The most interesting transaction, perhaps, in which our traveller was anywhere engaged, was his visit to the Necropolis of Thebes, in the mountain of Gournou. This is a tract of about two miles in length, at the foot of the Libyan ridge. Every part of these rocks is scooped out into a sepulchre, which, however close it may be to other sepulchral chambers, has rarely any interior communication with them. It is impossible, as Belzoni observes, to convey by description an adequate idea of these subterraneous abodes and their inhabitants. No other sepulchres in the world resemble them. There are no excavations or mines that can be compared with those astonishing places, which, when once seen, for ever after haunt the imagination, like a glimpse of the regions beyond the grave. Few travellers see more of these catacombs than the exterior chambers, from which the dead have been removed. In the interior sepulchres the air is suffocating, and frequently causes fainting. The dust of decayed mummies, which is so fine that it quickly penetrates in vast quantities to the lungs, and causes a difficulty of respiration; the strong effluvia of decomposed bodies; the dark, dismal, lonesome nature of the place;--every thing tends to discourage the intruder. Belzoni was not, however, to be deterred. In describing the difficulties which he here encountered, he observes, “In some places there is not more than the vacancy of a foot left, which you must contrive to pass through in a creeping posture, like a snail, on pointed and keen stones that cut like glass. After getting through these passages, some of them two or three hundred yards long, you generally find a more commodious place, perhaps high enough to sit. But what a place of rest! surrounded by bodies, by heaps of mummies, in all directions, which, previous to my being accustomed to the sight, impressed me with horror. The blackness of the wall; the faint light given by the candles or torches for want of air; the different objects that surrounded me seeming to converse with each other; and the Arabs with the candles or torches in their hands, naked and covered with dust, themselves resembling living mummies,--absolutely formed a scene that cannot be described. In such a situation I found myself several times, and often returned exhausted and fainting, till at last I became inured to it, and indifferent to what I suffered except from the dust, which never failed to choke my throat and nose; and though fortunately I am destitute of the sense of smelling, I could taste that the mummies were rather unpleasant to swallow. After the exertion of entering into such a place, through a passage of fifty, a hundred, three hundred, or perhaps six hundred yards, nearly overcome, I sought a resting-place, found one, and contrived to sit; but when my weight bore on the body of an Egyptian, it crushed it like a bandbox. I naturally had recourse to my hands to sustain my weight, but they found no better support; so