The neighbourhood of Bethlehem presents a variety of objects too important to be passed without a slight notice. The Pools of Solomon, connected, it is probable, with a scheme for supplying Jerusalem with water; are usually visited by the more enlightened class of travellers, who combine in their researches a regard to the arts as well as to the religion of Judea. These reservoirs are four, in number, being so disposed, says Maundrell, that the water of the uppermost may descend into the second, and that of the second into the third. Their figure is quadrangular; the breadth is the same in all, amounting to about ninety paces. In their length there is some difference; the first being one hundred and sixty paces long, the second two hundred and the third two hundred and twenty. They are all lined with masonry and plastered. The springs whence the pools are supplied seem to have been secured with great care, having, says the author of the Journey from Aleppo, "no avenue to them but by a little hole like to the mouth of a narrow well." Through this hole you descend directly about four yards, when you come to a chamber forty-five feet long and twenty-four broad, adjoining to which there is another apartment of the same kind, but not quite so large. Both these rooms are neatly arched, and have an air of great antiquity. The water, which rises from four separate sources, is partly conveyed by a subterranean passage into the ponds; the remainder being received into an aqueduct of brick pipes, and carried by many turnings and windings among the mountains to the walls of Jerusalem. The monks of Bethlehem are perfectly convinced that it was in allusion to this guarded treasure, so valuable in Palestine, that Solomon called his beloved spouse a "sealed fountain." Of the aqueduct here mentioned some traces are still to be detected in the intermediate space, and denote an acquaintance with the principles of hydraulics which we could not have expected among Hebrew architects. It was constructed all along upon the surface of the ground, and framed of perforated stones let into one another, with a fillet round the cavity, so contrived as to prevent leakage, and united together with so firm a cement that they will sometimes sooner break than endure a separation. These pipes were covered with an arch, or layer of flags, strengthened by the application of a peculiarly strong mortar; the whole "being endued with such absolute firmness as if it had been designed for eternity. But the Turks have demonstrated in this instance, that nothing can be so well wrought but they are able to destroy it; fur of this strong aqueduct, which was carried formerly five or six leagues with so vast expense and labour, you see now only here and there a fragment remaining."[105]