Let us now proceed to examine in detail these three elevations, referring to the authorities whom I have already cited in my description of the Temples of Solomon and Herod[361]. I consider the Sakharah to be the site of the altar of burnt-offerings, because it is very improbable that Solomon would have chosen any other position for it than that indicated by an Angel to the prophet Gad. Those who object are bound to explain why this rock alone was left in its natural rough state amid the splendour of the Temple. If it were not reserved for some purpose of the highest importance, it would never have been spared when everything around it was levelled. We shall now see that this site satisfies the requisite conditions. (1) The altar was to be of unhewn stone, and not reached by steps. Therefore the bronze altar of Solomon can have only been an ornamental casing for the rock. The shape of the Sakharah is adapted for this purpose, and it has a regular slope on the south side leading up to the higher part; and, according to the Rabbinic traditions, this was the position of the inclined ascent. (2) It was a square of twenty cubits. The rock is large enough to admit of this and still leave room for the ascent. (3) There must have been a capacious receptacle for its drainage, as they burnt upon it the victims and their fat, and sprinkled the blood upon and around it. This was the cavern we have just visited, with the one below, which we shall presently describe. (4) It occupied an elevated position, as appears from both the Bible and the Rabbinic traditions; probably in order that the sacrifices might be seen by the people. The present site satisfies this condition. (5) There must have been cisterns for water and drainage on the north side to wash the victims and cleanse the ground from blood, because there the Levites appointed for that duty flayed them, and had their chambers[362]. (6) On the east side of the altar must be a 'place of the ashes,' where also the refuse of the victims might be cast. I cannot but think that this would be outside the above-named sacred courts; and in fact we find a connected system of cisterns to the west of the Golden Gate, which I believe were used for this purpose. (7) The great 'sea of bronze' was to the south-east of the altar, as we are told by the Mischna; therefore in this direction there should be traces of the place from which it was supplied. Now on the platform of the mosque, south-east of the rock, is a vault, and to the south of it many cisterns of water, one of which might have supplied the sea. These latter, I think, may have been in the great court; so that after the priests had purified themselves at them, they could enter the sacred enclosure.
Therefore I conclude that the locality satisfies the conditions required by this position of the altar of burnt-offerings and the places in its neighbourhood; and we have only to see if the cisterns and vaults, mentioned above, are connected by subterranean passages, to admit of the flow of water or of blood, as the case may be. That this requirement is also satisfied, will be presently seen from the account of my investigations among them.
I have already stated that I suppose the Temple and its sacred courts to have occupied the second plateau. The House itself was 60 cubits long and 20 wide, lying east and west; the porch in front on the east side was 10 cubits long. If then we circumscribe a square with a side of 20 cubits about the rock, facing to the four points of the compass, and produce its north and south sides westward, we inclose a space on the plateau large enough to admit a building of the required dimensions, and sufficient space is left even for the courts and buildings of Herod's Temple. We are told by Josephus that the Temple was not situated in the middle of the area on the summit of Moriah, but rather towards the north-west corner: a glance at the Plan will shew that this condition is satisfied. The same historian relates that the Temple of Herod was a square of 500 cubits; the place admits of this; consequently we may conclude that we are right in assigning this site to the ancient Temple.
That the position of the third plateau has been rightly assigned, hardly needs demonstration. The made ground is still to be seen on the east side, and the levelled surfaces and projecting remnant of rock on the north-west; while we have already noticed the great works by which it was enlarged on the south. Hence the three levels of the Haram es-Sherîf correspond with the three spaces occupied by the ancient Temple.
It may also be as well to mention a plan of Solomon's Temple, set forth by some of the Rabbinical authors[363]. They circumscribe a square, with a side of 20 cubits, about the rock, which they also consider the site of the altar of burnt-offerings; about this they describe symmetrically another square, with a side of 180 cubits; then dividing each side into 9 equal parts, and joining the opposite points, the whole is subdivided into 81 squares, with the square about the rock in the middle. To the west of this they leave one square, and consider the next three in the same row to be the site of the House itself. The rows lying north, east, and south of the five squares mentioned above, are considered to form the Court of the Levites. (The square between the altar and the Temple they suppose to have been occupied by the porch and its approach, the walls of the building, &c.). Parallel to the east side of the above court, at a distance of 10 cubits, they draw a line, and consider the parts cut off on the west as the Court of the Israelites, and that farthest to the east as the Women's Court. Every one may form his own opinion as to how far this plan may agree with that of Solomon's Temple (with whose dimensions we are only partially acquainted); for my part I think that the spaces allotted to the courts are too small, and ought to be enlarged.
In order that my investigations among the cisterns, pools, and conduits in this part of Jerusalem may be understood, I must call the reader's attention to the three following facts, which for the present I simply state, but of which I will hereafter give a more detailed account, with proofs of my assertions where they are necessary. (1) That water is brought into Jerusalem, and especially into Moriah, by a conduit from Etham. (2) That in the bath of the Hammam es-Shefa is a spring of undrinkable water. (3) That at the bottom of the Kidron valley, to the south-east of the same corner of the Haram, is a spring called the Fountain of the Virgin. I will now enter upon the history of my discoveries, describing them in order of time, so that the reader may understand the manner in which the conclusions I have drawn from them were reached, and the various obstacles which I had to overcome. Before undertaking an investigation of the subterranean works on Mount Moriah, a task demanding so large an expenditure of time and money, and encompassed with so many difficulties, wherein, if discovered, I might be exposed to very great danger, without any hope of defence or escape, I considered how far it could be avoided by a careful examination of all that could be seen on the surface, by a study of the works on the subject, and by collecting all the information that was possible from ancient traditions and all other sources; but when all this was done, I found that I had not been able to form a clear idea of the hidden recesses of the Haram, of its ancient reservoirs and conduits for water, blood, and other purposes, or of the points where the latter entered or left the enclosure. I had indeed obtained a knowledge of many useful facts, but not of what I wanted, and was therefore obliged to wait until an opportunity occurred of making an accurate scrutiny of the place itself. This was long in arriving; but by patience and perseverance I at last succeeded in accomplishing my undertaking, as will be seen from the following narrative.
I felt tolerably certain of the existence of a double-chambered cistern beneath the Sakharah, (called in the Rabbinical traditions Amah,) and had no doubt that it had been used to catch the blood of the victims; in accordance with the statement in the Mischna, that under the altar of burnt-offerings, to the south-west, was a conduit by means of which the blood sprinkled on it flowed into the Kidron Valley[364]. I had also seen on the north side of the platform of the mosque the openings of two cisterns; and the Mohammedan keepers assured me that the one to the north contained dirty water, but that the other was dry, and had been so for many centuries. I accordingly tasted the water of the former, and found it excellent; and therefore concluded that it was nothing but a traditional prejudice, derived from the fact that the place had formerly received the blood of the victims, which are said to have been slain there[365]. I have already stated that the cistern on the west of the Golden Gate appeared, in accordance with the data in the Bible, a probable position for the 'place of the ashes[366].' I had also learned that some, especially among the Jews, were of opinion that the Pool of Bethesda was not only used to cleanse the victims for sacrifice, but also to receive the water which had served for that purpose, when the animals were flayed in the neighbourhood of the Temple; also that it was supplied from some pools on a higher level; and that, when it became necessary to empty it, the filth escaped by a conduit excavated in the rock, on the east, down into the torrent Kidron. Now I do not know whether there was a channel of communication from the Temple to the pool; but it is certain that there were upper pools[367], and that its waters would naturally escape into the Kidron. To establish this last point is impossible, from the quantity of rubbish that fills the pool, and the accumulation of earth outside the walls; but it is so obvious that it hardly needs demonstration. In the south-east corner of the pool there is an opening, which apparently belongs to a conduit, but it is now built up; and on the whole of the south wall, which is almost buried with earth, there are not any signs of other mouths. It was then evident that if the water came to it from the Temple it must enter either from higher ground on the west, or by the above opening. This however could not be proved without an examination of the interior of the Haram. The keepers of the mosque wished to persuade me that the water from the spring of the Hammam es-Shefa flowed into the cistern beneath the Sakharah. Very frequently, on different days, during the deepest silence, I placed my ear on the great slab, in the middle of the chamber in the rock, beneath the mosque, but could not hear the slightest sound. I observed that the floor was paved with marble, and therefore frequently examined both it and the walls to see if they gave out damp; (if water had been flowing below, there would certainly have been some moisture;) but they were always perfectly dry, even during wet weather, so that this test induced me to reject the common notion that water ran beneath this place.
Again, one day in the month of January 1857, during an excessively rainy season, and while a quantity of fallen snow was melting, I observed, on passing along the Kidron valley, a large stream falling down from the mouth of a conduit high up in the western bank of the torrent, nearly opposite to the Tomb of Absalom. I was delighted at the sight, and instantly resolved to enter the place as soon as the flow of water had ceased. However, on reflection, I abandoned the design; because I should have exposed myself to certain danger, since the hill-side at that place is almost vertical above, and excessively steep on both sides and below, besides being composed of loose earth that has been thrown down there and been accumulating for centuries. In course of time the opening was closed by a landslip, but the water still forced its way through in the rainy seasons of the following years. The question occurred to me, Can this be the mouth of the conduit of blood? It was however impossible to answer it without examining the ground, and this was impracticable by reason of the great expense of removing such a quantity of soil, and the fanaticism of the Mohammedans, who would never have allowed me to enter a subterranean passage possibly leading towards the Haram; to which place I had not then the right of entrance.
My next information was derived from a brave old Bedouin, who had taken part in the war against Ibrahim Pasha. In the month of May of the same year he informed me, in the course of the story of his life, that underground conduits ran from the Fountain of the Virgin into the interior of the city and Temple; which he had once traversed with a company of Arabs in making a night attack on the city, in order to surprise the Egyptian troops at the gates and admit his own companions. I wanted him to give me more minute information, but he refused, even when I offered him money; and it was not until a later period that I obtained fuller details from a peasant in the neighbourhood of Jerusalem; of which I afterwards availed myself, as will be seen: but even in his case, in spite of bribes, I was obliged to content myself with listening, without verifying what was reported.
In the month of September 1857, I was walking outside the east wall of the Haram, and stopped to watch an Arab who was digging a grave near the southern extremity of the cemetery. I entered into conversation with him, with a view of quietly examining his excavation; but on reaching a depth of three feet he stopped, as his work was finished; for the dead Arabs like the earth to lie light upon them. However, by a present I induced him to continue his labour; but after going down about 2 feet more, he again desisted, at the instigation of another workman, who in the mean time had come to bring him some food. A little more money set them both at work, and after sinking 2 feet lower, they came upon something hard, which on examination proved to be a wall, belonging, as I suspected, to a conduit; and by widening the excavation a little, we found the corresponding side wall at a distance of 3-1/2 feet, both being of great age. I would gladly have had them continue their work; but they were both tired, and also afraid of being seen digging so deep, in the company of a European and Christian; besides, the corpse was expected before long; so they partially filled up the hole as quickly as possible. I was however satisfied with what I had seen, and a few days after, having obtained permission from the Pasha, on some trifling pretext, I employed them, with two other workmen, to make an excavation opposite to the south-east corner of the Haram (not being able to dig farther to the north on account of the graves); and after two days' hard work we found, at a depth of 11 feet, remains of a conduit resembling the former, and, like it, 3-1/2 feet in breadth. The walls were 2-3/4 feet high, but had been higher, the upper part having been destroyed. I thought that these were more likely to belong to the conduit for blood than the opening which I had seen in the Kidron valley, as that was too low relatively to the upper and middle levels of the Haram, and too far (being about 30 feet) above the bottom of the valley, which is now much higher than in former times; for I can hardly think that the blood and filth would be openly disgorged in a kind of cataract from the sewer. What a quantity of water would in that case have been required to transport the refuse of the victims from the front of the Temple, where, because of the Jewish law, they could never have been suffered to remain! Two points however had to be established, the proof of which was far from easy, before I could assert that the conduit for blood flowed into the Fountain of the Virgin; a place which might have been chosen, both because it was at a considerable distance from the Temple, and because the constant supply of water from the spring would carry on the refuse into the Kidron. These were, (1) whether the lowest part of the Fountain (which is reached by a long descending flight of steps) was above the bed of the torrent; and (2) whether, in the interior of the Haram, a conduit had existed, connecting the cistern beneath the rock Sakharah with that on the west of the Golden Gate, and had gone from this point outside the wall, in a course agreeing with the traces I had already discovered. Accordingly I hired some of the peasants of Siloam, and made an excavation in the valley, to the east of the mouth of the Fountain, and ascertained that its lowest point was about 5-3/4 feet higher than the present bed of the torrent; which has been much raised by the rubbish accumulated during so many centuries, that is not only brought down by the stream itself from the north, but also falls in from the sides of the valley during the rainy season. This determined, I made a second excavation near the steps leading down to the Fountain, and at a depth of 16 feet found part of the bottom of the original pool, and a fragment of the side wall; and thus saw that the conduit might have emptied itself directly into this pool, into which the water flowed from the Fountain (situated 5 feet above it): whence the refuse descended into the Kidron 4-1/2 feet below, and so was carried away by the torrent. As the quantity of water supplied by the spring could never have been very large, it occurred to me that on special occasions, when a great number of victims was sacrificed, there would be some method of increasing the torrent to enable it to sweep away the refuse quickly; and at first I supposed that the water of the Pool of Bethesda was used for that purpose, but afterwards I found that it was not the only means employed. Had I been able, I should at once have followed up the subject, by investigations in the interior of the Haram; but all my attempts at that time proved ineffectual, and I was obliged to wait for a more favourable opportunity.