Passing these, I entered a spacious court, open to the sky and surrounded by sculptured colonnades. Crossing this court, which inferior priests were traversing or idly lounging in, I came to a second propylon, the magnificent wings of which were divided into numerous compartments, and sculptured ten stories high, with the most exquisite art. This pylon, in the wings of which the priests lodge, led into an open court one hundred paces long, through the centre of which extended an avenue of twenty-four columns, sixty-six feet high and twelve in diameter, and on each side of these were seven rows of lesser columns, forty feet in height and nine in diameter. All these presented sculptured surfaces, and the richest description of capitals. A still more magnificent gateway, at the extremity of this street of columns, conducted me into a vast hall with covered cloisters on the sides, and a double row of colossal pillars running down the centre. All the rest of the space was paved and adorned with fountains, statues, and fruit and flower trees, growing from large alabaster vases. Priests and worshippers moved in all directions through this and the other courts. The walls of this grand hall were decorated with battle-pieces--the triumphs of the Pharaohs in the conquest of neighboring kingdoms--representations of offerings to the gods, and of captive princes led at the wheels of chariots. I advanced to another pylon, still loftier and more noble than the rest, and as I looked back to the remote outer entrance, two thousand feet off, I discovered that an artifice of architecture had been employed to increase the apparent distance by diminishing the gateways in height, as if by the effect of a lengthened perspective. The effect was all that the architect could have desired.