COMMON WASP. 
394 
found a curiosity which had filled numbers who 
came to see it with admiration. Upon this I im- 
mediately went, like other people, to take a view 
of it, and really the thing deserved it ; for they had 
found an entire city buried in the earth, and such 
a city as was capable of lodging between eleven and 
twelve thousand inhabitants. The structure of this 
city was perfectly ingenious, though very different 
from ours ; the wall is not a simple enclosure sur- 
rounding the place, but a great dome that entirely 
covers and encompasses it on every part. After 
they had carefully surveyed it, they could only dis- 
cover two gates ; and as the darkness was very great 
under the dome, they had demolished part of it to 
have a clear prospect into the different quarters of 
the city. But here another scene of astonishment 
opened ; the streets are not ranged like ours, in 
side lines, but piled over each other in different sto- 
ries, which are separated by several ranks of columns ; 
so that they are rather porticos than streets ; the up- 
permost of which rises on the second, the second on 
the third, and so in succession, reckoning downwards. 
The houses are of equal dimensions, and thick set 
against one another in the substance of the vault. 
All the buildings compose one and the same order, 
and are likewise on a level on each story, and co- 
vered with a flat terrace, or common roof, made 
with a very binding gum, and as smooth as a mar- 
ble pavement. Here the inhabitants walk between 
the pillars that support another vault with its range 
of houses* There are eleven of these porticos, or 
