travels

168 TRAVELS IN EGYPT, NUBiA,lage at three or four hours' distance; and they distinguishedeach other by the difference of flags, his being red, that ofSt. Philip white.Franks against the plague.He ridiculed the preicautions taken by theThe chief employment of theinhabitants was that of making beads,' rosaries, crucifixes,and relics, for the pilgrims and for the different convents,who exported great quantities to Europe, havirig first consecratedthem on the altar of the Sepulchre.My escort was nowancreased by two Arabs, companionsof the" chief.We descended the hill of Bethlehem towardsthe south, and wound.through a lorig riarrow valley, barrenand rocky; in two hours arrived at the cisterns of Solomonjsupposed to be near the gardens Of Rehoboam.' There werethree, one above the other, in the ascent of a barren'stonyvalley that crossed the one in which we were:'the first,'nearest the entrance of the valley, is the largest, and may beabout three hundred feet long and two hundred wide; thegr^test depith at the lowest part is about thirty feet: theremaining two are smaller; the centre one less than'thethird.^ They are empty, and are constmcted with masonry. -•From this place there is an aqueduct to Bethlehem^ carryingwater from a fountain close to the road: the communicationwith Jerusalem whicb the aqueduct once had is nowcut off.capable ^f defence.Near the fountain is a strong square building;Hence we took an eastern directionΚΥΠΡΙΑΚΗ ΒΙΒΛΙΟΘΗΚΗ