About two furlongs beyond this well are to be seen some remains of an old aqueduct, which anciently conveyed the waters from Solomon's pools to Jerusalem. This is said to be the genuine work of Solomon, and may well be allowed to be in reality what it is pretended for. It is carried all along upon the surface of the ground, and is composed of stones ... feet square, and ... thick, perforated with a cavity of ... inches diameter, to make the channel. These stones are let into each other, with a fillet framed round about the cavity to prevent leakage, and united to each other with so firm a cement that they will sometimes sooner break (though a kind of coarse marble) than endure a separation. This train of stones was covered, for its greater security, with a case of smaller stones, laid over it in a very strong mortar. The whole work seems to be endued with such absolute firmness as if it had been designed for eternity; but the Turks have demonstrated, in this instance, that nothing can be so well wrought but they are able to destroy it; for of this strong aqueduct, which was carried formerly five or six leagues, with so vast expense and labour, you see now only here and there a fragment, remaining.
Returning from this place, we went to see the Greek and Armenian convents, which are contiguous to that of the Latins, and have each their several doors opening into the chapel of the holy manger. The next place we went to see was the grotto of the blessed Virgin. It is within thirty or forty yards of the convent, and is reverenced upon the account of a tradition that the blessed Virgin here hid herself and her divine babe from the fury of Herod for some time before their departure into Egypt. The grot is hollowed into a chalky rock; but this whiteness they will have to be not natural, but to have been occasioned by some miraculous drops of the blessed Virgin's milk, which fell from her breast while she was suckling the holy infant; and so much are they possessed with this opinion, that they believe the chalk of this grotto has a miraculous virtue for increasing women's milk; and I was assured, from many hands, that it is very frequently taken by the women hereabouts, as well Turks and Arabs as Christians, for that purpose, and that with very good effect; which perhaps may be true enough, it being well known how much fancy is wont to do in things of this nature.
April 2.—The next morning, presenting the guardian with two chequeens apiece for his civilities to us, we took our leave of Bethlehem, designing just to visit the wilderness and convent of St. John the Baptist, and so return to Jerusalem.
In this stage we first crossed part of that famous valley in which it is said that the angel, in one night, did such prodigious execution in the army of Sennacherib. Having travelled about half an hour, we came to a village called Booteshellah, concerning which they relate this remarkable property, that no Turk can live in it above two years. By virtue of this report, whether true or false, the Christians keep the village to themselves without molestation, no Turk being willing to stake his life in experimenting the truth of it. In somewhat less than an hour more we came to the fountain where they told us, but falsely, that Philip baptized the Ethiopian eunuch. The passage here is so rocky and uneven that pilgrims, finding how difficult the road is for a single horseman, are ready to think it impossible that a chariot, such as the eunuch rode in[585], should ever have been able to go this way; but it must not be judged what the road was in ancient times by what the negligence of the Turks have now reduced it to; for I observed, not far from the fountain, a place where the rock had been cut away in old time, in order to lay open a good road, by which it may be supposed that the same care was used all along this passage, though now time and negligence have obliterated both the fruit and almost the signs of such labour.
A little beyond this fountain we came to that which they call the village of St. Philip, at which, ascending a very steep hill, we arrived at the wilderness of St. John. A wilderness it is called, as being very rocky and mountainous: but is well cultivated, and produces plenty of corn, and vines, and olive trees. After a good hour's travel in this wilderness, we came to the cave and fountain where, as they say, the Baptist exercised those severe austerities related of him[586]. Near this cell there still grow some old locust trees, the monuments of the ignorance of the middle times[587]. These the friars aver to be the very same that yielded sustenance to the Baptist; and the Popish pilgrims, who dare not be wiser than such blind guides, gather the fruit of them, and carry it away with great devotion.
Having done with this place, we directed our course towards the convent of St. John, which is about a league distant eastward. In our way we passed along one side of the valley of Elah, where David slew the giant, that defier of the army of Israel[588]. We had likewise in sight Modon, a village on the top of a high hill, the burying-place of those heroical defenders of their country, the Maccabees.
Being come near the convent, we were led a little out of the way to visit a place which they call the house of Elizabeth, the mother of the Baptist. This was formerly a convent also, but it is now a heap of ruins, and the only remarkable place left in it is a grotto, in which (you are told) it was that the blessed Virgin saluted Elizabeth, and pronounced her divine magnificat[589].
The present convent of St. John, which is now inhabited, stands about three furlongs distance from this house of Elizabeth, and is supposed to be built at the place where St. John was born. If you chance to ask how it came to pass that Elizabeth lived in one house when she was big with the Baptist, and in another when she brought him forth, the answer you are like to receive is, that the former was her country, the latter her city habitation, and that it is no wonder for a wife of one of the priests of better rank, such as she was[590], to be provided with such variety.
The convent of St. John has been, within these four years, rebuilt from the ground. It is at present a large square building, uniform and neat all over; but that which is most eminently beautiful in it is its church. It consists of three aisles, and has in the middle a handsome cupola, under which is a pavement of mosaic, equal to, if not exceeding, the finest works of the ancients of that kind. At the upper end of the north aisle you go down seven marble steps, to a very splendid altar, erected over the very place where they say the holy Baptist was born. Here are artificers still employed in adding farther beauty and ornament to this convent, and yet it has been so expensive a work already, that the friars themselves give out that there is not a stone laid in it but has cost them a dollar; which, considering the large sums exacted by the Turks for licence to begin fabrics of this nature, and also their perpetual extortion and avarrias afterwards, besides the necessary charge of building, may be allowed to pass for no extravagant hyperbole.
Returning from St. John's toward Jerusalem, we came in about three quarters of an hour to a convent of the Greeks, taking its name from the holy cross. This convent is very neat in its structure, and in its situation delightful. But that which most deserves to be noted in it, is the reason of its name and foundation. It is because there is the earth that nourished the root, that bore the tree, that yielded the timber, that made the cross. Under the high altar you are shown a hole in the ground where the stump of the tree stood, and it meets with not a few visitants so much more very stocks than itself as to fall down and worship it. This convent is not above half an hour from Jerusalem; to which place we returned this evening, being the fifth day from our departure hence.