Page:Palestine Exploration Fund - Quarterly Statement for 1894.djvu/301

Rh prevailed more or less in Jerusalem, but it has not reached our camp. We have almost always a breeze here, when it is still in town, and when there is a breeze in town, here we have a hurricane.

Our workmen are almost exclusively from Silwan, and when the final whistle is sounded it is a never-failing amusement to watch them plunge down into the valley of Hinnom. The largest number employed any one day was 26, and the smallest 14, the average being about 20. On the whole we got more work out of them than we did out of our Tell-el-Hesy labourers. They manage the mining very cleverly and, on the whole, with courage, although several times they have shown reluctance to continue a hazardous-looking tunnel, until Yusif has himself attended to the propping up and proved to them the safety of the position. Fortunately we have had no accident beyond the bruising of a finger, which did not interfere with its owner's work of the next day.

Ibrahim Pasha continues most friendly, and in Ibrahim Effendi, our Commissioner, the Society has a warm friend. It is largely owing to his presence that the work goes on so smoothly. Landowners do not trouble us; in fact, have hardly been near us since the first novelty wore off. What with the cisterns we have discovered for them and the beautiful stones we have dug up, they may well be pleased that we began work on their ground.

Other visitors, however, are very plentiful. We have had most of the Consuls, the Greek and Armenian Patriarchs, with the Latin Bishop, the Military Pasha, numerous ecclesiastics of all orders, and quite a number of travellers. Our guests have been of varying intelligence, from men who have excavated themselves, to the delightful person who congratulated us upon having come upon these tunnels, all made beforehand, and following along the scarp just where we wanted them to go.



July 9th, 1894.

came to me recently the servant of an Effendi, who is the proprietor of the small hill north of Damascus Gate, on which I reported some time ago (see Quarterly Statement, 1893, p. 298), telling me that his master had sent him to say that he was about to build another new house on the side of the hill, and in digging for the foundation had found a great many stone boxes of various colours, and wished that I should come and see the place and tell them what they ought to do. So in the afternoon I went there 