the position in which it was necessary it should remain to close up the opening.

All these arrangements, which appear until now to have escaped notice, are still quite untouched; only the two sliding flag-stones have disappeared, and the discus has not retained a strictly vertical position, proper care not having been taken in removing and wedging it. With these exceptions, the whole of this closing apparatus is exactly in the same state in which it was left by the consummate architect by whom it was originally conceived.

But we have still to mention the plan of closing up with regard to the interior.

In a large groove in the wall, a massive stone gate was hermetically fitted, with double hinges, constructed in the mass, and so arranged, that it was possible to set the gate easily in motion by a pressure from the outside; whilst the sockets were so contrived, that the gate, when left to itself, was sure to fall back again by its own weight into the groove in which, as I have already said, it was exactly fitted, and in such manner, that any person shut in behind would be totally unable to move it.*

After having passed this first gate, you find yourself in a square chamber, the walls of which are parallel to those of the porch, as is likewise the case with the walls of all the other apartments.

Three doors now present themselves, one of these pierced towards about the middle of the western face;

* This movement appears to have been constructed exactly on the principle of the modern self-acting hinge.-EDIT. NOTE.

the two others opening into the southern face; this hall serves as a kind of second vestibule, for no tomb is placed therein. Three small triangular niches, carefully cut into the western, southern, and eastern faces, have been contrived for the purpose of receiving sepulchral lamps, the traces of which are still perfectly visible; on the ceiling you can read the names of various travellers, and amongst these I observed, with great pleasure, the name of my learned fellow-member of the Institute, and friend, M. Leon Delaborde, with the date, 1827.

The door opening in the partition wall on the west, leads into a chamber of smaller dimensions, but square, like the first, the floor in the centre being on a lower level than at the threshold, so as to form a tolerably wide banquette all round.

Each of the three faces, not including the entrance one, is pierced by three openings, all semi-circular; but the two lateral doors on each side, which are only half the height of the central door, are also set round with a rectangular grooving, so that at first sight you suppose them to be square. The six lateral openings give access to the same number of tombs, and the three central doors lead into as many small compartments, constructed in the following manner. To the right and left they are provided with horizontal tiers or beds, surmounted by a semicircular arch; and at the further extremity of the room a similar bed is cut out of the rock, but with the semi-circular vault, forming the canopy, contrived in the breadth of the room, instead of its length. It is of course necessary to introduce the upper part of your body into it, to

judge of the extent of the vault, which is half concealed by the mass of rock.

Two of these chambers (the northern and the southern) are provided above each stone bed, with niches intended. for sepulchral lamps, exactly similar to those of the entrance hall. They likewise bear evident traces of the lamps which burnt there in ancient times. These small niches for lamps are wanting in the western room.

With regard to the six tombs, they are of different forms, and generally constructed according to the following principle: you first enter a small room, the floor of which is deeply furrowed, close to the threshold, by a large groove, intended most likely to receive an embossment contrived below the trunk of the sarcophagus, so as to fix it solidly; the head of the sarcophagus when disposed in its proper place, necessarily concealed an opening giving access into a square recess, much too small ever to have been intended to receive a human body. We shall see presently that it is quite possible to explain the use of this little recess, which was necessarily concealed, as long as the tomb in front of it remained unviolated. One of the tombs (that which is placed at the left extremity of the northern face) has no groove inlaid in the ground. The lefthand tomb of the western face, instead of presenting the opening of the small recess behind the head of the sarcophagus, supposing the sarcophagus to be in its place, presents this opening on the left side, without the dimensions of the recess having been altered. And, as a last observation, the left-hand tomb of the southern face has no recess like the others.

In the sepulchral chamber which I am now about to describe were lying, utterly neglected, the two pieces of the fine lid of a sarcophagus (represented beneath) which are now deposited in the Louvre.

Below the bed at the further extremity of the room containing three beds, in the northern face, a small

opening is pierced, rather difficult to get through, leading by an inclined plain to a lower chamber, having on its western face a bed surmounted by a semi-circular arch, and on its northern face, two stories of shelves, disposed close to each other like the steps of a staircase. The inclined plane forming a corridor that leads into this room, ends by a steep projection, above a single high step, resting on the floor. It is evident, à priori, that the two stories of shelves have never been intended to receive sarcophagi, and that the only sarcophagus that can have been placed in this room must have been laid upon the bed at the further end, that is to say, in a parallel line with the face of the monument. Considering, besides, that this small chamber is excavated exactly in the axis of the vestibule, it is impossible not to admit that it had a very peculiar destination, and that the whole monument was, in some manner, subordinate to its superior importance.

To return to the description of the other rooms.

The door, pierced on the right-hand side, in the southern face of the vestibule, leads in a slightly oblique direction to another square room, of the same dimensions as the preceding one, furnished also with a wide banquette, and pierced for three tombs in each of its western and southern faces; whilst a single opening, to the right of the entrance-door, leads by a staircase of six steps, continued by an inclined plane, to another under-chamber, provided on three of its faces with a banquette, surrounded by a semi-circular arch.

A single lid of a sarcophagus remains in this lower room, ornamented lengthwise with three roses,