EGYPT, AND SYRIA. 21 
molefted by intruders ; and the fun being then near the meridian, 
I took the opportunity of obferving its altitude by means of an 
artificial horizon. They who are beft verfed in thefe matters 
will be far from thinking this the moft accurate method of de- 
termining the latitude. But the refult was not materially dif- 
ferent, though in the fequel I repeated my obfervation. It gave 
N. L. 29° 12', and a fradion : — the long. E. F. 44° 54'. 
The following day I was led to fome apartments cut in the 
rock, which had the appearance of places of fepulture. They 
are without ornament or infcription, but have been hewn with 
fome labour. They appear all to have been opened ; and now 
contain nothing that can with certainty point out the ufe to 
which they may have been originally applied. Yet there are 
many parts of human fculls, and other bones, with fragments 
of fkin, and even of hair, attached to them. All thefe have 
undergone the adion of fire: but whether they are the remains 
of bodies, repofited there by a people in the habit of burning 
the dead, or whether they have been burned, in this their de- 
tached ftate, by the prefent inhabitants, it muft now be difficult 
to affirm. Yet the fize of the catacombs would induce the be- 
lief that they were defigned for bodies in an unmutilated ftate ; 
the proportions being, length twelve feet, width fix, height 
about fix. The number of thefe caverns may amount to thirty, 
or more. 
Having found a monument fo evidently Egyptian in this re- 
mote quarter, I had the greater hope of meeting with fome- 
thing more confiderable by going farther j or of being able to 
gain 
