Page:Domestic Life in Palestine.pdf/84

Rh Queen Candace's eunuch traversed it, riding in his chariot; but the Romans kept "the way" in repair then; no chariot could pass it now. It is little better than a track for mules, and runs along a sort of terrace half-way up the hill on the left-hand side of the valley. Rugged rock ledges were above and below us, and a few flocks were feeding on the scanty herbage and thorns, but down in the bed of the vale there were thrashing-floors and stubble fields. About a mile beyond Ain Yalo we came to Ain Haniyeh, a fine spring of pure water, commonly called Philip's Fountain. Two pilasters, with richly-carved Corinthian capitals, flank a semicircular apse, formed of very large, carefully-hewn stones. From a deep, arched recess or niche, in the middle of this apse, a large body of water gushes and falls with great force into a small basin, which overflows into a stone reservoir below, and then forms a narrow stream which finds its way into the valley. I climbed over immense blocks of stone, assisted by a shepherd boy, and gathered some of the maiden-hair and mosses which festooned the arched mouth of the fountain. Indications of a much larger apse can be traced just beyond; and exactly opposite the fountain, at about forty paces from it, there is a fragment of the shaft of a column nearly six feet in diameter, but only about five feet high. A few shafts of smaller columns are to be seen in a neighboring field. The villagers around carry away the hewn stones which are found here to build their little watch-towers, or to repair their houses. Local tradition says that this is the very fountain to which the eunuch referred when he said to his teacher, Philip, "See, here is water! What doth hinder me to be baptized?" Some boys and girls, wilder looking than the shaggy goats which they led to drink at the fountain, crowded around me as I sat on the great column, sketching the scene before me. My horse, in the mean time, less obedient than the chariot of the eunuch, had broken away from the block of stone to which he was tethered, and was running at full speed into the valley. Loud cries and