We passed out by the Damascus gate, so called from the circumstance that the great road from Damascus enters the city here; and soon after leaving it, turned to our right to examine a huge cavern that stood yawning upon us. It is called the Cave of Jeremiah, from a tradition that he made it his residence; it is above 100 feet deep, by seventy in width and thirty in height, and is a gloomy, desolate place, such as we may suppose would have been chosen by the author of the Lamentations; but I presume there is no other authority for its name. We were now on the hill Bezetha, where stood the Neopolis, or New City, inclosed by Agrippa’s wall. The hill is still marked with tolerable distinctness, though it is in no place very high. It is ridge shaped, declining gently towards the east and west, and ascending gradually towards the north. Passing on, we reached, in a short time, a square pit with smooth perpendicular sides, about 100 feet on each side and fifteen in depth, cut in the solid rock, and resembling a quarry, which it may have originally been. An inclined plane at the north-eastern angle leads to the bottom; and having descended by this, we had opposite to us, on the south, a portico about twenty-five feet long by ten in depth, cut out of the solid rock; this is surmounted by an entablature, enriched with flowing sculpture of plants and fruits, in bold relief, and of very superior execution. At the eastern end of this portico was a hole, formerly a door-way of easy passage, but now so filled up that we could enter only by prostrating ourselves flat on the ground, and pushing ourselves forward by the feet. Having entered in this manner, we found that we were in a room about twenty feet square, cut entirely out of the solid rock. It appears to have served as a vestibule to other chambers, of which there are six in number, each with one or more receptacles for the dead. These consist of troughs cut out of the native rock, not sunk in the floor as is generally the case in the ancient sepulchres about this city, but on its level; fragments of the covers of one or two were scattered about the rooms; these were enriched with flowing sculpture, very well executed in strong relief; the coffins or sarcophagi were in other respects entirely plain.