thick, of teak-wood, which is perfectly sound, though it must be at least 900 years old. In the arched cave, Bismah Kurm, at Ellora, similar ribbing is sculptured out of the rock, it probably, therefore, had some use or allusion in Bhoodha temples. At the circular end is a dhagope, with a square capital on the top of the dome, supporting a mushroom-shaped canopy. A college of Brahmin priests is established in the vicinity of the cave, in the excavations of the rock usually found near temples belonging to the sect of Blood.

In the neighbourhood of Satra, forty miles to the south of Madras, and in many other parts of the peninsula, cavern-temples exist, all interesting, but necessarily passed over here, for want of space.

In concluding this short account of the Temples of India, we must remind our readers, that if they are surpassed in magnitude by the edifices of other nations, yet they have, from the peculiarity of their construction, superior claims to admiration; the mechanical skill and knowledge of a people must have attained great perfection to have enabled them to accomplish such works. In the case of Keylas, a mass containing at least three millions of cubic feet of rock, has been hollowed out, so as to leave very complicated and elegant structures, highly ornamented, both externally and internally, with elaborate sculpture, standing in the vacuity thus formed. Nor must this be estimated as simply the result of mechanical excellence; considerable taste and genius are shown in the arrangement of the different parts; and though, generally speaking, the figures are deficient in design and accuracy of drawing, yet there is a vigour and character about them, that places the school of art of those times and countries in a very respectable rank.

It is worth remarking, that our perfect ignorance of the date, and even the name or history of the race who achieved these wonderful works, is similar to that which prevails respecting the Egyptian Pyramids, the Mexican Temples, Stonehenge, and many other antiquities, manifesting considerable power in the nations which produced them. Thus it ever must be, when moral culture does not enable a people to leave more permanent records of their story, than those written in stone and marble; in comparing the past and present state of these various nations, it appears that none can be permanent or prosperous, whose religion could only be a tissue of degrading superstitions and disgusting idolatry.

CATACOMBS OF ITALY, &c.

THE ancient Etrurians appear to have shown great regard for their dead, if we may judge by the care bestowed on the receptacles for them, of which there are many remains in different parts of Tuscany. The entrances are generally under small artificial mounds, and the catacombs beneath are of considerable extent, consisting of long galleries with halls and apartments, stuccoed and painted with light and elegant designs, in the style termed Etruscan.

THE CATACOMBS OF ROME

ARE a collection of subterranean streets or galleries, of unknown extent and length, intersecting each other so frequently and inextricably, as to render it dangerous to advance far in them; they were not originally excavated for places of sepulture, but were quarried for a sand called puzzolana, which was used for making cement. These galleries are from two to five feet broad, and from four to eight high: there is no masonry or vaulting any where. What renders them interesting is, that they served as places of retreat to the early Christians against the persecutions to which they were exposed: here, too, they held their assemblies, celebrated their worship, and buried their martyred brethren. placing the body, with the instruments of its torture, or a phial filled with its blood, in niches in the sides in some cases the name of the person was written over the place, or the sign of a cross pointed out the tomb of a victim; but many bodies have been found without these indications of their date or faith. In many places the open chambers have their walls painted with subjects from the Scriptures, &c.

THE CATACOMBS OF NAPLES ARE situated in the mountains to the north of that city. The principal entrance is through an arch in a rock from the church and hospital of San Gennaro; the first passage is twenty feet wide, and extends for a considerable distance, preserving a height of fifteen feet; it then branches off into several others. The excavations con

sisted of three stories, but the lower one is nearly filled up with earth, the effect of the earthquakes of this country. The sides of these galleries, through their whole length, are pierced with innumerable recesses, each large enough to hold one body only, without coffin or sarcophagus; many are only made for infants. When the corpse was placed in one of them, it was walled in with tiles or stones, cemented together; many are painted with subjects, some expressive of the Christian faith, supposed to have been executed in the eleventh century, others representing birds and animals, similar to the Arabesques of ancient Pagan edifices. All the mortal remains have been removed, and some have been replaced by the bones of the victims of the plagues which have raged at Naples in modern times.

ANCIENT TOMB AT BARLETTA.

THE following curious discovery of an excavated place of burial, mentioned in Mr. Hughes's Travels, shows how many interesting relics of antiquity are yet unknown to us. From hence we descended into some vineyards below the town, to see one of the greatest curiosities in this part of Italy, which had been discovered about a year before our arrival (1812). Whilst some workmen were excavating a wine-vault in the tufa rock, they accidentally burst into a superb sepulchre, formed like an ancient Doric temple, with a fine angular roof, pilasters cut at the sides, and a regular entablature. The entrance, which had been artificially closed, was on the opposite side to that broken open. On the ground, lay the armour of some ancient hero, on several parts of which gilding was plainly distinguishable, but the corpse was totally decayed. At one end of the tomb stood three of the finest terra cotta vases ever found; the largest between four and five feet high, upon which the labours of Hercules are beautifully portrayed; the next is three feet, and exhibits the adventures of the Argonautic expedition; the other is two feet high; but all, when found, were filled with vases of smaller dimension. At the other end of the tomb were two pedestals, cut from the rock, on one of which stood a wild boar, executed in a rough but spirited style, and on the other a dog. No one had formed a conjecture respecting the occupier of this superb sepulchre."

Mr. Hughes, from the subjects of the sculpture, and the circumstances of the boar and dog, thinks it not impossible that it might be the tomb of the Homeric Diomedes himself, who is said to have been the founder of the city.

THE CATACOMBS OF SYRACUSE GIVE an exalted idea of the wealth and magnificence of that ancient city; they are subterranean passages, hewn with great care and regularity. The principal gallery is ten feet high, and runs in a straight direction for a great distance, but its whole length cannot be ascertained, the ground having fallen in in one part; small chambers, with arched roofs, are seen on each side, having separate recesses for the bodies: the remains of gates by which some were enclosed, are still visible, these being, probably, private tombs of particular families. Several galleries run parallel to the principal one, connected by cross-passages; where these intersect, open spaces are left, in the middle of many of which are large tombs. The walls of the arched chambers are stuccoed, and painted with devices, in various colours, on a red ground; some of these are paintings of animals, processions, trees, &c. In the ceiling of the open spaces before mentioned are the remains of apertures, by which the place was ventilated.

In the Islands of Malta and Gozzo, Catacombs of great extent, and in good preservation, exist, but they do not differ in any remarkable degree from those which have been already mentioned.

GRECIAN CATACOMBS. ONE part of the Lycabettus, at Athens, appears to have been a cemetery; the graves are generally cut in the rock, in form of parallelograms, about four feet deep: many have been excavated with great care and cost, the rock being first cut into a small area or court, with three perpendicular sides; the excavation is made on the one in front in form of an oblong or square chamber, containing niches for the reception of cinerary vases, lamps, &c., its sides being coated with a fine cement, generally painted a bright vermilion. In the little area, a seat, a flight of steps, or a cistern, is often seen. At one end of the Museum, towards the port Phalerum, is a noble sepulchre, commonly called the "Cenotaph of Euripides:" the interior is cut into the shape of a temple, and lined with a beautiful cement

black and shining as the most polished ebony. Out of the principal apartment, which is very large, there are entrances to two others, in one of which are two sarcophagi. Another curious excavation which this hill contains, is denominated the prison of the Areopagus, in which, it is said, Socrates drank the cup of hemlock; there is no very satisfactory foundation for this tradition; it, however, makes the place venerable. The excavation consists of four small chambers, one of which is circular and domed; they are entered by three doors in a recess cut in the rock.-HUGHES's Travels in Sicily, &c.

Throughout the countries formerly inhabited by the Greeks, sepulchres excavated in rock are frequently met with; in addition to those we have already noticed, Mr. Hughes mentions others in the neighbourhood of Delphi, one of which has a front resembling a Doric portico with a pediment; and another very beautiful sepulchral cavern, on the road to Crissa, commonly, though erroneously, called the Sepulchre of Pyrrhus ;" it is a vaulted chamber, with an arched recess for a sarcophagus in three of its sides; over that at the end are two smaller ones, probably for urns, with a bull's head carved between them.

THE CATACOMBS OF PARIS. THESE are certainly the most complete, if not the most extensive, excavations appropriated to the reception of mortal remains to be found in the world. They were originally the quarries from which the stone employed in the building of the city was obtained, and were accordingly made irregular in direction and size, as chance, or the facility of working, induced the workmen to proceed; they extend under the southern half of the city. When these quarries were exhausted, they were abandoned, and the entrances being filled up by earth, their existence was almost forgotten; many accidents having occurred in the year 1774, by the falling in of buildings, prompt and efficient steps were taken to avert what was found, on examination, to be by no means an improbable occurrence, namely, the destruction of a large part of the capital, by the giving way of the unsupported ground on which it stood. These precautions were so well and so judiciously contrived, that the galleries under-ground were made to correspond with the streets above; and all the hollows under buildings were either entirely filled up, or the roof supported by strong masses of masonry. M. Lenoir, Lieutenant-General of the Police, in 1780, suggested appropri- | ating these excavations to the reception of the remains from the different burial-places of the metropolis, which, being over-crowded with bodies, affected the air, and threatened the production of contagious fevers. One of these cemeteries, belonging to the church of the Innocents, had been the burial place of twenty populous parishes for more than 700 years. According to this suggestion the quarries were consecrated for the purpose, and the bones from that burialground were first moved into them in the years 1786, 7, and 8, and subsequently those from others were removed in a similar way, and piled up in the exhaustless passages of the Catacombs. In 1810 and 1811 numerous alterations were made, and inscriptions and embellishments added, with the intention of beautifying this dreary place; but we think that these, neither in the original conception nor in their execution, indicated much real feeling or good taste. The entrances are by three staircases, the principal one of which is at the Barrière d'Enfer; by this visitors, after being furnished with means of creating a light, descend with the guides to a depth of seventy feet, into a gallery of various width and height, the roof partly supported by the rock, and partly by stone pillars. After traversing this and others branching from it, for a considerable distance, guided by a black line, painted for that purpose on the ceiling, they arrive at an octagonal vestibule, with a black gate between two Tuscan columns, on which is incribed a Latin motto, meaning "Beyond these bounds rest those waiting the blessed promise; and on one side is a French verse of the poet Delille," Stop! here is the empire of Death!" On passing this gate, the passages are lined, from the floor to the roof, with the bones of more than two millions of human beings, arranged in symmetrical piles, and displaying all sorts of figures,-pyramids, obelisks, circles, &c. In some places are altars made of bones cemented together; and every where these relics are interspersed with sentences, written in black letters on a white ground, alluding to the future hopes, or to the past history, of the tenants of this silent city. Various groups of bones, or parts of masonry erected for the purpose of security, have received

names from the forms in which they have been arranged, such as the "Altar of the Obelisks," the " Sarcophagus of the Lachrymatory," the Pedestal of the Sepulchral Lamp," the "Fountain of the Samaritan Woman," given to a spring and an artificial reservoir, with various works required by its existence for the purpose of security or of disposing of the water; over it are written the sublime words of our Lord to the female at Jacob's well.

The remains of the victims of anarchy and tyranny, during the French Revolution, are collected in separate groups, and have inscriptions over them, recording the occasion of their death.

But among these melancholy memorials of mortality, there are some objects of a more useful, and therefore pleasing, nature. One of these is a mineralogical collection of specimens of all the strata of earth and stone of this spot, each placed on a separate ledge, indicating the respective thickness of the stratum from which it was taken, and the fossil shells and bones found in them are scientifically arranged in their proper order round the apartment. Another collection consists of diseased bones, arranged in classes and orders, showing the malady in its various stages; and a collection of skulls, remarkable for size, form, or conformation, is added.

One interesting circumstance, connected with the place itself, is the very ingenious and simple mode by which these extensive vaults are ventilated. The wells, from which the houses above derive water, pass through the galleries to a depth greater than the lowest part of these excavations, and a wall of masonry has been built, or the rock left, round the shaft, forming so many detached columns in . the passages; holes have been pierced in these, and glass tubes inserted, which are corked up. When the keepers perceive, in their rounds, the air to be foul in any part, so that the lamps cannot burn, or the workmen are incommoded, they open as many of these vents as may be necessary, and pure air is thus obtained from the surface; and to such a degree of precision is this system of ventilation brought, that each principal guide, by observation, knows the proper hour for opening these tubes, according to the altitude of the sun, and the quarter and violence of the wind, so as best to secure the greatest supply of fresh air. CATACOMBS IN THE CANARY ISLANDS.

On the discovery, in modern times, of the Canary Islands, the original inhabitants, known by the name of Guanches, were in the habit of embalming their dead, and depositing them in caves. The processes of embalming must be similar in all places; Herodotus describes those in use among the Egyptians; and Spanish writers represent the mode followed in the Canary islands as resembling it. When the preparations were completed, the body was sewn up in goat-skins, and bandaged with leather; the kings and nobles were placed in a sarcophagus made of a hollowed tree; but in all cases the corpse was deposited in a grotto destined to that purpose. They much resemble, when discovered in the present day, those of Egypt in appearance, but soon crumble into dust on being taken out of the skins in which they are wrapped. At Fer, the catacombs were walled up, and domestic utensils were found in them.

The most celebrated are those at Teneriffe, between Arico and Guimar; the interior is spacious, but the entrance is in a steep cliff, and difficult of access; there are niches in the walls, in which the bodies were placed; and, when first discovered, there were upwards of a thousand mummies in the place; these are always found placed on a species of trestle, and five or six are joined together by the skin, the feet of one being sewed to that of the head of the next. The wood-work of the scaffold is very perfect.

It may be noticed here, that Egypt and the Canaries are, as far as we yet know, the only countries in which the preservation of the bodies of the dead was a universal custom; in others it appears to have been practised only with regard to certain ranks.

LONDON:

PUBLISHED IN WEEKLY NUMBERS, PRICE ONE Penny, and in MONTHLY PARA PRICE SIXPENCE, BY

JOHN WILLIAM PARKER, WEST STRAND. Sold by all Booksellers and Newsvenders in the Kingdom. Hawkers and Dealers in Periodical Publications supplied on wholesale terms by ORR, Paternoster-row; BERGER, Holywell-street.