144 
clarke's travels. 
indies, and they are twenty inches thick. The space for the 
entrance is seven feet three inches wide; and the length of the 
upper stone, placed across the uprights, ten feet seven inches; 
all one entire mass. The doors on either side the main en¬ 
trance, consisting only of three stones each, had, for their 
uprights, masses of eleven feet three inches in height, four feet 
in breadth, nineteen inches in thickness, and the space for the 
entrance six feet four inches. Those upon the right and left of 
the three in the centre were still smaller. 
The form of this theatre is semicircular. It is twenty-eight 
rows of seats, and all of these remain entire. They are divided 
into two parts, by a corridor passing all around ; fourteen seats 
being in the upper division, and the same number jin the lower. 
In the upper compartment, on each side of the theatre, is a 
vaulted chamber; aud these are exactly opposite to each other. 
Perhaps the measure across the arena, to the begiuing of the 
seats, may rather prove its form to be elliptical than semicircular. 
I found the distance from the centre portal to the lower bench, 
thirty-live yards, and obtained a major diameter of thirty-seven 
yards by measuring the distance from side to side. The stones 
whereof the walls consisted, between the portals, were eight 
feet ten inches in length ; these weret placed together without 
cement, and exhibited the same massive structure as the rest of 
the building. Being resolved to render an account as explicit 
as possible of a theatre still remaining so entire, I shall now 
proceed to state the dimensions of the seats. Their elevation 
is sixteen inches, and the breadth twenty-five. The height of 
the corridor,: passing round the back of the lower tier, is live 
feet eight inches ; so that the height of the persons placed in the 
upper row was forty-two feet above the arena. Before the 
front of this fine theatre extended a noble terrace, to which a 
magnificent flight of steps conducted from the sea. The beautiful 
harbour of Telmessiis, with the precipices and snow-clad sum¬ 
mits around it, w as the prospect surveyed by the spectators from 
within ; and behind towered the heights of that mountain, to 
whose shelving sides the edifice was itself accommodated; nor 
can imagination picture a sublimer scene than, under so many 
circumstances of the grandest association, w T as presented to the 
stranger, who landing from his bark beneath the facade of this 
magnificent building, ascended to the terrace from the strand of 
ehe Telmessensiaos; and, entering the vast portals of the theatre* 
beheld them .seated by thousands within its spacious area. 
