submitted to the ordeal, and thus established her innocence. Hence the spring was long known as the Fountain of Accused Women. Dr Robinson imagined that this was the true Bethesda, because the water is considered to possess healing virtue, and every day crowds of men and women, afflicted with rheumatism and other maladies, descend the steps and wait for the moving of the waters. The flow is intermittent—due, it is supposed, to a natural syphon—and the waters rise suddenly, immersing the folks, fully clothed, nearly up to the neck.
The water wells up in the cave, and when it has attained a height of 4 feet 7 inches runs away through a passage near the back, into a small tunnel, and goes to supply the Pool of Siloam.
About 100 yards north-east of St Stephen's Gate is the Pool of My Lady Mary, outside the walls.
Within the city, on your left as you enter by St Stephen's Gate, is the Birket Israil, Pool of Israel, the traditional Pool of Bethesda (but only so since the twelfth century). It is now a receptacle for ashes and rubbish of all kinds; but it has at some time been used for water, for Warren found the bottom lined with concrete 16 inches thick.
Sometimes the Virgin's Fountain is spoken of as the only spring of living water at Jerusalem, but it is possible, as suggested by Warren, that another existed at the Hammam esh-Shefa, or Bath of Healing, in the Tyropœon. The entrance to the fountain is by a narrow opening in the roof of a house behind the bath.
We need only mention further the Pool of Hezekiah, a large reservoir which lies in the centre of a group of buildings, in the angle made by the north side of David Street and the west side of Christian Street. It is stated that a subterranean conduit from the Birket el Mamilla passes underneath the city wall near the Jaffa Gate, and supplies both the Pool of Hezekiah and the cisterns of the citadel.
