Descending Mount Zion on the east side, you perceive in the valley the Fountain and Pool of Siloam, so celebrated in the history of our Saviour's miracles. The brook itself is ill supplied with water, and, compared with the ideas formed in the mind by the fine invocation of the poet, usually creates disappointment. Going a few paces to the northward, you come to the source of the scanty rivulet, which is called by some the Fountain of the Virgin, from an opinion that she frequently came hither to drink. It appears in a recess about twenty feet lower than the surface, and under an arched vault of masonry tolerably well executed. The rock had been originally hewn down to reach this pool; and a small crooked passage, of which only the beginning is seen, is said to convey the water out of the Valley of Siloam, and to supply the means of irrigating the little gardens still cultivated in that spot. Notwithstanding the dirty state of the water, and its harsh and brackish taste, it is still used by devout pilgrims for diseases of the eye.[94] It is said to have a kind of ebb and flow, sometimes discharging its current like the Fountain of Vaucluse, at others retaining and scarcely suffering it to run at all. The Levites, we are likewise told, used to sprinkle the water of Siloam on the altar at the Feast of Tabernacles, saying, "Ye shall draw water with joy from the wells of salvation." The reader will find on the opposite page a representation of the Fountain or Pool of Siloam, as it appeared to the eye of an able traveller; a considerable part of the arch having fallen down, or been destroyed by the barbarians who continue to hold Jerusalem in subjection.