Mount Olivet terminates abruptly, or rather a break is made through it nearly in a line with the valley of Hinnom, bearing a little to the south of east. At the mouth of this new valley, which lets off the water (when there is any) to the eastward, is a small pool, and adjoining it is a kind of resting or lounging-place, now much neglected--and close by is the well of Nehemiah, which is very deep, and we infer from indications about it, that formerly it was much used; but it is now almost entirely neglected. This is supposed by some to be the En-rogel in 2 Sam. xvii. 17. Down this valley there are a number of gardens, and fig and olive trees.
Turning up the valley of the Kedron, we passed some pretty gardens and lots of ground well set with the fig and other fruit trees. A few hundred yards brought us to the pool of Siloam. It lies in the mouth of that little ravine I mentioned as separating Mount Zion from Mount Moriah, and is now much filled up within the walls, which cross it at some distance from its mouth. It has, no doubt, been much filled without the walls, still it is very manifest on the outside, and near its mouth. There is quite a high bluff on the Moriah side, near the pool. This valley was formerly called the valley of the Cheesemongers. It was over this valley that Solomon is said to have made that splendid ascent to the house of God from Mount Zion, where his palace stood, that struck the Queen of Sheba with so much astonishment. 1 Kings, x. 5. The pool of Siloam is small, not more than twenty or twenty-five feet long, and ten or twelve wide. It may be eight feet deep, with only eighteen or twenty inches of water in it. It is fed by the fountain of Siloam, which rises about three hundred yards farther up the valley, and is taken under ground through the point of the hill which projects into the valley from Mount Moriah, and comes out at this place. The water passes through the pool, and is conveyed by a channel to the edge of the valley of the Kedron, (for the pool is a little up the valley of the Cheesemongers, say twenty-five or thirty yards,) then it passes through a set of troughs, where the people come to obtain water for themselves and their cattle.