VOL. LXXI.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 81 



as numerous and as vindictive as before.* On finding no enemy, they return 

 again, leisurely into the hill, and very soon after, the labourers appear loaded as 

 at first, as active and as sedulous, with soldiers here and there among them, 

 who act just in the same manner, one or other of them giving the signal to 

 hasten the business. Thus the pleasure of seeing them come out to fight or to 

 work alternately may be obtained as often as curiosity excites or time permits: 

 and it will certainly be found, that the one order never attempts to fight, or the 

 other to work, let the emergency be ever so great. 



We meet great obstacles in examining the interior parts of these tumuli. In 

 the first place, the works, for instance the apartments which surround the royal 

 chamber and the nurseries, and indeed the whole internal fabric, are moist, and 

 consequently the clay is very brittle: they have also so close a connexion, that 

 they can only be seen as it were by piece-meal; for having a kind of geometrical 

 dependance or abutment against each other, the breaking of one arch pulls down 

 2 or 3. To these obstacles must be added the obstinacy of the soldiers, who 

 fight to the very last, disputing every inch of ground so well as often to drive 

 away the negroes who are without shoes, and make white people bleed plentifully 

 through their stockings. Neither can we let a building stand so as to get a view 

 of the interior parts without interruption; for while the soldiers are defending 

 the out-works, the labourers keep barricadoing all the way against us, stopping 

 up the different galleries and passages which lead to the various apartments, par- 

 ticularly the royal chamber, all the entrances to which they fill up so artfully, as 

 not to let it be distinguishable while it remains moist; and externally it has no 

 other appearance than that of a shapeless lump of clay. It is however easily 

 found, from its situation with respect to the other parts of the building, and by 

 the crouds of labourers and soldiers which surround it, who show their loyalty 

 and fidelity by dying under its walls. The royal chamber in a large nest is capa- 

 cious enough to hold many hundreds of the attendants, besides the royal pair, 

 and it is always found as full of them as it can hold. These faithful subjects 

 never abandon their charge, even in the last distress; for whenever Mr. S. took 

 out the royal chamber, and, as he often did, preserved it for some time in a large 

 glass bowl, all the attendants continued running in one direction round the king 

 and queen with the utmost solicitude, some of them stopping on every circuit at 

 the head of the latter, as if to give her something. When they came to the 

 extremity of the abdomen, they took the eggs from her, and carried them away, 

 and piled them carefully together in some part of the chamber, or in the 



* By die soldiers being so ready to run out, on the repetition of the attack, it appears that they but 

 just withdraw out of sight, to leave room for the labourers to proceed without interruption in repairing 

 the breach. The sudden retreat of the labourers, in case of an alarm, is also a wonderful instance 

 of good order and discipline. — Orig. 



VOL XV. M 



