Mr Seet^en 07i the Suhtei-ranean Sounds at Nakous. 51 



and confined, opens into one of the most spacious and regu- 

 lar of all the caverns. It is oval, about sixty feet long, and 

 forty broad ; the walls rise in a more regularly vaulted form 

 than in any of the others ; the roof was beyond the eye. The 

 walls are coated with stalactite ; but, excepting this, nature 

 has been very sparing of her ornaments. The floor has been 

 made perfectly smooth. In addition to the stone-seats which 

 the rock itself supplies, wooden benches have been disposed 

 round the circumference, as well as a few rustic chandeliers, 

 formed of a wooden cross, fixed horizontally on the top of a 

 pole. Once a-year, on the festival of their patron saint, the 

 peasantry of Adelsberg, and the neighbourhood, assemble in 

 this cavern to a ball. Here, many hundred feet beneath the 

 surface of the earth, and a mile from the light of day, the 

 rude music of the Carniolian resounds through more magnifi, 

 cent halls than were ever built for monarchs. The flame of 

 the uncouth chandeliers is reflected from the stalactite walls 

 in a blaze of ever-changing light ; and, amid its dancing re- 

 fulgence, the village swains, and village beauties, wheel round 

 in the waltz, as if the dreams of the Rosicrucians had at length 

 found their fulfilment, and Gnomes and Kobolds really lived 

 and revelled in the bowels of our ^ohe,^^RusseVs Tour in Ger-* •- 

 many, 



2. Account of the Subterraneous Sounds heard at NaJcous in 

 Arabia Petrcsa. By M. Seetzen. 



In our last Number, we gave a short account by Mr Gray of 

 Oxford, of these singular sounds, and made a reference to the 

 account given of them by Mr Seetzen ; but, as the description 

 of the same phenomenon by this last traveller, is very inte- 

 resting, we think it will be agreeable to our readers to be put 

 in possession of it. 



*' Near Tor is a mountain, which, in a physical point of 

 view, is perhaps one of the most remarkable, not only in Ara- 

 bia Petraea, but in the whole world. It is called El Nakous, 

 and is situated three leagues to the north of Tor. No Euro- 

 pean traveller has yet visited it. For two years I have heard it 

 spoken of by the Greeks, first at the convent of Sinai, and af- 

 terwards at Suez, but the account which was given me of it 



