wás a very extraordinary sculpture, which had been painted, and from which I concluded that it was a temple dedicated to the SUN. Within some ornaments there are four circles; in the inner circle there is a figure, probably representing the SUN; the spaces between the two next are divided into twelve parts; in the first, twelve birds are cut in like seals; in the next, twelve figures defaced; which I conjectured might be the TWELVE SIGNS OF THE ZODIAC. The outer circle, not divided, has in it figures of men, if I mistake not, to the same number. In each angle, between the outer circle and the square ornaments that are around it, is a figure which may possibly represent the four seasons. A wing extends along one side of it, from a sort of globe, marked out in lines, which probably had another wing extending in the same manner, it may be, over such, another sculpture. The stones, and some others of a temple near, are so large, that they cannot move them ; nor do they use stones in building, but" (who can read the relation, without the most poignant indignation!) they break in piecesthese fine morsals of antiquity, adorned with hieroglyphics, and make lime of them. The entrance of this temple seems to have been to the SOUTH, as that of the other was, pro

bably,

*

bably, to the NORTH. Most of it is white stone, mixed with pebbles, and adorned with hieroglyphics: one of them has STARS cut on which without doubt covered part of the building," But I must return from the temples to the caverns of Thebes. I must revisit those gloomy sepulchres of her departed monarchs, which, probably, in the earliest periods of the world, were the residence of the ancestors of the human race. Let us once more, with silent step and with reverential awe, explore the hallowed depositories of royal dust!

Pursuing his lonely journey through those subterraneous departments, our author found one, in which was the sarcophagus of a king, adorned with hieroglyphics in different columns, with figures of men, hawks, and bulls. The human figures were probably of the same nature with the beings above-mentioned; and the hawk, or IBIS, is the known symbol of Isis, as the bull, or APIs, was of OSIRIS. In another was sculptured a figure, with its arms folded across the breast; over it a GLOBE, and a man kneeling on each side. Dr Pocock's description of these sepulchral grottoes concludes with an account of one of uncommon magnitude, in which, says he, "is a statue of a man with a sceptre in his hand, Pocock's Travels, vol. i. p. 78.

and on the cieling is a large figure of another man painted at top, with a particular sort of sceptre in his hand, and wings hanging down lower than his feet," (from this, description, probably HERMES,)" and covering the whole body; this is a very extraordinary figure, and the painting exceedingly fresh. At the entrance on each side are four men, cut into the stone, above the natural size, having heads of hawks and other animals: on the inside, a tortoise and a man with a goat's head are cut within a circle on each of the pilasters. At the entrance of K, a large bull's head is cut in relief, &c." The tortoise, the TESTUDO of the celestial sphere, is the Hindoo symbol of strength; upon which account Veeshnu, in the second or BARA AVATAR, assumes that form to support the globe sinking in the bed of the ocean. The head, and part of the body, of an immense BULL, we have observed, issues from the centre of the great pagoda of Jaggernaut; and that the rock, through which the Ganges rushes into Hindostan, is called the Cow-HEAD ROCK. It is readily granted, that to whatsoever purpose they were originally devoted, these particular caverns were indubitably afterwards converted into sepulchres; which circumstance might possibly lead Mr Ovington into the error of asserting that the

Indian

"

Indian caverns likewise were burying-places. Two other caverns, however, of very ample dimensions, which he visited the following day, were certainly not dormitories for the dead, but habitations of the living, or sacred recesses for the performance of the most aweful rites of religion. descended by a flight of ten steps, cut in therock, which led to a room in which are square pillars, likewise hewn out of the solid rock. "Beyond that, there is a long room with pillars ranging on each side: all the apartments are in like manner adorned with hieroglyphics; but the stone is scaled in such a manner, and is so black in some of the first apartments, that there is great reason to think the place has been damaged by fire. Beyond these rooms, the apartments extend to the right, there being several steps descending downwards: one part leads to a gallery, cut round the rock, which has some apartments on one side. In these, as well as in the apartments of the other grotto, marked B, are cavities cut perpendicular down to other chambers below, where I saw doors and openings, and where, probably, there are as many apartments above. One would almost imagine that those places were habitations for the living, and possibly might be cut under the palaces of the kings

To the first of these he

of Thebes, if they were not the palaces themselves." Of the second of these extensive caverns, marked B, in his plate, Dr Pocock has given no particular description; but, if we may judge from the plate which exhibits the plan upon which it was formed, it was fabricated of dimensions and hewn with toil not. less astonishing.

Before I conclude the account of the Egyptian caverns by this celebrated traveller, the reader may possibly not be displeased if I state here, from the page immediately following that account, the dimensions of a vast colossal statue, which he discovered in some ruins adjoining to the grottoes just described and accurately measured. It will rescue from the suspicion of hyperbole the account given by me, from Niebuhr, of the dimensions of the grand bust in the Elephanta cavern, the centre face of which, he will recollect, alone measured, in length, five feet; that of the same face the nose measured one foot and a half; that the width, from the ear only to the middle of the nose, was three feet four inches; and that the stupendous breadth of the whole figure, between the shoulders, was near twenty feet.

"This large colossal statue," says Dr Pocock," is broken about the middle of the

trunk;