Just outside of the north wall, and a little to the east of the Damascus gate, we enter through an iron-barred door into a great cavern, known as Solomon’s Quarry or the quarry out of which Solomon got the stones to build his Temple. With a strong body-guard, and a dozen or more burning tapers, we wander for hours and hours in this underground world, which in many respects rivals Mammoth Cave. It is co-extensive with the city above. A forest of natural columns support the ceiling, which in many places is exceedingly high. Here and there, we find huge blocks of detached stone, which were long ago dressed, but never removed from the quarry. They were probably dressed by Solomon’s workmen, but were never honored with a place in his splendid Temple. That this was at one time a quarry, is evident from the abundance of stone chips and fragments that everywhere abound. In this cave, it is claimed, the Masonic order was organized. It has no river of eyeless fish, as has the Kentucky Cave, but it boasts a never-failing spring of pure and sparkling water. Think of all this underneath the Holy City! O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, there is none like thee in all the earth! [Illustration: POOL OF SILOAM.] On the white ceiling above me, I wrote with the smoke of my candle, “God is love.” I sang, and the music went ringing and reverberating adown the long, winding labyrinths of rock as I sang: “Rock of Ages, cleft for me, Let me hide myself in Thee.” Leaving this cave, let us now go down south of the city. Just where the two ravines meet, we come to the Pool of Siloam. Here our Blessed Lord once spat upon the ground, made clay of the spittle, anointed a blind man’s eyes, and told him to wash in this Pool of Siloam. The man did wash his eyes, and at once received sight for blindness. The Pool is preserved to this day. Its length is fifty feet. It is fourteen feet wide at one end, and seventeen at the other, and has a depth of eighteen feet. It is walled up with rock. A flight of stone steps leads down into it from the southern end. Rev. Mr. El Kary, of Shechem, the only Baptist preacher in Palestine and Syria, was baptised in this Pool. It is now partially filled up with mud; still it contains a considerable quantity of water, and I go down into it and bathe my face. In the valley, below the Pool, is a large vegetable garden and olive orchard. Vegetation luxuriates in this rich valley, which is constantly supplied, by means of irrigation, with water from the Pool of Siloam.