Page:Palestine Exploration Fund - Quarterly Statement for 1894.djvu/296

252 confined my present work to the search for the south wall of Jerusalem. Before I had reached the outer scarp at H, I sunk another shaft at C, thinking that possibly the wall might have run along this contour. We found no wall, but a drain. I was curious to see whether this drain had any connection with the aqueduct traced by Warren beyond the road to the east. To this end I made openings at D', E', F', and G'. I had several misgivings from time to time as to the wisdom of following the drain, as it seemed to have no bearing upon the question of the wall, but a certain instinct told me to go on.

We traced the drain to the road, and proved that it had no connection with Warren's aqueduct. But, in the meantime, an examination of the shafts sunk to reach the drain flashed a new light upon me. At every point the flagstones which covered the drain extended in a pavement at one side and sometimes on both. At first, when this pavement had appeared only at one or two points, I had thought little of it, assigning it to houses at these points. But when it had appeared at five points, all in one line, all above the drain, some explanation was necessary. Then these questions crowded themselves upon me: Is this a paved street above the drain? If a street, is it not leading to a wall? If to a wall, must it not be also to a gate? Immediately I began to follow this new clue. The first point was its continuity, which we proved by following the pavement along the drain from C' to B" for 60 feet. Its width was also found at various points. From B" we pushed on to A", but after traversing about half the distance the pavement was lost. At A" we came upon a corner of masonry, which I took to have been built in later times over the street. Accordingly we opened up again from above, by the drain, just beyond the masonry. We went down till we reached the rock, but found no street. So we abandoned the wall at this point for a time, and employed the gang to search for a turn of the street northwards at the point where its continuation had not been proved. In the meantime, one day our work in the outer scarp suddenly came to an end during the middle of the day, and finding a small gang of labourers on my hands, I set them to work on the masonry at A", which, to tell the truth, I had not regarded as very important. I watched their work with constantly growing interest; the next day I added another gang, and soon it became clear that this apparently unimportant bit of masonry was a gateway in a wall. Meanwhile the other gang had proved that the street (which at the point where we last saw it was leading in this direction) had certainly not turned towards the north, as the rock there rises rapidly, and all probability was against its having turned towards the southern slope, hence, the obvious conclusion was that it had led to this gate, towards which it was pointing, when it was last traced a few feet away. Thus, weeks after it was first opened, was the shaft at C justified.

We opened it to find a wall, and found no wall but a drain; we followed the drain eastwards and found a street, we followed the drain back westwards and found a gate, and this gate, of course, was in a wall!