a few weeks, and during Captain Warren's absence, he was replaced, and his successor immediately tried to stop the works. He did actually stop those at the Damascus Gate, and gave an order that no digging was to be allowed nearer than forty feet to any of the city walls or sanctuary. As fast, however, as they were stopped at one place they began at another, in hopes of wearing off his excessive zeal in time, but it soon became evident that he was a very different stamp of man to the previous Governor, and that the work appeared to offend

him. As a fair specimen of the annoying difficulties put in their way by the characteristics of the people with whom they had to work, the following humorous account will be read with interest. The annoyances may seem to us to be petty, and we cannot but smile as we read the narrative of them, but they were none the less real and hard to bear.

"I was anxious to make an examination of the mosque at Hebron, and after some little demur, his Excellency promised to write a letter, giving me authority to enter every part of the mosque, and accordingly we set out on the 24th May, 1867, accompanied by a lieutenant and four Zaptis. On arrival at Hebron, I sent word to the Modir of our object, and he at once asked me to join him at a dinner out in a vineyard, where some friends were to be present. The feast consisted chiefly of a sheep roasted whole, and would have been pleasant enough had not I been in the seat of honour, and plagued by the Modir and Judge wishing to stuff little tit-bits of fat, plucked out with their fingers, down my unwilling throat. Although we were, with three exceptions, all Moslems, yet I found, to my astonishment, that I was expected to bring wine, and still more so that one of the Moslems intended to drink it. It seemed rather a strong measure in a city considered to be one of the most fanatical; but then the man, I suppose, made the matter easy by singing a little hymn before each gulp, thus turning the wine into water, or otherwise altering its condition by acting as a charm. This occurred at noon, and in the evening, the Modir coming to dine with me, I felt something averse to offering him anything but water. He, however, very soon asked if I had any peppermintwater, as his stomach was sick. I had none; so he wanted something strong, and brandy would just suit him. He shortly made a large hole in the bottle, and talked continuously about what he would show me in the mosque; asked how many days we would require to be in it photographing, and whether we would give him copies of the tombs, &c. Everything appeared to be most easy. I was very anxious to get rid of him, as I had an attack of fever on me, and did not enjoy his company. At last I felt sure he would have to be carried off if he remained much longer, and told his Zaptis to lead him away, and he was eased along between two, with a third behind to help if necessary. Next day, in the morning, I went with my Zaptis to the serai to present the letter. I found the streets lined with soldiers, and everything got ready for our visit to the mosque, but on reading the letter, the Modir's assurance at once appeared to leave him, and he became very serious. We went off in state to the mosque, and entering at the south-west gate, went up as far as visitors are allowed to go, and then the Modir began to linger, and on turning the corner I saw before us a closed door. He now began to make apologies that it could not be opened to-day, &c., but finding that they were not taken in, he said we must go round by the other door; so we entered at the north-west entrance, and on our right I saw an iron door on the level of the street, which I believe would lead into the cave of Machpelah; this they said had not been opened for six hundred years. On getting to the top of the steps we were again stopped by a closed door, and

the key was not forthcoming. I refused to go away, and eventually the Judge was sent for, who read the letter attentively, and said that it was so written as to put all the responsibility of showing the mosque upon the Modir, so that if the people made any row about it, the Modir would be in fault. This I afterwards found to be the case, and after considerable delay it was arranged that I should be taken round the mosque, and be allowed to look in at the tombs of Abraham, &c., but not to go in. I had therefore but the small satisfaction of looking in through a hole in the door, but could go no further. My impression is that the backshish offered would have prevailed had I then had Jerias for a dragoman, but at this time I had a very inferior style of man, having only arrived in Jerusalem after the season had commenced. Had I also been free from fever, I might have gained entrance by sitting down at the door for several hours, and refusing to go unless I was allowed inside or was dragged away by violence; but I was unable to continue at the work more than five hours.'

Of course, on leaving Hebron, he complained, but to no use. He carried his complaint to the Pasha directly. The lieutenant of Zaptis was called in, and, being warned by the Pasha to tell the truth, fell down on his knees, and swore that Captain Warren had been taken everywhere; and when plans were produced, and places pointed out which he had not been shown, still the oath was ready. You were taken everywhere, and on the spot expressed yourself as being perfectly satisfied.' And notwithstanding the captain made every effort to extend the investigation, it was useless. The Pacha only said he was quite sure he had seen the mosque, and if he wished to see it a second time, he must get a special letter from the Porte.

"I have omitted to say," says Captain Warren, " that the Mɔdir of Hebron, after drinking so much brandy in my tent, sent to me a message the morning I left his city to ask me if I would let him have a bottle of the vinegar he had found so good the other evening. I thought it might have been called by some more pleasant name, and sent back word that I was sorry I had not a full bottle, and enclosed half a bottle of real vinegar.'

The plan of mining adopted in the excavations was that ordinarily used in military mining. It was a work often of very considerable danger, and many were the lucky escapes the enterprising party had. They were frequently subject to being blown up by the loose shingle, which in an instant would destroy their galleries; to being smashed by the large pieces of masonry which lay huddled together above them, loosely lying one over the other, and ready to collapse at the slightest movement beneath them; or else to have their skulls stove in by the stones and iron bars which the fellahin, in their anxiety to be smart, occasionally allowed to fall back on them from the mouth of the shafts.

As no doubt many readers in England will be as ignorant of the shafts as were visitors to them, who frequently asked whether they could not walk down them without giving the explorers the trouble to go with them, a description is necessary. "They were simply square pits sunk in the ground, from fifty to one hundred feet in

depth, and sheeted round with wood, to keep the earth from falling in. Had the soil been firm and natural, there would have been no great difficulty about this; but we were working in the debris of ancient cities, where the shingle is found to run like water, and the great masses of cut stone will crunch up a mining case in a trice. "This débris is difficult to describe. On the rock, pretty nearly all over the city, there is found from two to four feet of a very firm, rich mould, filled with potsherds and the remains of lamps for burning fat. These are the oldest lamps found; but yet, strange to say, they are very nearly similar to the fat-lamps used in the present day about the country among the natives. So much for Eastern custom.

"Above this clay mould are successive layers of stone chippings, not long chips, but cubical or nearly hemispherical, and we have generally termed it shingle. Between these are broken stones of two to six inches cube, or great lumps of broken, cut stone, and sometimes, by good luck, a layer of fat earth, about one to three feet thick. In the city, and along the Tyropcon Valley within the walls, the water percolating through has deposited enough mud to prevent the shingle being altogether without cohesion, and it would generally stand while we put in our frames; but outside, and especially on the east side of the Kedron Valley, it is found altogether without a particle of earth, in layers, sometimes twenty feet deep; and here work was most dangerous, and if it were not for the rare presence here and there of a layer of fat earth, under whose protection we ventured to burrow, we could never have reached the wall of the north-east angle."

Further to illustrate their work and to show the dangers the mining processes involved, read this account of a very ticklish job. "One of the most ticklish pieces of work we had was in sinking a shaft down alongside the corner of an old wall; when, after passing its foundations, we sunk thirty feet and, coming on rock, drove galleries in two directions. We then commenced a third, which appeared to get on all right, and the workmen were allowed to go on with an occasional inspection. I was summoned down urgently one morning to the place, and on descending found that our shaft had no earth on two of its sides, from the rock upwards to the foundations of the corner, which were sticking out over a great void quite as large as the shaft itself. The soil we were working through had been very wet on this side (there had been some old shaft I suppose), and the stuff had gradually all come down in the shape of mud into the gallery the men were working in without being observed by them, and had been carried up. It was of vital importance to our work that there should be no subsidence of any old wall, and so the only thing to be done was to fill the place up as fast as we could. Accordingly the fellahin were bundled out, and Sergeant Birtles and I proceeded to tamp up the branch galleries, while every thud of earth let down to us shook small pieces from the foundation, which rattled over our heads with ominous noise. But as long as we were in these galleries we were comparatively safe, for had the smash come we should probably have been only shut in, and might have starved on till we were dug out; but

when they were tamped up, and we were in the shaft itself, it was a very ugly job, for we had to break open the side of the shaft and throw earth and stones into the cavity, while each basketful thrown in, though helping to fill it up, made the trembling foundations more and more unsafe; and all the time, through the opening we had made, stones and rubbish came flying in upon us from above, taking away our breath, blowing out the light, and giving us an idea how something larger would come down. We were battling against time; gradually we found ourselves mounting up the thirty feet until after five hours of it we were able safely to underpin the old wall, and feel that we had once more stolen a march upon accidents."

Of the extent of work done to obtain the results that have yet been reached it is impossible here to speak. Evidently the work has been done con amore. The captain had with him a thoroughly efficient staff of workers, and very pleasant it is to read the terms in which he speaks of them, especially of Sergeant Birtles. You are made to feel that the leader was as dependent upon the followers as the followers were upon the leader. In fact, the gallant captain says more than once that but for the perfect confidence he felt in his subordinates and the thoroughness with which they entered into his views and did their best to further them he would have been obliged to withdraw altogether, and one is glad to see the labours of subordinates so candidly and cordially acknowledged. Of the results of the explorations we cannot do better than give Dean Stanley's epitome of what has been attained by them :

"1. The interesting question of the supposed spring inside the walls of Jerusalem, and under the Temple courts, has been, for the first time, followed to the bottom; and the result appears to be that whilst there is no actual spring within the walls, the whole mount is so honeycombed with cisterns as to give ample materials for the conjecture of Tacitus, and for the imagery of Scripture, whilst at the same time it takes away from them the foundation of exact and literal truth.

"2. The course of the ancient walls, on which hangs the muchdisputed question of the possible authenticity of the Holy Sepulchre, still remains unsolved; or, rather, so much additional progress has been made towards its solution that, as far as the excavations have as yet gone, they disparage rather than confirm the alleged proof that the walls excluded the site from their compass, and, therefore, admitted of its genuineness.

"3. The controversy respecting the Temple area is still sub judice; but whatever materials can be furnished are set forth by Captain Warren, in the most impartial and unostentatious form.

"4. The external aspect of the ancient Jerusalem is in two or three points brought out with new force. There are some proofs discovered of the form of the ancient houses. There is also the astounding revelation of the immense height of the Temple walls above the Kedron Valley.

"5. Some approximation to the date of the walls of the Temple has been made by the discovery of the supposed Phoenician characters marked in red paint on the surface.