VII.

after, applied to Ptolemy, by the priests of CHAP. Egypt.

into the

We will detain the Reader no longer with Descent such observations; but proceed to a survey of Crypta. the surprising repositories that have given rise to them, and which received among the Antients the appropriate appellation of the "City of the Dead." Nothing so marvellous ever fell within our observation; but in Upper Egypt, perhaps, works of a similar nature may have been found. The Crypte of Jerusalem, Tortosa, Jebilee, Laodicea, and Telmessus, are excavations of the same kind, but far less extensive. They enable us, however, to trace the connection which antiently existed in the sepulchral customs of all the nations bordering the eastern coast of the Mediterranean; from the shores of Carthage and of Cyrene, to Egypt, to Palæstine, to Phonicia, and to Asia Minor. An inclination common to man, in every period of his history, but particularly in the patriarchal ages, of being finally "gathered unto his fathers," may explain the prodigious labour bestowed in

(5) See Chap. VII. of the Fourth Volume of these Travels, p. 323, &c. Octavo Edition; also the observations in Note (4) of the same page, as to the situation of such sepulchres.

VII

CHAP. the construction of these primeva sepulchres. Wheresoever the roving Phoenicians extended their colonies, whether to the remotest parts of Africa, or of Europe, even to the most distant islands of their descendants the Celta in the Northern Ocean, the same rigid and religious adherence to this early practice may yet be noticed '.

The Alexandrian guides to the Catacombs will not be persuaded to enter them without using the precaution of a clue of thread, in order to secure their retreat. We were therefore provided with a ball of twine to answer this purpose; and also with a quantity of wax tapers, to light our passage through these dark chambers. They are situate about half a league along the shore, to the westward of the present city. The whole coast exhibits the remains of other sepulchres, that have been violated, and are now in ruins. The name of Cleopatra's Bath

(1) Amongthe Wild Irish, every avocation yields to the paramount duty of conveying a corpse to its destination, whatsoever may be the distance of the place designed for its interment. When the bearers arrive with a coffin, which, in order to fulfil the wishes of the deceased, is to be carried to some distant part of the country, they deposit it in the middle of the first village or town at which they rest, whence it is immediately forwarded by others who become its voluntary supporters.

VIL

has been given to an artificial reservoir, into CHAP. which the sea has now access; but for what reason it has been so called, cannot be ascertained: it is a bason hewn out of the rock; and if it ever were intended for a bath, it was, in all probability, a place where they washed the bodies of the dead before they were embalmed. Shaw maintained that the Crypte of NECROPOLIS were not intended for the reception of mummies, or embalmed bodies; in which he is decidedly contradicted by the text of Strabo3. Perhaps he was one of those who had been induced to adopt the erroneous notion that mummies were placed upright upon their feet in Egyptian sepulchres, and therefore was at a loss to reconcile the horizontal position of the Theca with his preconceived notions. We shall presently have very satisfactory evidence of the manner in which embalmed bodies were laid, when deposited within these tombs by the inhabitants of Egypt, before the foundation of Alexandria. The original entrance to them is now closed, and it is externally concealed from

66

(2) The Cryptæ, &c. were not intended for the reception of mummies or embalmed bodies." Shaw's Travels, p. 293. Lond. 1757. (5) Καὶ καταγωγαὶ, πρὸς τὰς ταριχείας τῶν νεκρῶν ἐπιτήδειαι. Strabon, Geogr. lib. xvii. p. 1128. Oxon. 1807.