A few years ago, when Ibrahim Pasha's troops took Hebron, they committed great outrages on the Jews, by plundering them of all they could find. They broke into their synagogue, and opened all parts of it in which they thought anything could be found, mutilated and tore their roll of the law, and perpetrated many other enormities. Hebron is esteemed by the Jews as a sacred city; and they think it a great privilege to live here. They pretend that persons, when old, if they come and live at Hebron, can renew their age. They need not go far for materials to correct the opinion; for some of them had about them ample proof that old age and all its infirmities come upon people at Hebron as certainly and as fast as at other places. The great mosque, which was probably once a Christian church, stands over, as we were told, the cave of Machpelah. We were not allowed to enter it. It is a very large building, and the lower part contains stones of a very large size. It stands on the side of the hill, at the south-east part of the city. The palace of the governor joins it; and it is not improbable that the palace in which David reigned for seven years was in that quarter. Near the mosque is a very large cistern, which the Jew, who was our guide, pretended was Sarah's bathing-house. It was, however, of much more modern formation; the declaration of the Jew to the contrary notwithstanding. At the south end of the town is a fine pool. This is the pool, as is supposed, over which David hung the hands and feet of Rechab and Baanah, the murderers of Ishbosheth. 2 Sam. iv. 12. It appears to have been formerly fed by a stream through a small aqueduct, that comes into it; but the stream is now dry, and the aqueduct out of order. A short distance to the north of this pool, is another of a smaller size; but the water in it does not appear as good, nor is it as much used.