These vast cavities, says Pelletan, sheltered from the inundations of the Nile, have, without doubt, originally furnished the materials for the monuments of Thebes, and the architects of the day thus hollowed out the tombs of families in elevating their palaces. Their whole surface, from the entrance, even to the deepest recesses of these dark excavations, are covered with sepultures and fresco paintings. Each framed subject forms so many little pictures which touch each other, and the figures of which are not more than two or three inches in height, so that the whole extent of these double walls, the development of which is incalculable, has been the object of minute labour. The sculptures are in bas-relief, and covered with equable tints, but lively, _and in very good preservation_. The points of rock unconnected with the work, have been covered with a composition perfectly solid, and so durable, that, as yet, _no other degradation is observable, than that produced by the efforts of some travellers to carry off fragments of it_. Perspective is always wanting in these pictures; the bodies are viewed in full, the faces in profile; but the design is pure and the proportions just; we find nothing to indicate ignorance in the artist; which presumes for the Egyptians, if not great perfection in the arts, at least a great popularity in their practice. The subject of these paintings are domestic scenes, and generally followed by a funeral procession; from whence it may be inferred, that they refer to the life of the man enclosed in each of the lateral niches. The temperature of the caverns is 20° R. It appeared to us convenient thus to give a summary of the conditions of drying, and of the ulterior preservation, before presenting descriptions which have been more or less accurately transmitted to us, of the part that man has had in this operation. Herodotus, Diodorus Sicculus, and Porphyrus, who have written with the greatest detail on the funerals of the Egyptians, will afford us the first instructions. Herodotus. “Mourning and funerals are conducted after this manner: when a man of consideration dies, all the women of his house (_oiketes_) cover the head and even the face with mud; they leave the deceased in the house, girdle the middle of their bodies, bare the bosom, strike the breast, and overrun the city, accompanied by their relations. On the other side, the men also girdle themselves and strike their breasts; after this ceremony, they carry the body to the place where it is to be embalmed.”