Came in view,
the situation and beauty of which are calculated to make an
extraordinary impression upon the traveller, after having traversed for
nearly half an hour such a gloomy and almost subterraneous passage as I
have described. It is one of the most elegant remains of antiquity
existing in Syria; its state of preservation resembles that of a
building recently finished, and on a closer examination I found it to be
a work of immense labour.
The principal part is a chamber sixteen paces square, and about twenty-
five feet high. There is not the smallest ornament on the walls, which
are quite smooth, as well as the roof, but the outside of the entrance
door is richly embellished with architectural decorations. Several broad
steps lead up to the entrance, and in front of all is a colonnade of
four columns, standing between two pilasters. On each of the three sides
of the great chamber is an apartment for the reception of the dead. A
similar excavation, but larger, opens into each end of the vestibule,
the length of which latter is not equal to
[p.425] that of the colonnade as it appears in front, but terminates at
either end between the pilaster and the neighbouring column.
