or thirty feet square; but the height is low, and never proportionable. The ingenious architect has left upon the front and the side walls of the stair-cases, which lead us down to them, several curious designs in sculpture and basso relievo, like those upon the sarcophagi. A range of narrow cells, wide enough to receive one coffin, sarcophagus, or nam, and long enough sometimes for two or three, runs along the sides of most of these sepulchral chambers, and appear to be the only provision that was made, provided indeed they were only made for the reception of the dead.

The Greeks have one of these cryptæ in great esteem and veneration. They call it St Teckla, in commemoration of some acts of penance and mortification that are said to have been here performed by that first virgin martyr. In the middle of it there is a fountain, supposed to be instrumental in producing miraculous visions and extraordinary cures. For hither they bring such persons or children as have the rickets, jaundice, or other distempers; and, after they have washed them with holy water, and perfumed them, they return with a strong faith in a speedy cure. Here likewise the aged and the infirm pretend to receive the warnings of their approaching dissolutions; whilst the young foresee a long train of circumstances and events that are to fall out in the future course of their lives.

The sepulchral chambers near Jebilee, Tortosa, and the Serpent Fountain, together with those

that

that are commonly called the Royal Sepulchres at Jerusalem, (all of them communicating with one another by small narrow entrances), are of the like workmanship and contrivance with the cryptæ of Latikea; as were likewise, in all probability, the cave of Machpelah, and the other sepulchres, which appear to have been many, of the sons of Heth, Gen. xxiii. 6. An ancient sarcophagus still remains in one of the sepulchral chambers of Jerusalem, which is of a Parian-like marble, in the fashion of a common round lidded trunk, all over very elegantly carved with flowers, fruit, and foliage. Instead likewise of those long narrow cells that are common in most of the other cryptæ, some of these are single chambers, others have benches of stone ranged one over another, upon which the coffins were to be placed. To these we may join the sepulchre, where our Saviour was laid, which was also hewn out of the natural rock, Matt. xxvii. 60. and lay originally under ground, like the others; but by St Helena's cutting away the rock round about it, that the floor or bottom of it might be upon the same level with the rest of the pavement of the church, it is now a grotto above ground, μaguagonλaxoμern, or curiously overlaid with marble. It consists of one chamber only, without cells, benches or ornaments, being about seven feet square, and six high; and over the place where the body was laid (whether this was a pit, or whether the body lay bound up only in spices and linen upon the floor) here, for many years, an oblong table of stone or

thorus,

thorus, xr, of three feet in breadth, and nearly of the same height, has been erected, which serves the Latins for an altar. The low narrow door or entrance where the stone was fixed and seated, till rolled away by the angel, still continues to conduct us within it; and as this was not situated in the middle, but on the left hand; as the grave likewise, or place where Christ was laid, may well be presumed to have been placed within it, on the right hand, or where the altar is at present, we may, from these circumstances, well account for Mary and John (John xx. 5. 11.) being obliged to stoop down, before they could look into it.

But the learned Salmasius* has attempted to prove, that this sepulchre was not hewn out of the rock, but was built with square polished stones, in the fashion of a rounded arch, vault or cupola, (specus, sc. cameratus et fornicatus erat), with a hole upon the top (cum foramine desuper) through which the body was to be let down; which hole was afterwards to be covered with a great stone (vice operculi) instead of a lid. But such a hole, especially in such a situation, could with no propriety be called a door, or Juga, as the entrance into this sepulchre is often named; neither could Peter and the women, without ladders, or such like assistances, have so easily gone in and out of it, as they seem to have done; Mark xvi. 5. &c. Neither will this learned author be the better supported in the other part of his position, viz. that this sepulchre was not hewn out of

* Plin. Exercit. p. 1207.

the

the rock (as we render μνημειον ὁ ελατόμησεν Ιωσηφ εν τη πέτρα, Matt. xxvii. 60. and μ. qupesvor ex sτgas, Mark xv. 46. and μ. λaževrov, Luke xxiii. 53.) but that these words absolutely denote a sepulchre built with hewn square polished stones, or, in his words, Monumentum lapide caso, polito et quadrato structum. Whereas the verb Aaroua can, by no means, be confined to such a construction; not signifying properly to build or to raise an edifice with stones, but only preparatory thereto (as roun λιθες ξυσες τε οικοδομησαι οίκον τω Θεω, 1 Chron. xxii. 2.) to cut stone, or to hew in stone; whether such stones were ord, single and moveable, or whether they were fixed and immoveable, such asy or gα, always rendered a rock, may be supposed to be. And therefore, if we are to explain one Scripture phrase by another, λατομειν εκ της πετρας, Οι εν τη πέτρα το μνημείον, cannot be rendered building a sepulchre with square moveable stones, as is here pretended, but cutting or hewing it out of the,, or immoveable rock; as the house (Matt. vii. 24.) is said to be built TT TTgay. For had this structure been made with hewn square polished stones, the term of art would have been different. It would not have been arou, but οικοδομείν, ποιειν, Οι λαξεύειν το μνημείον εκ λίθων, Οι λίθοις, as might be illustrated from various authorities.

The sepulchre likewise of Lazarus, according to the same author, (ibid.) was of the like fashion and workmanship. But the evangelist John, xi. 38. in describing it to be a cave, seems to contradict his opinion; for a cave, λ, or spelunca, is ge

nerally,

nerally, and perhaps always, taken for some hollow place under ground, either naturally such, or made so artificially; not by building it with adventitious stones, but by scouping away the natural rock, as in the sepulchre of our Saviour, and in the several caves, cryptæ, or grottos already taken notice of. The sepulchres likewise of the prophets, as they are now called, with many other caves that we meet with upon the Mount of Olives, in the very neighbourhood of that we are now speaking of, might all of them have either served, or have been originally designed for burying places, having their proper stones, or opercula, to lay upon them, or to shut them up. Here the dead bodies, especially of those of better fashion, after they were bound up in linen clothes, with spices, as the manner of the Jews is to bury, were to be laid, and the sepulchre to be shut up; as we find it was actually done to Lazarus, John xi. 38. 44. and would have been done to our Saviour, was he to have been left in his sepulchre, and to have seen corruption.

But, to proceed in our geographical inquiries, the greatest part of the country betwixt Latikea and Jebilee, is stony and mountainous; after which, we enter upon a most delightful plain, formerly the northern limit of the district of the Aradians*. At the mouth of the river Melleck, six miles from Jebilee, along this plain, the sea forms itself into a small bay, where we have the ruins

*ET (Sc. a Gabala) non n twr Agadiwy waλaia (wagaλia, Boch, Phal. 1. iv. c. 36.) &c. Strab. 1. xvi. p. 1093.