240 LETTERS ON NATURAL MAGIC. 



same sounds that were given out at the same 

 time of the day by a granite rock ; and in place 

 of reckoning it a supernatural fact, they could 

 regard it in no other light than as the duplicate 

 of a well-known natural phenomenon. It is a 

 mere conjecture, however, that such sounds were 

 common in the Thebaid; and it is therefore 

 probable that a granite rock, possessing the pro- 

 perty of emitting sounds at sunrise, had been 

 discovered by the priests, who were at the same 

 time the philosophers of Egypt, and that the 

 block had been employed in the formation of the 

 Memnonian statue for the purpose of impressing 

 upon it a supernatural character, and enabling 

 them to maintain their influence over a credulous 

 people. 



The inquiries of recent travellers have enabled 

 us to corroborate these views, and to add another 

 remarkable example of the influence of subterra- 

 neous sounds over superstitious minds. About 

 three leagues to the north of Tor in Arabia 

 Petraea, is a mountain, within the bosom of which 

 the most singular sounds have been heard. The 

 Arabs of the Desert ascribe these sounds to a 

 convent of monks preserved miraculously under- 

 ground ; and the sound is supposed to be that 

 of the Nakous, a long narrow metallic ruler sus- 

 pended horizontally, which the priest strikes with 

 a hammer for the purpose of assembling the 

 monks to prayer. A Greek was said to have 

 seen the mountain open, and to have descended 

 into the subterranean convent, where he found 

 fine gardens and delicious water; and, in order 

 to give proof of his descent, he produced some 

 fragments of consecrated bread, which he pre- 



