Further up the valley, after crossing the road to Samaria, we find, still on the northern side, an ancient tomb[840], the exterior of which is completely mutilated. In the front court is a fragment of the western end of a wall, hewn out of the solid rock; all the rest of it has been destroyed. In the piece which remains we find a conduit and small basin; these clearly prove that water must have been supplied from some higher ground on the north; but I have not been able to discover whence it came. Against the north wall is a heap of soil, nearly covering up an aperture; through the part still open, though overgrown with creepers, it is possible to crawl into the interior[841]. Here we find a rectangular vestibule which evidently has been converted into a cistern, as its walls have been covered with strong cement, and a hole made in the roof, through which soil and broken stones are brought down from the hill-side above, in the rainy season. A small door in the middle of the north wall leads into an antechamber in good preservation, in the east wall of which is the passage into a chamber with eight biers, one of them being a sepulchral niche, and the rest casemate vaults, without channels, but sloping slightly downwards towards the floor of the chamber, round which runs a kind of footpath, above the general level of the floor, as in the Tombs of the Kings. At the end of one of these vaults is the small recess. As the dimensions and finish of these correspond with those of the small vaults in the above-named tombs, they would be considered unfinished by M. de Saulcy. Returning into the antechamber, we find in its western wall a small door leading into a single casemate vault, which is much larger than any other of its kind in the neighbourhood of Jerusalem. This monument does not bear any special name, but must have belonged to a wealthy family, because, although it is not so large as the other great tombs, its execution is not inferior to theirs. Descending from this point to the bed of the Kidron Valley, we find a nearly square pool. Though this is now almost filled with earth, yet in the rainy season the waters flow into it from the slopes above, and form a sort of little lake, which is then the source, so to say, of the Kidron. I have investigated carefully the ground above, endeavouring to discover some proof of the existence of a spring, but in vain. By excavating I found that the depth of the Pool was fifteen feet.