We repaired the above-named corner of the conduit at present used, so that all the water might flow into the fountain of the Aksa, where it would have again been diminished before reaching the _Birket es-Sultan_, if we had not completely closed up the mouth of a very ancient conduit (3 feet in width and height), running northward and communicating with the lower chamber of the cistern below the _Kubbet es-Sakharah_, which was entirely cut in the rock, and covered with large slabs as far as the south staircase of the upper platform. The above remarks on the works in connexion with the conduit from Etham are sufficient for my present purpose, and I will now pass on to relate my discoveries in the different cisterns and conduits into which I descended. The water in the _Birket es-Sultan_ (Prince's Pool) was, at the time of my visit, a foot deep; the sides and vaulting, with the piers supporting it, have been hewn with great pains out of the rock. It is 32 feet in height. In the wall near the opening from the fountain are notches cut in the rock, obviously to be used as steps. There are two apertures in its west side, the one already mentioned as coming from the fountain, which almost touches the vaulting; the other, 4 feet lower down and blocked up, which is the end of the conduit coming from the cistern near the mosque of the Mogarabins. There is another opening on the north which I could not examine; it is under the vaulting. On the south-east, 4 feet below the vaulting, is an opening walled up, corresponding with the great chamber at the south-east angle of the enclosure, as I was able to ascertain by examining the north-west corner of that place, after removing a quantity of earth. On the south is another opening (now closed with Arab masonry), 3 feet above the floor, 3-1/4 feet wide and 3-3/4 high; the beginning of a conduit mainly excavated and vaulted in the rock, but for a short distance built with stones and roofed with large slabs[368], which I have traced with difficulty and labour along its whole course quite close to the Fountain of the Virgin. At certain points it is 5 feet wide and 3-3/4 high. It bears the marks of a very remote antiquity, and is, in my opinion, contemporaneous with the building of the first Temple. After discovering this, I found out the Bedouin peasant, who had on a former occasion told me of its existence, and he now did not refuse to be my guide along it, and, to tell the truth, I should not have been able to get on without him at some places, either from the accumulation of rubbish, or the earth, which every moment threatened to fall in, besides the great number of rats, reptiles, insects, and a thousand other nuisances which I encountered. I have traversed this passage three times and carefully examined it, and regret to say that from its age and tottering condition parts of it will soon fall into ruins. It is a great misfortune that a country possessing