Like the temples of Ellora, some of these curious structures have been hollowed out of single blocks of stone left standing in the centre of open courts excavated in the bosom of the rock, while others are completely subterranean. Though far inferior in magnificence and extent to those wonderful edifices, they are yet very remarkable. The courts, in which the three principal monolithic churches are respectively dedicated to our Saviour, to the Holy Virgin, and to St. Emmanuel, communicate with each other by narrow passages, the whole thus forming a continued series of excavations. The Church of St. Emmanuel is forty- eight feet long, thirty-two feet broad, and forty feet high, but it is surpassed in size by the Church of the Holy Virgin, where the rock-walls of the court are moreover perforated with sepulchral vaults and with cells for the habitation of monks. The town of Lalibala is situated in a beautiful country, 7,000 feet above the level of the sea, on the slope of the mighty Ascheten mountain, and commands a prospect of Alpine magnificence. Though it is now reduced to about 2,000 inhabitants, its eight rock-churches (five monolithic and subaërial, three subterranean), prove that it must once have been a place of considerable importance. Divine service is still performed in all these churches, which are the resort of numerous pilgrims, and to whose service above 500 priests, monks, and nuns are attached. Though ancient Greece has no such huge rock-temples to boast of as India or Egypt, yet caverns played an important part in her ancient religious history. ‘Before the old tribes of Hellas erected temples to the divinities,’ says Porphyry, in his treatise _De Antro Nympharum_, ‘they consecrated caves and grottoes to their service; in the island of Crete to Zeus, in Arcadia to Artemis and to Pan; in the isle of Naxos to Dionysos.’