Here again are the theatres and palaces, falling and 

 mixing in promiscuous ruin, whilst the materials, com- 

 posed of the several rocks which I have enumerated, 

 have resisted the scourge of the elements, almost un- 

 hurt or unchanged by decomposition. The most po- 

 sitive and interesting proofs however, of their durabi- 

 lity, are to be seen among the colossal tombs and 

 mausoleums, excavated and formed in the solid rocks, 

 upon the almost inaccessible heights of what may be 

 truly and emphatically called " the everlasting hills,' ? 

 fronting the sea or port of Macri. 



Here, while the eye wanders through the echoing 

 recesses of these vast and gloomy chambers of death, 

 the mind is carried back through a frightful lapse of 

 ages, by the inscriptions at the entrance, which mark 

 the period of their duration, their use, and for whom 

 constructed. 



One of these, it seems, was prepared or built for the 

 reception of Helen, (the grand daughter of Diogenes,) 

 her son, and grand daughter. 



As Diogenes was born four hundred years before 

 the Christian sera, it is more than probable, that this 

 stupendous sepulchre had been constructed, more than 

 twenty-two hundred years. Yet every letter of the in- 

 scription is represented as entire.* 



Another of those tombs Dr. Clarice calculates, from 

 the inscription, to have been constructed twenty four 

 hundred and forty-one years ; yet not a letter appears 

 to have been effaced, except in some few instances, 



* See Dr. Clarke's Travels, volume II, page 132. 



