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Palace of Memnon, Etc
our view only an heap of ruins, without inhabitants; but to the west of these ruins is still found the celebrated Tomb of Ismandes. The entrance is under a portico sixty feet high, and supported by two rows of massy columns. The immoveable solidity of the edifice, the huge masses which compose it, the hieroglyphics it is loaded with, stamp it as a work of the ancient Egyptians.
Beyond it, is a temple three hundred feet long, and one hundred and fifty-five wide. Upon entering the monument, we meet with an immense hall, the roof of which is supported by twenty-eight columns, sixty feet high, and nineteen in circumference at the base. They are twelve feet distant from each other. The enormous stones that form the ceiling, perfectly joined and incrusted as it were one into the other, offer to the eye nothing but one solid platform of marble, one hundred and twenty-six feet long, and twenty-six wide. The walls are covered with hieroglyphics. Here are seen a multitude of animals, birds, and human figures with pointed caps on their heads, and a piece of stuff hanging down behind, dressed in loose robes, that come down only to the waist. The sculpture, however, is clumsy; and the forms of the body, with the attitudes and proportions of the members, are ill observed. Amongst these we may distinguish some women suckling their children, and men presenting offerings to them. Here also we meet with the divinities of India.
Monsieur Chevalier, formerly governor of Chandernagore, who resided twenty years in that country, carefully visited this monument on his return from Bengal. He remarked here the gods Juggernaut, Gonez, and Vechnon, or Wistnou, such as they are represented in the temples of Indostan.
A great gate opens at the bottom of the first hall, which leads to an apartment, forty-six feet long by twenty-two wide. Six square pillars support the roof of it, and at the angles are the doors of four other chambers, but so choked up with rubbish that they cannot now be entered. The last hall, sixty-four feet long by twenty-four wide, has stairs which form a descent into the subterraneous apartments of this grand edifice.
The Arabs, in searching after treasure, have piled up heaps of earth and rubbish. In the part we are able to penetrate, sculpture and hieroglyphics are discoverable, as in the upper story. The natives say that they correspond exactly with those above ground, and that the columns are as deep in the earth, as they are lofty above ground. It would be dangerous to go far into those vaults; for the air of them is so loaded with a mephitic vapour, that a candle can ecarcely be kept burning in them. 4 A nb4