In order that this blessing of undisturbed peace in his eternal dwelling should be secured, the royal tomb seems to have been constructed without any such external show as would call attention to its situation. The tombs of private individuals usually had a walled courtyard in front of them to which access was obtained by a kind of porch, or tower, with inclined sides and crowned by a small pyramid. But the explorers, Belzoni, Bruce and others, who disengaged the entrances to the royal tombs, found them without propylæa of any kind.[246] The doorway, cut vertically in the rock, is of the utmost simplicity, and we have every reason to suppose that, after the introduction of the mummy, it was carefully masked with sand and rocky _débris_.[247] [246] In many cases the sites are wanting for such external constructions. The fine tomb of Seti I., for instance, opens upon a ravine which is filled with the waters of a mountain torrent at certain seasons. [247] When Belzoni's workmen found the entrance to the tomb of Seti, they declared that they could not advance any farther, because the passage was blocked with big stones to such an extent as to be impracticable (_Narrative of the Operations and Recent Discoveries within the Pyramids, &c., in Egypt and Nubia_, 1820, 4to.). Mariette also believed that as soon as the mummy was in place, the external door was closed and earth heaped against it in such a way as effectually to conceal it. It is thus that the clashing between the tomb of Rameses III. and another is accounted for. The workmen did not see the entrance of the latter, and were, in fact, unaware of its existence until they encountered it in the bowels of the rock. (_Voyage dans la Haute-Égypte_, t. ii. p. 81.)