condemned to support upon their accursed foreheads the weight of the holy edifice, and of the vast plateau that encircles it. The weight is terrible, but the following circumstance is marvellous. Every time that a faithful Mohammedan, after due purification, places his foot upon the ground of the _Haram_, the weight of his body increases the burden borne by the demons seventy-fold. If the devotees are numerous, if they frequently go to implore the divine mercy in that favoured spot, the sufferings of the fiends are proportionately increased; they burst into tears of grief and rage. The more ardent is the zeal of the believers, the fuller is the reservoir, wherein, drop by drop, the tears of the enemies of God are collected. Hence the abundance or the deficiency of the water in _Bir Eyub_ measures the bounty of the Creator to His creatures. It only depends then on our own prayers to have good harvests, and when drought comes, we ought to accuse ourselves of a lack of devotion." M. Saintine thinks that this account, when stripped of its marvels, denotes that all the water-courses in the city flow into the lower part of the _Haram es-Sherîf_, and thence are conducted by a conduit into this well. This I cannot admit, because the waters running down the western bank of the Tyropoeon follow the course of that valley, and those which fall on the eastern are caught by the reservoirs constructed for that purpose, and the small quantity that escapes, falls, as I have already stated[883], into the Kidron Valley, opposite to the Tomb of Absalom.