TOMB AT THE BASE OF THE MOUNTAIN. 
681 
finger on the fabrics, which one or other, or both of those potent 
personages had so largely assisted to erect. I was not a little 
pleased with the effect of this superstition, and felt that he 
would be no friend to the memorable past, who should attempt 
to dispel the protecting cloud. 
The next object I visited, and indeed the last of any con¬ 
sideration, is an unfinished tomb in the base of the mountain 
southward of the platform, and not far from the ruin just 
described. The architectural character of this sepulchre is 
precisely the same as the others above, but its situation is 
singular in being so near the ground: had its lower divisions 
been completed, they would have risen hardly more than four 
feet from the level of the plain. I found some difficulty in 
approaching it, scattered masses of rock blocking up the way; 
and when I surmounted them, and stood by the half-hewn work, 
which appeared as if the sculptor had just taken away his tools to 
come again to-morrow, 1 could scarcely believe that what I looked 
upon had been so left nearly two thousand years ago. The upper 
compartment alone was finished, which contained the bas-relief 
king, altar, and hovering figure. Magnificent as these sepultures 
are, both from station and ornament, they do not give that 
sublime idea of undisturbed repose, which the huge and simple 
mounds of ancient Scythia impress upon the mind. Most of 
them have remained from age to age, without a stone being 
removed from the gigantic heaps since it was first piled there ; 
and, indeed, the labour of such violation must be like dig¬ 
ging for a mine to the bottom of a hill. But a constructed 
wall of a tomb, of whatever strength, whether it be cut out of 
the side of a mountain, or erected on the surface of the ground, 
a few feet thick, like that of Cyrus at Mourg-aub, or as many 
4 s 
VOL. I. 
