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There they set up their government and established their society; there they founded a city and dwelt by themselves, avoided as the accursed of God. The second morning after the incidents of the preceding chapter, Amrah drew near the well En-rogel, and seated herself upon a stone. One familiar with Jerusalem, looking at her, would have said she was the favorite servant of some well-to-do family.
About the immense outer fortifications crawled the shadowy valleys of Tophet, of Brook Kedron and of Hinnom. Thickly scattered like fallen patches of skies the pools of Siloam, Gihon, Shiloh, En-Rogel, the Great Pool, the Serpent's Pool and the Dragon's Well reflected the color of the mountain heavens. Between them wandered the blue threads of certain aqueducts that supplied them.
We see traces of it in the Bible, as when it is mentioned that "Abimelech was made king by the oak of the pillar that was in Shechem"; and "Adonijah slew sheep and oxen and fat cattle by the stone of Zoheleth, which is by En-rogel, and called all his brethren the king's sons, and all the men of Judah the king's servants"; and that when Joash was anointed king by Jehoiada, "the king stood by a pillar, as the manner was"; and again, King Josiah "stood by a pillar" to make a covenant, "and all the people stood to the covenant."
Nowadays travellers in the Holy Land looking for the famous place with the beautiful name, the King's Garden, descend the bed of the Cedron or the curve of Gihon and Hinnom as far as the old well En-rogel, take a drink of the sweet living water, and stop, having reached the limit of the interesting in that direction.
When at last she reached the King's Garden she slackened her gait; for then the grim city of the lepers was in view, extending far round the pitted south hill of Hinnom. As the reader must by this time have surmised, she was going to her mistress, whose tomb, it will be remembered, overlooked the well En-Rogel.
Even the wise king, it was said, wanting a garden for his Egyptian bride, was constrained to found it down in the meeting-place of the valleys above En-rogel. Through the tree-tops shone the outer fronts of the palace. Turning to the right, the party proceeded a short distance to a spacious square, on the west side of which stood the residence of the governor.
At the approach of day, as signalled by the stars, she filled the basket, selected a jar, and took the road to En-rogel, going out by the Fish Gate which was earliest open, and arriving as we have seen.
The lepers, she knew, were accustomed of mornings to come down from their sepulchral abodes in the hill, and take a supply of water for the day from the well En-rogel. Bringing their jars, they would set them on the ground and wait, standing afar until they were filled. To that the mistress and Tirzah must come; for the law was inexorable, and admitted no distinction.
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