Rising in the form of a truncated cone 400 feet from the crest of a round isolated ridge, it resembles, when viewed from the plain below, some grand catafalco. The ascent is up a circular path, and the view from the summit imposing. Through openings in the cliffs the Dead Sea is seen to the east; two miles to the southwest is the small town of Tekoa, the home of the wise woman whom Joab called to plead before David in behalf of Solomon,[334] and the birthplace of the Prophet Amos;[335] and to the northwest are the white walls and domes of Bethlehem. At its northern base is a reservoir 200 feet square, from the centre of which rises a mound of earth like an island in a lake, and near it are traces of the aqueduct, which conveyed the water from a great distance. The summit is an area 750 feet in circumference, surrounded by a ruined wall of large hewn stones, with a massive square tower at each angle. Within this inclosure are many vaults, and the walls of what appears to have been an amphitheatre. The latter is in the form of a three-quarter circle, and on the south side are three large blocks of limestone, so arranged as to suggest the idea that they were the royal seats from which Herod and his courtiers beheld the dramatic and equestrian feats so pleasing to Oriental kings. To the northwest of this structure is a large vault, which I succeeded in entering by creeping through a narrow opening. The roof is a beautiful raised dome, with a circular keystone in the centre, and on the sides are doors leading to other chambers. On the very summit of the hill is the Tomb of Herod. It is a vaulted chamber of hewn limestone, fifteen feet long, twelve wide, and ten deep. Dying at Jericho, the royal monster was here interred, amid the scene of his crimes and folly. Profound silence now reigns where once the noise of revelry was heard, and, unhonored and unlamented, the dust of the proud Idumean is trodden by the foot of the transient traveler and the wild Arabs of Engedi, while in sight of his sepulchre the domes and towers of the city in which he sought to slay the “young child” rise up toward the throne of the world’s Redeemer as the monuments of the birthplace of Him who “liveth for evermore.” One of the wildest, roughest roads in Palestine leads from Herodium to the Cave of Adullam, where David and his men were secreted when pursued by Saul, and where “every one that was in distress, and every one that was in debt, and every one that was discontented, gathered themselves unto him, and he became a captain over them, and there were with him about four hundred men.”[336] From this cave his three “mighty men” broke through the lines of the Philistines who garrisoned Bethlehem, and, drawing water from the well that David loved so much, and which still exists, brought it in triumph to their chief;[337] and from here he took his parents across the Jordan, to place them in the care of his kinsmen of Moab.[338]