‘On entering, the traveller finds himself in a temple, which a few days’ work might restore to the state in which it was left, just finished, three thousand years ago. The dry climate and its extreme solitude have preserved its most delicate details from injury; besides which it was hermetically sealed by the desert for thousands of years, until Burckhardt discovered it, and Mr. Hay cleared away its protecting sands. ‘A vast and gloomy hall, such as Eblis might have given Vathek audience in, receives you in passing from the flaming sunshine into that shadowy portal. It is some time before the eye can ascertain its dimensions through the imposing gloom, but gradually there reveals itself, around and above you, a vast aisle, with pillars formed of eight colossal giants, upon whom the light of heaven has never shone. These images of Osiris are backed by enormous pillars, behind which run two great galleries; and in these torchlight alone enabled us to peruse a series of sculptures in relief representing the triumphs of Rameses the Second, or Sesostris. The painting, which once enhanced the effect of these spirited representations, is not dimmed, but crumbled away; where it exists the colours are as vivid as ever. ‘This unequalled hall is one hundred feet in length, and from it eight lesser chambers, all sculptured, open to the right and left. Straight on is a low doorway opening into a second hall of similar height, supported by four square pillars, and within all is the adytum, wherein stands a simple altar of the living rock in front of four large figures seated on rocky thrones. This inner shrine is hewn at least one hundred yards into the rock, and here, in the silent depth of that great mountain, these awful idols, with their mysterious altar of human sacrifice, looked very preadamitic and imposing. They seemed to sit there waiting for some great summons which should awaken and reanimate these “kings of the earth, who lie in glory, every one in his own house.” ‘We wandered through many chambers, in which the air is so calm and undisturbed that the very smell of the torches of the last explorers of these caverns was perceptible.’ In Abyssinia the rock-churches of Lalibala likewise give proof of an ancient state of civilisation, strongly contrasting with the barbarism of the present times.