TEMPLE OP HELJOPOLJS. 50S 



lifted twenty feet from the ground. The rest of the stones of this 

 wall are of surprising dimensions, but none quite so large as these. 

 Going through the long arched walk, which we have already 

 mentioned as leading to the temple, and which looks like a subter- 

 raneous passage, adorned with many busts, which for want of light 

 cannot well be discerned, the first object which strikes the sight is a 

 spacious hexagonal building or wall, forming a kind of a spacious 

 theatre, .which is open at the other end, and presents you with a 

 terrace, to which you ascend by marble steps. This aperture ad. 

 mits you into a square court, larger than the first, round which are 

 magnificent buildings. On each hand you hare a double row of 

 pillars, which form porticoes or galleries of sixty-six fathom in 

 length, and eight in breadth. The bottom of this court was taken 

 up by a third building, more sumptuous than the rest, nnd deeper, 

 which seems to have been the body of the palace, fronting east, as 

 all the fronts in this castle do. The columns belonging to this part 

 are of such size, that they are compared with those of the hippo- 

 drome at Constantinople. Nine of these columns are standing, and 

 a good piece of the entablature, which evince it to have been one of 

 the wonders of Asia ; and, to crown all, each of these nine pillars 

 is but one block. Many considerable and distinct vestiges of the 

 several parts of this palace are still extant. The Corinthian order 

 prevails chiefly throughout the whole; and scarce are any where 

 to be found such precious remains of architecture and sculpture. 

 The ornaments are various, but without any of the wild extrava. 

 gancies of modern architects. The fine taste of Greece, and the 

 magnificence of Rome, here meet; statues without number, busts 

 of all sorts, proud trophies, curiously wrought niches, walls and 

 cielings enriched with bas-reliefs, incrustations, and other works of 

 the finest marble; therms and caryatides, judiciously placed. Un- 

 derneath the whole are vast vaults ; where frem time to time you 

 discover, through the ruins, long flights of marble stairs, near two 

 hundred in a flight. The turn and elevation of these vaults are 

 bold and surprising : and in these subterraneous parts you find 

 many rooms, halls, rich apartments entire, and many marble tombs. 

 The walls here also are adorned with niches, bas-reliefs, and in. 

 scriptions in Roman characters; but these inscriptions are quite 

 effaced by the length of time, and the damps. Some of these vault 

 are quite dark, and must be visited with lights, either because of 

 their great depth, or because the passages which may have given 



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