378 THE HOLY LAND. 
the interior of these chambers seems also to 
denote a later period in the history of the Arts : 
the skill and neatness visible in the carving is 
admirable, and there is much of ornament dis- 
played in several parts of the work\ We 
observed also some slabs of marble, exquisitely 
sculptured : these we had never seen in the 
burial-places before mentioned. The entrance 
is by an open court, excavated in a stratum of 
white limestone, like a quarry. It is a square of 
thirty yards. Upon the western side of this 
area appears the mouth of a cavern, twelve 
yards wide, exhibiting, over the entrance, an 
architrave with a beautifully sculptured frieze. 
Entering this cavern, and turning to the left, a 
second architrave appears above the entrance to 
another cavern, but so near to the floor of the 
cave as barely to admit the passage of a man's 
body through the aperture. We lighted some 
wax tapers, and here descended into the first 
chamber. In the sides of it were other square 
openings, like door-frames, offering passages to 
yet interior chambers. In one of these we found 
(l)"Opus ver6 singulare, magnA industria, admirabile visu, dijf- 
numque Regiis sepulchris. Neque ver6 crediderira huic simile, aut 
vetustjus toto orbe terrarum reperiri posse." Joannes Zuallardus, apud 
J.B.Villalpandum. Fid. Quaresm.Elucid. T.S- Ub.v\.c,%. Antv. 1639. 
