^4 TRAVELS IN UPPER 



whom piety wished to eternize even after their 

 annihihition. The humidity which the watering 

 necessary to fertihty there diffused, the labours of 

 cultivation, are means of corruption and disturb- 

 ance, which the religious system of the Egyptians 

 made it a duty to avoid. The dry and barren moun- 

 tains with which tlie plains are enclosed, presented 

 a certainty of preservation and of repose, and it 

 was natural to deposit there the inanimate, but 

 carefully prepared remains of persons beloved or 

 generated. The stone of this rock is soft, when it 

 is not separated from the mountains and exposed 

 to the air, which gives it a firmer consistency ; 

 hence it was not very difficult to dig it out ; and 

 what was taken from these excavations afforded 

 sufficient materials for erecting habitations. It 

 may be farther observed, that it is in the neigh- 

 bourhood of great cities that the back of moun- 

 tains is hewn into such numerous openings. It is 

 then out of doubt that these are so many quarries 

 opened to serve as places of sepulture to the inha- 

 bitants of ancient Egypt, and that the beautiful 

 caverns of the mountain of Sioul have been the 

 catacombs of the Lycopolitans. 



A.t the foot of the mountain is an enclosure con- 

 secrated as the burial-place of the Mahometans. It 

 had been newly whitewashed, and its zig-zag con- 

 struction, in a sort of checker- work, rendered tlie 

 appearance of it picturesque and very pleasing. 



I found 



