AND LOWER EGYPT. 53 



slble to see within them, or descend into them. I 

 have visited four or five of these vast caverns, and 

 I do not believe that there are any more of them 

 on the opposite side of the mountain in the neigh- 

 bourhood of Siout ; but they are surrounded with 

 a number of small grottoes, the openings of which 

 are circular, whereas those of the large ones are all 

 in straight lines. 



These excavations, so numerous in the greater 

 part of the mountains of Theba'is, have appeared 

 very extraordinary things to our travellers of no 

 very remote date. Paul Lucas beheld there the 

 habitation of the first men after the deluge, and, 

 consequently, the first cities of the world*. Vanskb, 

 always bordering upon the marvellous, and dis- 

 posed to believe in sorcery, heard strange noises in 

 them, and he had great difficulty to recognise in 

 them the workmanship of human beings \, No- 

 thing, however, appears of more easy comprehen- 

 sion than the destination of these subterraneous 

 places. It is well known with what care the ancient 

 Egyptians preserved their dead, and the attention 

 which they paid, in order to keep them from corrup- 

 tion. The plains, so much the more precious for 

 the purposes of agriculture, that they are there nar- 

 rowed, were not proper for the sepulture of men 



* Voyage in 1714, vol. ii. 



f Nouv. Kelai. d'Egypte, many pa§ssgcs. 



E 3 whom 



