The chief pride of el-Bîreh is the copious spring of excellent water at the southwest of the village, where the carriage road begins to ascend the hill. The new mudîr of the district in 1903 caused some improvements in masonry to be constructed over the Bîreh fountain. A busy scene can often be observed there. Women and girls come and go, chattering and scolding, eager for the first turn to put a jar under the flow. The women are seen washing on the smooth stones near the spring, pounding with a short stout club the well-soaked garments. The water from the spring at its flood and the rains have gullied the paths hereabouts and left the pebbles like hobnails, so that to walk about the place is like using the stepping-stones of a dry brook. From a point a little to the east of the fountain a path to the right (south) leads in a few steps under a picturesque little ruin in stone, the inner rim of an arch which spans the path with airy grace. Just beyond it on the right there is a long, low stone building, an old khân in good preservation. There are ruins all about under the trees. Continuing on the left after a turn one comes to an immense old khân in ruin, of which four sections or rooms still remain. It has a quadruple arched roof and fine columns. Masons’ marks are to be seen on some of the heavy old stones and Arab graffiti on others. Some of these scratchings are very good. A horseman lifting a long spear is one of the best. This great khân would still shelter several scores of camels and their loads if inclement weather necessitated a resort to it. South of the fountain are some old reservoirs built of heavy stone and meant to treasure up the overflowings of the brook in its downward course through the valley from the spring. Further southward of these reservoirs, which are now out of repair, one goes through fig-orchards towards the little Moslem shrine of Shaykh Sâliḥ, around about which one often sees numerous little piles of stones on the tops of the stone walls, reminders of the pious and their petitions to the departed shaykh or wily. The course of the brook from the spring continues down the valley to Wâd es-Suwaynîṭ and thence, by the way of the Wâdy Ḳelt, to the Jordan. Along the sides of Jebel Ṭawîl, the long ridge to the southeast of el-Bîreh, one sees the walls of a quarry, whence huge blocks must have been taken long ago, as the smooth, unbroken surface remaining measures many yards. Northeast of el-Bîreh the hillsides show similar quarrying.