The view from the well is good: on the south the rugged slopes of Gerizim; on the west the olives in the Vale of Shechem, with Ebal rising behind, and the little hamlet of Balâta with its fig gardens, the whitewashed walls and dome of Joseph’s Tomb, the mud huts of Sychar: on the north-east the neighbourhood of Shalem whence Jacob first came; and on the east the broad brown Plain of the Mŭkhnah, named perhaps (for the word is of Hebrew origin) from the great encampment of Israel at the time of the first conquest. A Christian church was built before 383 A.D. round Jacob’s Well, but did not exist apparently in 333 A.D., when the Bordeaux Pilgrim visited the spot. Bishop Arculph, in 700 A.D., gives a plan which shows the building as cruciform, with the well in the middle; and St. Willibald (722 A.D.) mentions it as standing in his day. It was probably founded by Constantine and destroyed in the invasion of Omar, for in Crusading times it had disappeared. To this church the pavement and pillars seem to have belonged. As late as 1555 A.D. a little altar stood in the vault on which yearly mass was offered, but this practice is now discontinued. About six hundred yards north of the well is the traditional Tomb of Joseph, venerated by the members of every religious community in Palestine. The building stands east of the road from Balâta to ’Askar, at the end of a row of fine fig trees. The enclosure is square and roofless, the walls whitewashed and in good repair, for, as an inscription on the south wall in English informs the visitor, it was rebuilt by Consul Rogers, the friend of the Samaritans, in 1868; it is about twenty-five feet square, and on the north is another building of equal size, but older and partly ruinous, surmounted by a little dome. The tomb itself resembles most of the Moslem cenotaphs--a long narrow block with an arched or vaulted roof having a pointed cross section. It is rudely plastered, and some seven feet long and three feet high. It is placed askew, and nearest to the west wall of the court. A stone bench is built into the east wall, on which three Jews were seated at the time of our second visit, book in hand, swinging backwards and forwards as they crooned out a nasal chant--a prayer no doubt appropriate to the place. The most curious point to notice is, however, the existence of two short pillars, one at the head, the other at the foot of the tomb, having shallow cup-shaped hollows at their tops. These hollows are blackened by fire, for the Jews have the custom of burning sacrifices on them, small articles such as handkerchiefs, gold lace, or shawls being consumed. Whether this practice is also observed by the Samaritans is doubtful.