It is beyond dispute that the Twin Pools in the Antonia fosse--perhaps the _Strouthios_, or “Bird’s Pool” of Josephus, already cut by Herod--were those to which the fourth-century tradition pointed, and their claims are thus superior to those of the twelfth-century site farther north, or of the Templars’ site--the modern Birket Isrâîl--to the east. The latter pretty certainly did not exist till the time of Hadrian at earliest. It is also clear that the eastern of the two pools might depend on the rains, and that the western, which was fed by the aqueduct that led from outside the city walls where, on the north-west, the rain-water of the northern fosse was collected, may have been red and muddy from the red surface soil washed down. But this hardly describes the sudden “disturbance” for which the sick waited. It has been supposed that the Twin Pools were adorned by pillars, on four sides and on the central rock wall which divides them; but no remains of such pillars exist now on the site, and the central wall is less than 6 feet wide, and would therefore only serve to support a single line of columns, which does not represent a _stoa_, or “cloister,” such as is mentioned in the Gospel. Thus even the oldest traditional site does not fully meet all requirements. There is only one place which seems to do so--namely, the Kidron spring, now called by Christians “the Virgin’s Well,” and by Arabs “the Mother of Steps.” Here, as already described, occurs an intermittent “disturbance of the waters,” and the Jews still bathe in the cavern when the water suddenly surges up to fill it. They say that it is a cure for rheumatism. Josephus calls this spring “Solomon’s Pool,” using the same word (_Kolumbêthra_) used in the Gospel, and he evidently regarded it as the Gihon where Solomon was anointed. Till of late it might have been objected that there was no reservoir here such as might have been surrounded by five cloisters above the steps which led to the “troubled” waters of Bethesda. But the excavations of 1902--already noticed--showed that a large pool formerly existed before the cave, under the present mound with its two modern flights of steps leading down to the water. The only real objection to this site thus disappears, and we may regard Bethesda as having been the later name of the older Gihon, and as one of the few well-fixed Gospel sites. [Sidenote: THE COUNCIL HOUSE]