The Pool of Hezekiah is just within the Yâffa Gate, surrounded with dwellings, and is the oldest fountain in the Holy City. Adjoining it are the Greek Convent, the residence of the Protestant Bishop of Jerusalem, the Monastery of the Copts, and the Mediterranean Hotel. Measuring 250 feet long, 150 wide, and eighteen deep, it is capable of holding water enough to supply half of the city. The bottom is formed of the native rock, leveled and coated with cement, and its sides are walled with solid masonry similarly covered. Though designed to supply the citizens with drinking-water, it is now a Moslem bath, called Berket el-Hammân, and usually contains six feet of water. In laying the foundation for the Coptic Convent, the builder discovered an ancient wall, two feet thick, constructed of large hewn stones, located fifty-seven feet from the north wall of the reservoir, and running parallel to it, proving that the pool is less in dimensions than when first made, and also attesting its great antiquity. This pool is among the unquestionable landmarks of the city, and the allusions to it in the Bible are numerous and explicit. Of Hezekiah it is said, “He made a pool and a conduit, and brought water into the city;”[172] and that “he stopped the upper water-course of Gihon, and brought it straight down to the west side of the city of David.”[173] Threatened by the fierce Sennacherib, whose powerful army was marching against his capital, “Hezekiah took counsel with his princes and his mighty men to stop the water of the fountains which were without the city, and they did help him. So there was gathered much people together, who stopped all the fountains, and the brook that ran through the midst of the land, saying, Why should the kings of Assyria come and find much water?”[174] To deprive his enemies of water, and, at the same time, provide a supply for his own subjects, he sealed the fountains outside of the city, and, by constructing subterranean channels, conducted the water into large tanks within the walls, among which is the pool that bears his name. So secretly was the work accomplished, that the fountain of the Gihon remains a secret with the dead to this day, awaiting the skill and patience of the explorer to uncover its hidden waters, and trace its buried channels to their fountain-head. Illustration: POOL OF HEZEKIAH.