Syria and the Holy Land : their scenery and their people : incidents of travel, &cfrom the best and most recent authorities . tween rocky ridges _-r^-_^^ - about an hour and aquarter south of thetown : all around hasthe aspect of a wilder-ness; but beyond thereservoirs the countrybecomes wooded, andthe cave-fretted hills aremarked with long stripsof pasture and rich soilunder cultivation. Thisappearance of the coun-try continues to Hebron,on approaching whichfig-trees and vines increase in number : the last have the appearance of largetrees; from the size of the trunks one may fancy that they
Syria and the Holy Land : their scenery and their people : incidents of travel, &cfrom the best and most recent authorities . tween rocky ridges _-r^-_^^ - about an hour and aquarter south of thetown : all around hasthe aspect of a wilder-ness; but beyond thereservoirs the countrybecomes wooded, andthe cave-fretted hills aremarked with long stripsof pasture and rich soilunder cultivation. Thisappearance of the coun-try continues to Hebron,on approaching whichfig-trees and vines increase in number : the last have the appearance of largetrees; from the size of the trunks one may fancy that they have been grow-ing since the days of Abraham. The Yale of Eschcol, where the spies sentout by Moses found the grapes so heavy that to carry one bunch it wasnecessary to suspend it on a pole, is about half an hour north of Hebron. The celebrated Pools of Solomon are really worthy of that great king : Ihad formed no conception of their magnificence. These large, strong, noblestructures, in a land where every work of art has been hurried to destruc-tion, remain now almost as perfect as when they were built: there are three. Upper Pool of Solomon, Bethlehem. HEBRON. 389 of them, of the respective lengths of 380, 423, and 582 feet, their least breadth148, their greatest 250 feet; depth 25, 39, and 50 feet. They lie one abovethe other on the side of a hill, and are so constructed that when the waterin the upper one has reached a certain height it flows into the second, andthence into the third. Small aqueducts lead from each of these cisterns to amain one that conducts the water to Jerusalem by a very tortuous course, andwith considerable rapidity, as we could perceive by the open places left in ithere and there. From the pools to Jerusalem cannot be much less than eightymiles by flight; and when it is considered that the aqueduct traverses aseries of rocky hills, valleys, and ravines, its line may be estimated at morethan twice that length. A little to the east of the pools, towards
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