148 ANCIENT KINGS OF ARABIA. 



is from below by the smoothness of the polished 

 surface. The front of the mausoleum itself rises in 

 several stories to the height of sixty or seventy feet ; 

 ornamented Math columns, rich friezes, pediments, 

 and large figures of horses and men. The interior 

 consists of a chamber sixteen paces square and about 

 twenty-five feet high ; the walls and roof are quite 

 smooth, and without the smallest decoration. The 

 surprising eff"ect of the whole is heightened by the 

 situation, and the strangeness of the approach. Half 

 seen at first through the dim and narrow openmg, 

 columns, statues, and cornices gradually appear as 

 if fresh from the chisel, without the tints or weather- 

 stains of age, and executed in stone of a pale rose- 

 colour. This splendid architectural elevation has 

 been so contrived, that a statue, perhaps of Victory, 

 with expanded wings, just fills the centre of the 

 aperture in front, which, being closed below by the 

 ledges of the rocks folding over each other, gives to 

 the figure the appearance of being suspended in the 

 air at a considerable height ; the ruggedness of the 

 chfTs beneath setting oft" the sculpture to the greatest 

 advantage. No part of this stupendous temple is 

 built, the whole being hewn from the solid rock ; 

 and its minutest embeUishments, wherever the hand 

 of man has not purposely effaced them, are so per- 

 fect, that it may be doubted whether any work of the 

 ancients, except perhaps some on the banks of the 

 Nile, has survived with so little injury from the lapse 

 of time. There is scarcely a building in England of 

 forty years' standing so fresh and well preserved in 

 its architectural decorations as the Kazr Faraoun, 

 which Burckhardt represents as one of the most ele- 

 gant remains of antiquity he had found in Syria. 



The ruins of the city itself open on the view with 

 singular effect, after winding two or three miles 

 through the dark ravine. Tombs present themselves 

 not only in every avenue within it, and on every preci- 

 pice that surrounds it, but even intermixed almost 



