Note (16) — 40.—Of Jherusalem and of the Holy Sepulchre.

(16.) “A brook in the valley of Josophat.”—On the banks of this stream, the Kedron, and at no great distance from the garden of Gethsemane, is a large rectangular edifice that was constructed by the Empress Helena. Tobler (Die Siloahquelle, 149), who has taken the trouble to record the number of steps counted by thirty-eight travellers, his predecessors, without however including Schiltberger, places the tomb of the Virgin at the foot of forty-seven steps. Near the above edifice are four sepulchral monuments that have been differently described, as their origin is unknown. Their style is partly Greek and partly Egyptian, and they somewhat resemble the monuments at Petra. They are fully described by Robinson, Biblical Researches, etc., and Kraft, Die Topographie Jerusalems, Berlin, 1846.—Bruun.