of money. As the new place adjoins the old, they have made a new door in the boundary wall. The Abyssinians have built a large round Church, very nicely and at great expense; it is completed up to the roof, but the money has come to an end, so the priest started last week for Abyssinia in order to take reports and photographs of those things which have been already done to the King, and to ask for more money to finish the work. It will be covered by a dome, in a similar way to the Dome of the Rock. I myself made the plan of it, and it stands only a few hundred feet distant from my home. It is unlike the Dome of the Rock in the inside, as there is no rotunda, but there is a square place separated as the holy of holies, round which are two passages or round aisles, and curiously no door has to be opposite the other, so one cannot look straight into the innermost part when the doors are open. This year we have had a good deal of rain, much more than in some years previous. It fell on 23rd January and lasted for about a week, and on the 10th February snow lay on the higher mountains beyond Bethlehem, and for several nights there was frost, and even thick ice, which damaged the roofings and walls of the houses greatly; also the trees suffered. On the 14th February the Crown Prince of Italy arrived, and stayed six days. Two arches were made over the street, one made by the Jews. It was situated 1,350 yards west of the Jaffa Gate, the other 300 yards nearer to the city by the Italians, of a Roman architectural design, from wood and canvas or cloth, and on it stood a figure made of pasteboard and gypsum, representing Italia, stretching out one arm, in her hand a laurel. When the Prince arrived it was a fine day, and the whole population of Jerusalem went out, standing and sitting on both sides of the road from the gate, for more than 2,000 yards. All the house tops, windows, balconies, garden walls, and town wall near the gate, were crowded with people. Soldiers kept order. On Sunday the 20th February the Prince left and went northwards. In regard of examining the rock-cut old channel on the ground of the Dominicans north of the Damascus gate, the superior of their order had been here, and I had an opportunity of speaking with him on the subject. He promised me that he would speak to the master of the ground, now residing in Paris; he will, perhaps, give me leave to excavate. May he fulfil his promise! The old parapet wall of the ditch of the castle was broken down, and a new one erected of lower dimensions, so the place looks much more in order, and one can see much better each stone of the castle, especially those in the lower layers, on which I hope some day to report. C. S. HEROD'S AMPHITHEATRE. JERUSALEM. JOSEPHUS, in "Antiq.," xv, 8, §1, says: "Herod built a theatre at Jerusalem, as also a very great amphitheatre, in the plain (outside town), both very costly works." Hitherto neither of them has yet been found or discovered, and the finding of their sites is a problem up till now. Some years ago it happened to me, when standing on the high heap of rubbish overtowering the town wall (inside of it, and north of "Burj Kibryt") east of "Bab en Nebi Daud," looking southwards into the now green and lovely country, I observed on a hill side an encircled hollow, which seemed to me to be artificial; a few Siloam fellaheen were standing near, with whom I had settled some business (a bargain for removing earth and bringing certain kinds of stones), I asked them if they could see such and such a place, pointing it out to them, and, when found, if they could tell me the proprietor of the ground. "Could you find it, when we go there?" I asked, and they said, "Yes." "Well, then, let us go there together and see what we may find," was my reply. We went out by the Maghrabeen gate, and down to the pool of Siloam and Bir Eyûb, and then up south-westwards to the top of the hill, and after some search we found the place. At once I saw that the cavity is artificial, and thought that perhaps it was Herod's Amphitheatre! But to prove this assertion excavations were necessary. I mentioned this find to several persons, especially to Dr. Chaplin, verbally, and by writing to Prof. Guthe, at Leipzic (in Germany), the Secretary of the German Palestine Exploration Society, but not telling the latter the situation; instead of giving me orders to excavate, he said in his answer: He had also found the site when making his excavations at Siloam, a few years before, and found it strange that I had in my letter not mentioned the exact site, as he knows it is a little south of Burj Kibryt. As this is not the case, I understood he wished only to preserve for himself the priority, and as he did not beg me to do anything, I did nothing more in the matter. Dr. and' Professor Euting, of Strasburg, also visited Jerusalem, and my son-in-law was travelling for a short time with him, so he told Euting of my find, and guided him to the spot; he picked up the same idea of having been a theatre, but said that excavations ought to be made, and when done, he would be glad to hear of its result, but gave no order to do it on his account, and so my son-in-law tried to do something, and had an idea to purchase the ground, but his endeavours led to no result. He got the proprietor to dig in some places (in the arena), in hopes of finding the pavement of the arena, but without any success. I paid him his outlay, hoping that the time. will come when I shall be able to recover my expenses. So for some years nothing was done till recently, when the English Exploration Fund sent me some money in order to enable me to undertake excava M tions, &c., when opportunity should arrive. So I determined at once to look a little more seriously into the "Theatre." I have now made the necessary measurements and some excavations, so that I am able to make a plan and sections of the whole, which are here inclosed, and to which I add a few words of explanation. No. 1. Is a map or plan, showing the situation or site of the amphitheatre, and several other places. It is on a double-size scale of the large map. No. 2. A plan of the Amphitheatre. No. 3. Elevation and sections from north to south of the middle and western part, according to the lines A, B and E, F of plan. No. 4. Elevation and sections from north to south, middle and eastern part, according to the lines in Plan A, B, H, M, K, G, and M, I, L. No. 5. Elevation and sections from east to west, according to the lines C, D in plan. No. 6. Plan, sections, side views, &c., of details found in the neighbourhood. This theatre (as will be seen on the Map No. 1) is situated on the northern and steep slope of a hill, between the two valleys, "Wady Yasul" on the south, and " Wady es Shama" on the north, both going eastwards and falling into the Kedron Valley or "Wady en Nar." This hill is called "Er Ras,” and is higher than the spur of the Abu Thor mountain, falling eastwards down to the Kedron, on which the necropolis is found together with Aceldama. So one could not only on the top of "er Ras," but even on the whole slope where the theatre is situated, see away over it and the whole city. On any former seat of it, one could see the top of the Evil Council Hill (Abu Thor), the present windmill, the Protestant Cemetery, Nebi Daud, and the town wall as far as the south-east corner of the Haram, and all that is now outside, with the depression of the Tyropeon, the Pool of Siloam, the Ophel, Kedron Valley up to Gethsemane, the village of Siloam, the Mount of Offence, and top of Mount Olivet. So that the spectators in the theatre had, at any rate, at the same time a very nice view before them. The hill consists to the greater part of very soft limstone, in which the amphitheatre is carved, and what was wanted besides it had to be built by stones, which when existing in greater extent were afterwards again removed, and small traces of it may now be found. The layer of earth covering the rock is not very thick, shafts for examination of the rock were made; in the rock the seats are, as a kind of steps, still recognisable, although in the course of centuries very much worn and decayed. The slope to the horizontal line is still easily to be measured, and makes on all three sides, west, south, and east, 37 degrees. This observation, and that the roundness is exactly a half circle, convinced me fully that we have here Herod's Amphitheatre. I hoped to find the flooring of the arena, but it is destroyed, and I have found nothing of it, as the ground was always cultivated and trees planted, but not so on the |