After this we were careful, when we discovered a good statue, to bury it an inch or two in the soil which surrounded it, effacing at the same time all traces of our work; and never indulged ourselves in looking at any object of importance when we thought ourselves observed by the Arabs. For such is the inconsistency of Arab character, that the very same statue which they would walk over continually without ever honouring it with more than a glance en passant, would in all probability be broken in pieces the moment it became an object of particular notice. The style of architecture in which the monumental tombs have been constructed varies according to the dates of the building, and apparently, also, to the consequence of the persons interred in them; the order employed is almost always Doric, particularly in the earlier examples. It seems probable that the custom of burying the entire body obtained very generally in Cyrene and other cities of the Pentapolis; and this is one of the few instances in which we perceive any analogy between the customs of the Cyreneans and those of the Egyptians. It is certain, however, that the practice of burning the bodies, and of preserving the ashes in urns, prevailed also among the inhabitants of the Cyrenaica as it did in other Grecian states[15]. At the present day there are no remains either of bodies or of cinereal urns in any of the tombs with which we are acquainted, one of them only excepted: in which a leg and foot, which appeared to have been rather dried than embalmed, was found in a very perfect state. There are places formed in the wall, at the extremity of one of the cellæ in an excavated tomb, for the reception, apparently, of cinereal urns, as will be seen in the elevation we have given of it; but this is the only example of the kind we have met with, and we are left to determine, in other cases, from the dimensions of the cellæ, whether they contained bodies or ashes. The reason of this is that (from whatever cause) all the tombs, whether excavated or constructed, have been opened and rifled of their contents; and we never saw a single instance in which this had not been the case. In the constructed tombs, when the cover was too heavy to remove without a great deal of labour, a hole was always found knocked in the side of the sarcophagus; and the tablets or slabs of stone or marble which closed the cellæ and the places for the bodies, in those which were excavated, were in no instance found in their places entire by any individual of our party. The tombs of persons of distinction, at Cyrene, appear to have been erected in conspicuous positions without any regard to order or arrangement; at the will, perhaps, of the deceased themselves, or of those at whose expense they were interred: but the sarcophagi of those of inferior consideration were ranged in line, whenever the ground would allow of it, so as to take up as little space as possible, and to present an appearance of regularity; the sizes