Diodorus Siculus says, that forty-seven of these tombs were entered on the sacred register of the Egyptian priests, only seventeen of which remained at the time of his visit to Egypt, about sixty years B. C. The industry and enterprise of the indefatigable Belzoni have introduced us, as it were, into an immediate intimacy with the sovereigns of Egypt above thirty centuries ago.

All over the corridors and chambers the walls are adorned with sculptures and paintings in intaglio and relief, representing gods, goddesses, and the hero of the tomb in the most prominent events of his life; priests, religious processions and sacrifices, boats, and agricultural scenes, and the most familiar pictures of every-day life, in colors as fresh as if they were painted not more than a month ago; and the large saloon, lighted up with the blaze of our torches, seemed more fitting for a banqueting-hall, for song and dance, than a burial-place of the dead. All travelers concur in pronouncing the sudden transition from the dreary desert without to these magnificent tombs, as operating like a scene of enchantment; and we may imagine what must have been the sensations of Belzoni, when, wandering with the excitement of a first discoverer through these beautiful corridors and chambers, he found himself in the great saloon, leaning over the alabaster sarcophagus. An old Arab guide, who accompanied Belzoni, points out a chamber where the fortunate explorer entertained a party of European travelers who happened to arrive there at that time, making the tomb of Pharaoh (supposed to be the tomb of Pharaoh Necho) ring with shouts and songs of merriment.

It may be observed that all the tombs are of the

same general character; throughout possessing the same beauty and magnificence of design and finish, and on every one, at the extreme end, was a large saloon, adorned with sculpture and paintings of extraordinary beauty, and containing a single sarcophagus. "The kings of the nations did lie in glory, every one in his own house; but thou art cast out of thy grave like an abominable branch." Every sarcophagus is broken, and the bones of the kings of Egypt are scattered. Among the paintings on the wall are represented a heap of hands severed from the arms, showing that the hero of the tomb had played the tyrant in his brief hour on earth.

Travelers and commentators concur in supposing that these magnificent excavations must have been intended for other uses than the burial, each of a single king. Perhaps, it is said, like the chambers of imagery seen by the Jewish prophet, they were the scene of idolatrous rites performed "in the dark;" and as the Israelites are known to have been mere copyists of the Egyptians, these tombs are supposed to illustrate the words of Ezekiel: "Then said he to me, Son of man, dig now in the wall; and when I had digged in the wall, behold a door. And he said unto me, Go in and see the abominable things that they do there. So I went in, and saw, and behold, every form of creeping thing, and abominable beasts, and all the idols of the house of Israel, portrayed upon the wall round about." Ezekiel viii, 8-10.

Amid the wrecks of former greatness which tower above the plain of Thebes, the inhabitants who now hover around the site of the ancient city are

perhaps the most miserable in Egypt. On one side of the river they build their mud huts around the ruins of the temples, and on the other their best habitations are in the tombs; wherever a small space has been cleared out, the inhabitants crawl in, with their dogs, goats, sheep, women, and children; and the Arab is passing rich who has for his sleeping-place the sarcophagus of an ancient Egyptian.

In the immediate neighborhood of Thebes, on the western bank of the river, the whole mountain side is excavated into innumerable cavern tombs for the vast population of the city. The tombs are cut in the rock, generally with their entrances facing the east; some have rock-hewn porticos in front, but the greater part have only an outer doorway, and an inner one, that has placed on each side a figure of the watchful fox. This excavated tract of rock extends full two miles in length. There are deep shafts or wells, similar to those found in the pyramids, which are approaches to deeper chambers, and to an endless number of winding recesses.

The caves are literally loaded with ornaments, with allegorical and hieroglyphic figures, painted with the freshest and most pleasing colors on a coating formed of a kind of plaster. The caves are much encumbered by rubbish, caused by the frequent and constant rifling by the Arabs for gain, and breaking up of the mummy-cases or coffins for firewood.

With the devout though degraded spirit of religion that possessed the Egyptians, they seem to have paid but little regard to their earthly habitations; their temples and their tombs were the principal

objects that engrossed the thoughts of this extraordinary people. It has been well said of them, that they regarded the habitations of the living merely as temporary resting-places, while the tombs were regarded as permanent and eternal mansions; and while not a vestige of a habitation is to be seen, the tombs remain monuments of splendor and magnificence, perhaps even more wonderful than the ruins of their temples. Clinging to the cherished doctrine of the metempsychosis, the immortal part, on leaving its earthly tenement, was supposed to become a wandering, migratory spirit, giving life and vitality to some bird of the air, some beast of the field, or some fish of the sea, waiting for a regeneration in the natural body. And it was of the very essence of this faith to inculcate a pious regard for the security and preservation of the dead. The open doors of tombs are seen in long ranges, and at different elevations, and on the plain large pits have been opened, in which have been found one thousand mummies at a time. For many years, and until a late order of the pacha preventing it, the Arabs had been in the habit of rifling the tombs to sell the mummies to travelers. Thousands have been torn from the places where pious hands had laid them, and the bones meet the traveler at every step. The Arabs use the mummy-cases for firewood, the bituminous matters used in the embalmment being well adapted to ignition; and the epicurean traveler may cook his breakfast with the coffin of a king. Notwithstanding the depredations that have been committed, the mummies that have been taken away and scattered all over the world, those that have been burned,

and those that now remain in fragments around the tombs, the numbers yet undisturbed are no doubt infinitely greater; for the practice of embalming is known to have existed from the earliest periods recorded in the history of Egypt; and by a rough computation, founded upon the age, the population of the city, and the average duration of human life, it is supposed that there are from eight to ten millions of mummied bodies in the vast necropolis of Thebes.

The indefatigable traveler, Dr. Lepsius, the result of whose investigations has lately been published, has deciphered the inscriptions on forty-five of the tombs at the foot of the great Pyramid of Jizeh, which until his exploration were of unknown date. The most magnificent of these mausoleums, or rather vaults in the rock, belonged to princes, kinsmen, or chief officers of those kings near whose pyramids they lie; and in some cases there are regular series of succession of father, son, and grandson, supplying complete pedigrees of those distinguished families that above four thousand years since formed the nobility of the land. Among them, one in fine condition was buried in the sand, which belongs to a son of King Cheops. In these tombs we obtain a knowledge of the oldest determinable civilization of the human race. The architectural forms appear matured, and sculptures of whole figures of all sizes, in high and low relief, are in surprising abundance. The painting, on the finest lime-coating, is often beautiful beyond conception, and as fresh as if done yesterday.

The same idea of monumental display over the remains of the dead seems to have prompted the