ACCOUNT OF THE LIME ROCKS &C. 17 



The chief priest directs all the proceedings of the 

 rites, he is a hale, snowy haired man, with a coun- 

 tenance strikingly benevolent and courteous, he has 

 enjoyed the pontific dignity for years, was one of the 

 founders of the sect, and is regarded with the utmost 

 esteem by all the minor priests and neophytes. 

 When I first entered the temple one of the minor 

 priests was in the act of delivering an oration, he 

 was clothed in black robes, and held a scroll in his 

 hand containing hieroglyphics to assist his memory ; 

 he stood at one end of the hall opposite to the throne 

 of the chief priest, and fronting the image of the 

 genius of the place ; the auditors consisting of minor 

 priests and disciples, for the most part decently hab- 

 ited in black raiment, were listening very attentively, 

 with the exception of an old man whose rosy head 

 was wrapped in delicious sleep, with his chin repos- 

 ing on the pillow of his gentle knuckles, supported 

 on the end of the trunk of a sapling oak, which he 

 held in a position that caused it to form right angles 

 with the plane of the floor. 



My memorandum book contains sketches of the 

 priests, &c., which I shall communicate in future 

 papers. 



THEOBALD. 



ACCOUNT OF THE LIME ROCKS OF THE 

 NEIGHBOURHOOD. 



IN the accounts of voyagers, particularly those 

 about the close of the 16th, and early part of the 

 17th centuries, we find a constant anxious research 

 for gold, whether in possession of the natives of the 

 countries they visited, or in sands, or veins in the 

 earth ; and every bit of shining mineral seems to 

 have been carefully treasured up, in the hope of 

 finding it to contain this precious desideratum ; for 

 which, health, life and even conscience were sacri- 

 ficed. Abundant verification had they of the pro- 

 VOL. i. 1833. c 



