the Hill of Ophel, a few feet from the ridge, and almost certainly, some writers maintain, within the ancient walls. The object of the cuttings was to get a supply of water from within; and perhaps the piles of loose stones which were found in the long passage were intended to be thrown down the shaft if an enemy should attempt to ascend it. In the passage were found three glass lamps of curious construction, placed at intervals as if to light the way; and in the vaulted chamber a little pile of charcoal as if for cooking, one of these lamps, a cooking dish glazed inside, for heating food, and a jar for water. Evidently the place had been used as a refuge.
A similar arrangement for closing the entrance to a spring, and using a secret passage from the hill above, has lately been discovered at El Jib (ancient Gibeon),[1] and only a few years ago at 'Amman (Rabbath Ammon). In connection with the latter, Conder quotes Polybius to the effect that when Antiochus the Great besieged the forces of Ptolemy Philopater, at Amman, in 218 B.C., the garrison held out until a prisoner revealed a secret communication with a water supply outside the walls.
Difficulties of the Work.—It is impossible to read the detailed accounts of Warren's work at Jerusalem without feeling an admiration for the courage and patience of the explorers, and without being sometimes amused at the ludicrous predicaments into which they occasionally got. They have been jammed in aqueducts, wedged in chasms, and walled up behind falling heaps of debris. They have had to go down ladders too short for reascending, to squeeze down apertures that have taken the skin off the shoulders, and have been half drowned in cisterns at the bottom. In the Tyropœon the soil is so soaked with sewage that it poisons the flesh wherever it touches a scratch. In the Kedron Valley the soil is so loose that it rushes into the
- ↑ "Quarterly Statement," Jan. 1890.
