CAT 



622 



CAT 



Casuari'nn, Ketri, and Byse, scarcely amount, when taken toge- 

 Catacomhs. t h er> to a fift^ p art Q f t j ie population ; and yet for 

 ""-V""*' the sake of these, the great mass of the people must 

 he doomed to perpetual ignorance and servitude. 

 This certainly is monstrous ; but it is the natural 

 system of despotism which founds obedience, as well 

 as devotion, in ignorance. Wr cannot hope to see 

 these evils remedied, till Britain, or whatever other 

 foreign power obtains the dominion of India, find it 

 expedient to cherish other views respecting it than 

 those of gain : but in the present state of things, it 

 is found more convenient to employ the established 

 engine of superstition, than to communicate liberty 

 and happiness to so many millions of the human 

 race. (#) 



CASUARINA, a genus of plants of the class 

 Moncecia, and order Monandria. See BOTANY, p. 320. 



CATACOMBS, are subterraneous galleries and 

 chambers appropriated for the reception of the dead. 



Most nations emerging from barbarity have testified 

 a pious anxiety respecting the disposal of their dead, 

 and have erected monuments to perpetuate their re- 

 membrance. Some, instead of at once committing 

 bodies to the earth, where they might return to their 

 pristine dust, have deposited them in natural caves, or 

 formed artificial excavations below the surface, where 

 they might be preserved entire from decay. Such 

 was the practice of the Egyptians, which led to the 

 construction of catacombs ; and more recently, the 

 Guanches, or aborigines of the Canary islands, adopt- 

 ed an easier expedient of depositing their dead in 

 caves, where three or four hundred bodies may be seen 

 collected together 



The most ancient catacombs with which we are ac- 

 quainted, are those of the Theban kings ; as they can 

 be traced during a period of 3000 or 4000 years. In 

 the age of Diodorus, long after the city of Thebes 

 itself was destroyed, it appears that 1? of 47, the ori- 

 ginal number, still remained ; and Strabo also speaks 

 of about 40 sepulchres of the Theban kings. 



The Egyptians, believing that if the human body 

 could be kept entire, it would be revisited by the 

 soul, contrived, by means of embalming, to preserve 

 it from decay. Then it was deposited in catacombs 

 excavated in the earth, to await the return of the ani- 

 mating principle. Hence resulted those wonderfully 

 extensive and intricate subterraneous galleries and 

 chambers which have remained to the present day. 



Excavations are always found in the vicinity of the 

 most extensive cities ; and they are also seen in remote 

 and sequestered places. But those of Thebes, from 

 the reputed splendour of the city, have been viewed 

 with peculiar interest during many succeeding ages. 



The whole chain of mountains in the neighbour- 

 hood of Thebes is penetrated for almost three-fourths 

 of their height, by an incredible number of openings, 

 leading to an immense labyrinth of catacombs. Those 

 of the kings, of which the same number can proba- 

 bly still be recognised as described by Diodorus, oc- 

 cupy a deep ravine, flanked by the bed of a torrent, 

 in the centre of the mountain Lybicus. They are 

 between six and seven thousand paces from the banks 

 of the river Nile, and were gained by an artificial pas- 

 sage. 



Proceeding along the valley,^ the traveller unex- 

 pectedly discovers openings in the ground, with a 

 gate- way in a simple square frame; an ellipse bearing 



a beetle, or the figure of a man with a hawk's head, Catacomb 

 is seen in the upper part, and beyond its edge two ""V^*"' 

 figures kneeling in the act of adoration. Each gate- 

 way in the valley is an introduction to a gallery, 

 leading to the royal sepulchre. At the distance of 

 forty paces within is another gateway opening to a 

 second gallery as broad as the first, and 24 feet in 

 length ; and to the right and left of these galleries are 

 small chambers. A third gallery succeeds, commu- 

 nicating with a chamber 18 feet square, above the le- 

 vel of the other apartments ; from it is an entrance 

 to a gallery, which, added to a subsequent one, is 64 

 paces in length. At their extremity is a corridor of 

 16 paceSj leading to a chamber eleven paces square, 

 connected by a short gallery to another chamber of 

 the same size. The royal sarcophagus is next seen* 

 in a spacious saloon twenty feet square. But beyond 

 this is even another chamber, of still larger dimen- 

 sions. Hence the intricacy of such subterraneous 

 passages may be conceived, the total length of the 

 excavation here spoken of being 225 paces. It is 

 not to be understood, however, that all the cata- 

 combs of the kings are of the same dimensions, as 

 equal opportunities have been wanting to ascertain 

 the fact. 



The whole sarcophagi have long ago been viola- 

 ted, and the bodies of the kings carried away or de- 

 stroyed. But their enormous size, and the rugged 

 way through which they were necessarily conducted, 

 must excite our admiration. One consists of a huge 

 mass of granite, 16 feet long, six broad, and eight 

 high. The lid is also a single block of stone, bear- 

 ing the effigy of a king. The sarcophagus has been 

 worked in the place which it now occupies ; which 

 would seem to add to the difficulty, already incredible, 

 of conveyance over the mountains, and along the pas- 

 sages below. But the ancient inhabitants of that 

 territory had always some stupendous work in view, 

 and which it would require ages of our compara- 

 tively feeble faculties to accomplish. 



Though all the royal sepulchres have been viola- 

 ted, the French traveller, M. Denon, found the frag- 

 ment of a mummy in one, and also an ancient patera. 

 We believe that nothing besides has for agts been 

 discovered here, which shews how carefully the later 

 Egyptians, or more modern Arabs, have ransacked 

 them. 



The whole extent of catacombs is covered with 

 hieroglyphics and paintings, generally in fresco, of 

 the moat fantastic figures, from which the grotesque 

 of the Romans is supposed to have been derived. 

 But the preservation of these figures is wonderful, 

 considering how probable it is, that four thousand 

 years may have elapsed since their execution. The 

 paintings were as fresh, to all appearance, as on the 

 day when they were executed, in eight lately visited, 

 except in two places where they were injured by the 

 access of rain. It is said that the Romans endeavour- 

 ed to remove one of the royal sarcophagi from its site, 

 and levelled the ground below it, to facilitate their 

 undertaking. 



The other catacombs in the same chain of moun- 

 tains are usually on a similar plan, especially those 

 conjectured to have been appropriated for the poor. 

 From an opening towards the east, a passage about 

 20 feet long proceeds in a straight line, or turns off 

 at an angle, supported by pillars or pilasters. At the 

 4> 



