Route accross India through Egypt to England. 451 
zoni, by what he calls a certain index, which has guided him in 
opening the second pyramid: what this index is I know not; but 
certainly he has been most successful, and cherishes the intention, 
if supported by our government, of doing much more. In my 
opinion, he is too valuable a man for us to permit to labour for any 
other nation. Fame appears to be the object for which he is most 
anxious, though he has nothing to live on but the produce of a 
few statues sold to the Comte de Forbin (who has been in this 
country travelling for the French Government), to replace those 
various niches in the Louvre now vacant by our having forced them 
to deliver back divers works of art to their original possessors. 
'.& Mr. Salt showed me some beautiful specimens of papyrus 
which he had himself taken out of the mummy wrappers. They 
all appeared to have at the top of the roll a representation of re- 
ligious worship, and the figures were painted in more than one 
colour. He pointed out some small wax figures; one with the head 
of a woman, one with an eagle’s head, one with a monkey’s, and 
another with that of a ram: these were uniformly found in the 
better kind of mummies. To prove that sculpture had been car- 
ried to very great perfection among the ancient Egyptians, he 
showed me a small leg and thigh made of wood, about 10 inches 
long, most correctly carved, and equal to, if not surpassing, any 
thing I had previously seen. He showed me also a piece of linen 
covered with hieroglyphics, which appeared exactly as if it had 
been printed. Several mummies which he had opened had down 
the front of their person broad pieces of leather, gilt, as fresh as 
the day they were made; and I have understood that gilding 
has, in several instances, been proved to be well known to the | 
Egyptians. ......- 
« Both Mr. Salt and Mr. Belzoni were enraptured with the 
sarcophagus they had discovered ; and when I fully comprehended 
its beauty and value, my feelings were congenial with theirs with- 
out having seen it. A piece of alabaster 9 feet 3 inches long 
vating in calcareous materials as in Egypt. Of this grand temple he has given 
in the volume before us such an account as the short time he was there would 
permit. He speaks of the sculptured decorations and the taste of the orna- 
ments in this temple being such as “ would do credit to the best period of 
the Grecian school ;” and gives the following measurements of this extraor- 
dinary place ‘from the Asiatic Researches."—Gateway, height 14 feet : 
passage of the gateway, having on each side rooms fifteen feet by nine, 42 £.; 
inner urea or court, length from the gateway to the opposite scarp 247 f, ; 
breadth of this court 150 f. ; greatest height of the rock out of which the 
court is excavuted 100 f. Dimensions of grand temple: door of the portico 
12 f. by 6 f. broad; length from this door entering the temple to the back 
wall of the temple, 103 f. 6 in.; length from the same place to the end of the 
raised platform behind the temple, 142 f. 6 in. ; greatest breadth of the inner 
part of the temple, 61 f.; height of ceiling 17 f. 10 in. ; two porches on each 
side without, 34f. 10 in. by 15 f. 4. in.—Eprror. 
Ff2 would 
