I came near to the spot with a certain fear that we should have to seek to confirm the account of the ancients by the geographical position of the place, that every form of its architectural disposition would be wiped away, and that a shapeless heap of ruins would frighten us from every attempt at investigation; instead of this, there were immediately found, on a cursory view of the districts, a number of confused spaces, as well super as subterranean, and the principal mass of the building, which occupied more than a stadium (Strabo),[32] was distinctly to be seen. Where the French expedition had fruitlessly sought for chambers, we find literally hundreds, by and over each other, little, often very small, by larger and great, supported by diminutive pillars, with thresholds and niches, with remains of pillars and single wall slabs, connected together by corridors, so that the descriptions of Herodotus and Strabo are quite confirmed in this respect; at the same time, the idea, never coincided in by myself, of _serpentine_, cave-like windings, instead of square rooms, is definitely contradicted. The disposition of the whole is, that three mighty blocks of buildings, of the breadth of 300 feet, surround a square 600 feet in length and 500 in width; the fourth side is bounded by the pyramid lying behind, which is 300 feet square, and therefore does not quite come up to the side wings of the great buildings. A rather modern canal, which may be jumped over, at least at this season of the year, is diagonally drawn through the ruins, cutting right through the most perfectly-preserved of the Labyrinthic rooms, and a part of the square in the centre, which was once divided into courts. Travellers have not wished to wet their feet, and so remained on this side, where the continuation of the wings of the buildings is certainly much concealed by the rubbish mounds; but even from this, the eastern bank, the chambers on the opposite side, and particularly at the southern point, where the walls rise almost 10 feet above the rubbish, and 20 above the level of the ruins, are very easy to be seen, and when viewed from the heights of the pyramid, the regular plan of the whole lies before one like a map. Erbkam has been employed since our arrival in surveying the place, and inserting in the plan every room and wall, however small; the ruins on the other side are therefore much more difficult in the execution of the plan; here it is easier, as there are fewer chambers, but therefore more difficult to be understood with respect to the original structure. The labyrinth of chambers runs along here to the south. The Aulæ lay between this and the northerly pyramid opposite, but almost all traces of them have disappeared. The dimensions of the place alone allow us to suspect that it was divided into two parts by a wall, to which the twelve Aulæ, no longer to be distinguished with certainty, adjoined on both sides, so