THE POOL OF HEZEKIAH, AND THE CHURCH OF THE HOLY SEPULCHRE.

From a

Photograph,

the ordinary posca, or sour drink of the legionarieswhen Jesus on the cross cried "I thirst" (Matt. xxvii. 48; Mark xv. 36; Luke xxiii. 36).

8. The language of the evangelists seems to imply that the procession, on leaving the judgment hall, passed not through the city, but outside it (Mark xv. 20; Luke xxiii. 26; John xix. 17).

The present site fails to satisfy any one of these conditions. It is not only far within the walls, but apparently must have been so in the time of our Lord, when the city was much larger and more populous than now; though in the time of Constantine, when the walls were demolished and the city desolate, it may have been outside the inhabited district. Even if by any sudden bend or re-entering angle the line of circumvallation left it outside, which, however, is very unlikely, it must still have been in the midst of houses, for we find that Agrippa, ten years afterwards, constructed a third line of wall to enclose an extensive suburb which had sprung up on this side; and we know that the ceremonial law and social usages of the Jews forbade the formation of graves among the abodes of the living. Where could the priests have stood who so feared defilement that they would not enter the judgment hall? (John xviii. 28) Amongst a crowd of Roman soldiers and rabble, and in a place of public execution and interment, they must have been defiled. If, as seems certain, houses were all round the present site, where could the great multitude have watched from "afar off"? The judgment hall and the barracks are believed to have been in the Castle of Antonia. In this case the Via Dolorosa must have led, as tradition now marks it, through the heart of the city, crowded at the time to its utmost capacity by the multitudes who had come up to the feast. The rulers "feared an uproar among the people," many of whom "believed on Him; hence the need for taking our Lord by subtlety, and for hurrying over the trial in an illegal and stealthy manner. Is it likely that they would run the risk of a disturbance and a rescue in the crowded streets, especially with a guard of only four soldiers? (John xix. 3). We can hardly doubt that, in accordance with the indications of the narrative, the

Epistle to the Hebrews, at a time when the Temple was yet standing and its sacrifices offered, says, respecting the sin-offering, "the bodies of those beasts, whose blood is brought into the sanctuary by the high priest for sin, are burned without the camp. Wherefore Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people with his own blood, suffered without the the gate" (Hebrews xiii. 11, 12). Not merely "a gate," but "the gate" through which the bodies of the sacrifices were carried out to be burned. The great sin-offering for the world was thus led forth to be crucified, through the very gate and in sight of the very spot in which the typical sacrifices had been burned in the Valley of Hinnom. Again, the rending of the veil at the moment of our Lord's death gains a new significance if this view be adopted. The Temple, as we know, opened to the east; it would be within sight of Calvary. How striking, how suggestive, that the typical veil should thus be "rent in twain from the top throughout," just when "we received boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus by a new and living way, which he consecrated for us, through the veil, that is to say, his flesh" (Matt. xxvii. 51; Mark xv. 38; Luke xxiii. 45; Heb. x. 19, 20). And yet further, the fact that the place of our Lord's death, burial, and resurrection was in close proximity to the Temple, would give additional significance to the taunt of those "that passed by, saying, Thou that destroyest the Temple and buildest it in three days, save thyself" (Matt. xxvii. 39, 40; Mark xv. 29, 30). Here again the type and the antitype come into close juxtaposition.

Should any of our readers wish to pursue this subject further, we refer them to "The Topography of Jerusalem," by Mr. Fergusson; to "Horeb and Sinai," by the Rev. George Sandie; and to letters in the "Quarterly Statement of the Palestine Exploration Fund," by Dr. Hutchinson.

SEA-SERPENTS.

they could pass immediately from the prætorium into the open country.

We have but to transfer the scene of the crucifixion from the northern to the eastern side of the city, in the Valley of the Cedron, to find all the requirements of the narrative satisfied. It is, and always must have been, outside the walls. It was a recognised place of interment, the valley to this day being full of graves, many of them very ancient and cut in the rock. Irrigated by the river, and by wells and fountains, there were numerous gardens. The slope of Olivet would allow a great multitude to watch the scene afar off, and the priests standing on the Temple cloisters would be within sight and hail of Calvary without fear of defilement. One of the two main roads leading from the country into Jerusalem passed close to the spot. And the procession leaving the prætorium would emerge at once from the city into the open country.

Assuming, then, that the site of Calvary is to be sought on the eastern side of the city, the whole narrative becomes clear and consistent. If this be conceded, a new and unexpected conformity between type and antitype is discovered. The writer of the

great sea-serpents was revived last autumn. It was in September, in the Sound of Sleat, between Skye and the Scottish mainland, that some unknown monster was seen from a gentleman's yacht, and reported with the usual circumstantial yet confused details.

Mr. Frank Buckland, who seems to be regarded as a sort of Judge of Appeal in regard to "Curiosities of Natural History," thus gave his opinion about the Scotch sea-snake:

Personally, I do not believe in the existence of a sea-snake, although there are many snakes in the sea, these latter being highly poisonous. Some of them are beautifully figured in Dr. Fayrer's splendid work on the Thanatophidia of India. The object seen in Scotland in September last was either dead or alive. If alive, the appearance was probably caused by porpoises or seals. Turtles migrating in mid-ocean have also been taken for sea-snakes. Professor Owen mentioned this in his lectures. Again, the appearance might have been caused by fish of some kind. I have placed in my fish museum at South Kensington a cast I made of a very large conger-eel in the attitude of swimming. The idea that the sea

snake might possibly be a conger was first given me by my pet monkeys, who have the greatest possible horror of a snake, and who were frightened out of their wits and uttered shrill cries of alarm when this conger was held in a swimming attitude towards them. It is, however, more than possible that this Scotch sea-snake was a gymnetrus, or Banks's oar-fish. My late lamented friend Jonathan Couch says in his book that the largest oar-fish he ever heard of was obtained near Wick; it measured fifteen feet in length.

"In April, 1872, Mr. Provost Barclay, of Montrose, informed me that a gymnetrus, or vaagmaar, or deal-fish, had been caught in Messrs. Johnstone's salmon stake nets measuring six feet. In 1849 one of these fish, twelve feet three inches long, was exhibited in Regent Street, and I well recollect going with my father and the late Sir Robert Peel to examine it. The wake caused by these oar-fish swimming swiftly through the water would give the idea that they were of much greater length than they really are. It is possible that large halibuts coming up to the surface of the water might give the appearance of the sea-snake, and would especially account for the convolutions of the sea-snake being not on the same plane with the water, but like a rope placed on the floor and then shaken up and down. I have myself twice seen, at Herne Bay, what might have easily been mistaken for a sea-snake-namely, a long line of sea birds, at considerable distance from the shore, swimming swiftly just above the surface of the

ance of the sea-snake.

"If the Scotch sea-snake was composed of inanimate objects, it was probably a log of timber, a bit of wreck, such as a ship's mast, or a tree covered with barnacles or sea-weed. A friend of mine who has lately returned from Kamtschatka tells me that he came across a sea-snake in the Northern Pacific. He examined it, and found that it was a mass of sea-weed rolled by the action of the tide into an immense cable. As the waves passed under it it had the appearance of an immense snake swimming."

In the "Leisure Hour" for 1862 a capital paper on "Sea-Serpents" appeared from the pen of Mr. Buckland, in which he reviewed the whole question in a masterly way. In that paper he mentioned one form of the appearances which keep alive the belief in some monster of the deep as yet unknown to science. "A sea-serpent was seen off the Island of Stronsa, one of the Orkneys, by some gentlemen in a yacht, and also by some fishermen whose nets it broke. After a time it was thrown ashore, and its vertebræ, when placed together, measured sixty feet in length. Sir Everard Home examined them, and found them to be portions of the backbone, or vertebræ, of the basking shark, a not very rare kind of fish. Basking sharks generally swim in pairs, and the vertebræ of two basking sharks had been rudely put together to get the length of sixty feet. This happened so long since as to be reported in the first volumes of the "Wernerian Transactions," half a century ago or more.

On another occasion Sir Edward Belcher saw a strange head and a long neck raised out of the water in the Gulf of Florida, and had a boat lowered instantly to examine the object. After a short but stiff pull, he came up to a group of very large marine turtles swimming along in line near the surface of the sea.

is that of the Megapodius of New Guinea and the surrounding archipelago. This bird is a member of a small but deeply interesting gallinaceous family known as Megapodina, which have this peculiarity, that they never sit upon their eggs. They bury them in immense tumuli that excite the astonishment of strangers, leaving them to be hatched by the heat of the sun or by fermentation. This family of birds is found in all the islands between Australia and the Philippines in the one direction, and from Borneo to New Britain in the other.

My first acquaintance with the nest of this remarkable bird was made in New Guinea when exploring Manumanu River in November, 1872. Whilst breakfast was preparing I strolled into the bush to collect ferns. Close to the river, inside a dense growth of timber, was a great mound, with a depression at the top. It was a perfect circle, and it was evidently artificial, great quantities of leaves being mixed with loose earth. It could not have been built by human hands, as there were no traces whatever of cultivation in the neighbourhood. The mound was carefully measured, and proved to be ten feet high and sixty feet in circumference at the base. Our old native guide persisted in saying that it was built by birds. But I remained incredulous until we fell in with several similar mounds on Bampton Island, near the entrance to the Fly River. These were exactly the size of that just described. The natives utilised them by planting them with bananas and other trees and shrubs.

We had previously seen some eggs of this bird at Mauat, on the south-western coast of New Guinea. Mauat is about 260 miles distant from Manumanu, so that it is evident that the Megapodius is common throughout New Guinea. The mounds at Cape York are large, but not equal to the one on New Guinea. It is not surprising that they were formerly

regarded as tombs of native chiefs. It was interest | ing at dawn to hear the loud call of these noisy birds as they ran about the bush in all directions.

The Megapodius tumulus is about the size of a large fowl; it is often called the "Jungle Fowl." Its egg is disproportionately large, being three and a half inches in length, and two inches in diameter. It is a true oval in shape, and of a brown colour. The taste is strong and musty to the European palate. Numbers of Megapodii unite at the commencement of the north-west monsoon to build a new mound, or to add to the size of an old one. For this purpose they use their great feet; the natives assert that their wings are also called into requisition, but I

Wake at what hour I might from my sleep, they were still scratching vigorously.

The Megapodius is found in the larger islands of Torres Straits, and of the Inner Route, as well as on the mainland as far south as Cardwell.

Frank Jardine, Esq., the magistrate at Somerset, related to me the following anecdote. A native of Cape York went one day in search of the eggs of the Megapodius, which are much prized by the blacks. Whilst he was exploring the hidden riches of a large mound, the upper part fell in and suffocated the poor fellow. The family instituted a strict search for the missing man. After a day or two, guided by footprints about the mound, they resolved to examine its contents.

cannot guarantee the fact. Sand, loose earth, sticks, leaves, and stones, furnish the materials. The eggs, which are very numerous, are hatched by the heat generated by the mass of decaying vegetable matter. The mother birds await the emergence of their young, and then lead them about like other birds. They feed on seeds, fallen fruits, and insects. They love the neighbourhood of the sea and the sandy banks of creeks. The time when they lay their eggs is the hottest part of the year, from September to March.

I obtained three young birds, and numbers of eggs. My young Megapodii proved irreclaimably wild; and, despite constant care, lived only three weeks in confinement. Night and day, with the briefest intervals of repose, they were scratching the flooring of their cage, scattering in all directions the sand with which they were liberally supplied.

In a short time they came upon the corpse in the attitude of digging; so that it would be no exaggeration to say that this man was smothered to death in a bird's-nest!

It is probable that the larger mounds are of great age. The brush-turkey (Tallegalla Lathami), and the pheasant (Leipoa ocellata), both seen by us, are also mound-builders. They abound in New Guinea, as well as in Northern Australia. The eggs of the brush-turkey are somewhat larger (three and threequarter inches long, and two and three-eighths inches in diameter) than those of the Megapodius tumulus, of a pure white colour, and delicious in taste. The habits of these three birds are similar. They are most appropriately called Megapodine, or Great-footed Birds, on account of the size and wonderful strength of their feet.

W. WYATT GILL, B.A.