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EXAMINATION OF A TOMB. 
most amazing power in bringing two far distant points of time 
to meet; at least in the mind that contemplates them. I should 
have read the history of this disaster at home with almost as 
little concern as if the people had never existed; here I was 
on the spot where it happened, and the scene was realized ; the 
persons seemed present with me, and I shuddered for them, 
while I rejoiced in my own safety. To incur the least possible 
danger to myself and my assistants, I had selected the tomb 
that was nearest the ground; but even that was upwards 
of sixty feet above its level; and I came off with not a few 
bruises, from hard knocks against the rock, in my swinging 
ascent. 
Having gained the platform, I made my entrance into the 
tomb by the opening in the lower compartment of the door, 
and through a depth between the rocky walls of two feet. I 
then found myself in a vaulted chamber, completely blackened 
all over by smoke of some kind, either from lamps or other 
fires ; the place was stifling and gloomy; at its farther extremity 
were three arched recesses, which occupy the whole length of 
the chamber ; each contains a trough-like cavity cut down into 
the rock, and covered with a stone of corresponding dimensions. 
Every one of these covers have been broken near the corners, 
evidently to give a view to the person who committed the 
mischief, of what the sarcophagus might contain. I had a light 
introduced into the whole three, by which I saw the remotest 
cranny, and all were alike perfectly empty ; not even any loose 
dust, that might have witnessed some former mouldered in¬ 
habitant. If these covers have at any time been removed, they 
have been very carefully replaced. 
The length of the cave which forms the whole tomb, is thirty- 
