The next object of interest is connected with the name of the same patriarch. It is Jacob's Well,--the scene of the memorable conference between our Saviour and the woman of Samaria. Such a locality was too important to be omitted by Helena while selecting sites for Christian churches. Over it, accordingly, was erected a large edifice; of which, however, the "voracity of time, aided by the Turks," has left nothing but a few foundations remaining. Maundrell tells us that "the well is covered at present with an old stone vault, into which you are let down through a very straight hole; and then removing a broad flat stone you discover the mouth of the well itself. It is dug in a firm rock, and extends about three yards in diameter and thirty-five in depth; five of which we found full of water. This confutes a story commonly told to travellers who do not take the pains to examine the well, namely, that it is dry all the year round except on the anniversary of that day on which our Blessed Lord sat upon it; but then bubbles up with abundance of water."[130] At this point the traveller enters the narrow valley of Shechem, or Sychar, as it is termed in the New Testament, overhung on either side by the two mountains Gerizim and Ebal. These eminences, it is well known, have obtained much celebrity as the theatre on which was pronounced the sanction of the Divine law--the blessings which attend obedience, and the curses which follow the violation of the heavenly statutes. "And it shall come to pass, when the Lord thy God hath brought thee in unto the land whither thou goest to possess it, that thou shalt put the blessing upon Mount Gerizim, and the curse upon Mount Ebal. Are they not on the other side Jordan, by the way where the sun goeth down, in the land of the Canaanites, which dwell in the champaign over against Gilgal, beside the plains of Moreh?"[131]