Passing down the Valley of Jehoshaphat to the northeast corner of the city wall, we entered the large olive-groves which cover the bed of the valley and the sides of the adjacent hills. Attended by their Nubian slaves, the women and children of Jerusalem spent the hours of the day here, reclining beneath these trees. Opposite St. Stephen’s Gate is the traditional rock where Stephen was stoned to death. Above it, to the north, is the supposed site of Calvary. Below it, to the east, is the stone bridge which spans the Kidron. It is 140 feet long, and seventeen high from the bottom of the vale to the top of the arch. It is firmly built, and as it has stood for thousands of years, it will endure for ages to come, if not destroyed by violence. The Brook Kidron is a winter torrent, or the accumulation of streamlets from the hill-sides, formed by the rains of winter. Though not seen in the dry season, the stream continues to flow several feet below the surface of small loose stones, sending up distinctly a low murmuring sound.
A thousand feet below the bridge is “Absalom’s Pillar.” It is of limestone, cut out of the rock, and detached from the base of Olivet by a path excavated in three of its sides. It consists of a square platform, reached by a flight of steps; a basement of solid rock twenty-four feet square, a square attic seven feet high, and a circular attic, surmounted with an inverted funnel-shaped dome, the point spreading out like an opening flower. Though its apparent altitude is less than fifty feet, yet, owing to the accumulation of stones around its base, its actual height is not ascertainable. The exterior of the basement is ornamented with columns and pilasters, on the Ionic capitals of which rests a Doric architrave. Above the first entablature are two courses of large, well-dressed stones, on which is traced a small cornice, and on the dome above is a cornice resembling rope-work. Within are two chambers, reached by the original doorway on the east, and by a breach on the west, which has been made by the inhabitants of the city, who hold the memory of Absalom in profound contempt. Within and around it are heaps of stones, thrown there by Christian, Jew, and Moslem, in condemnation of a son’s rebellion against his father, and, as a more expressive mark of their disapprobation, they spit upon it as they pass. This is probably the pillar which Absalom in his lifetime reared up for himself in the “King’s Dale.”[137] Being a mixture of Grecian, Roman, and Egyptian architecture, the style is against the supposition; but as it was customary in the days of Herod to “garnish the sepulchres of the righteous,” so the admirers of the rebel may have reconstructed his “Pillar” conformably with the architectural taste of the Herodian age.