A Night In The Catacombs Of The Nile.

collision : all the means of striking a light were with my Arab servants , who , I feared , had given me up for lost , and retreated from the catacombs . At this idea , a bewildering terror came over me , and I rose , and straining my voice to its utmost pitch , sent what resembled a loud roar through the cavern . The echoes took it up and carried it right and left , till it became

fainter and fainter , and gradually died away in the distance . Yisions and phantasms then took possession of my mind . I beheld tbe slope of a mountain covered with snow , and in a sheltered nook near its base , a house with children , overlooked by a woman , playing on the green sward before it . A baby lay among the roses near a woman's feet , who alternately gazed at it , aud

at the page of a book , which it was clear she was not reading , flpon this scene I gazed with deep anguish , since it seemed the last glimpse I should ever obtain of these figures . Fancy . then carried me higher up the mountain , towards whore the avalanches roll and roar : and , as I mounted , one of the most enormous bulk appeared to be loosened from its seat , and to be launched

like lightning down the steep declivity I was toilsomely climbing . It struck , it overwhelmed , it stunned me—I lost all sensation . When I escaped from the folds of this hideous vision , I beheld my Arab servants , each with a light in his hands , standing before me , and enquiring how it happened that I had lost myself , and proceeded to so great a distance in the dark .

It was immaterial . We now found ourselves in an immense excavation , whose sides , pillars , aud niches were glowing with strange imagery , painted in bright colours , and representing , as we conjectured , the passage of the soul from earth to Hades . Descending from amidst trees and flowers along a dreary path , the spirit dim and shadowy , almost colourless , followed two wolf headed conductors into the presence of the subterranean king , who was to pronounce judgement upon it , and assign it an abode , blithe and joyous , or portentiously dismal

according to the tenor of its career on earth . The spirit in question happening to be one of the fortunate soon passed its examination , and was received by two ladies , who led it by tho hand into a place abounding with all those delights upon which the ancient Egyptians set especial value . Wine , fruits , flowers , all sorts of delicious viands , choruses of women , dancing in circles , while

others of the same sex played upon golden harps , which , from their open mouths , they appeared to be accompanying with their voices . At this reception the spirit seemed to lose the tenuity of its figure , and was plumped out to respectable dimensions , while its face beamed with joy . Here the artist had stopped short , either because his activity had been arrested bdeathorwishing to

y , . abandon to the imagination the remainder of the scene . In a sculptured niche , close at hand , we discovered a gorgeously painted coffin , with a face of rare beauty delineated on the lid , having long black sleeping eyes , a straight nose , high forehead , and rich pouting lips , resembling those of a Macedonian rather than of an Egyptian woman ; for the chintoowas Greekthat is

, , , exquisitely rounded , dimpled and rising over a neck never surely beheld among the genuine nations of the Niolitic Yalley . Should we find the mummy within ? And if wo did would it answer the flattering indications of the exterior ? The discovery was soon made that tho coffin had never been opened ; and so much like one solid block of wood , had time and thick paint rendered

it , that it was with no little difficulty we discovered the point of junction , between the lid ancl the coffin . The want of hammers and chiselswouldhaverenderedotir discoveries of no avail had not our Nubian guides drawn forth heavy crooked daggers , from beneath their arm pits . One of which I purchased on the spot and still possess , and suggested the possibility of opening the Sarcophagus with them . This we , at length , did . The mummy , properly speaking , was not visible , having been concealed by a thick investure of swarths and

bandages , enveloping its folds obliquely , while its face was represented by a printed mask of rare beauty ; round the throat was a necklace , and on the breast a chain of gold beads , exquisitely formed and chased , of which we robbed the mummy . We were , however , thieves of some conscience , for after having approjiriated the necklace and the beads , with a blue porcelain ring , worn

probably in life by the decased lady , we replaced the lid , and restored the coffin to its nicne , and left it either to become a prey to the next travellers from Europe , or to remain there in silence and quietness till the great Osirian resurrection . It so happens that the Egyptians even in their sepulchres , when the mysteries of life and death aro

strongly mingled , invest their spirits with their attributes which will be spoken of here . In one place the imagination is borne up to the highest level of the sublime ; in another , it is dashed suddenly to earth in the most material way . Bodies mutilated in war are piled before barbarian monarchs , decapitated trunks lie prostrate on the floor , while the heads which have been severed

from them , are heaped , grim and ghastly , in a corner-Some attempts are occasionally made to suggest an ethnological distribution of the races whose deeds are celebrated on the walls of these tombs ; for where painters were real Egyptians , we find groups of red men driving forward other groups of white , yellow , or black men , as captives or slaves . By the white men they are supposed

to have designated their Macedonian masters , in which case the tombs are of recent construction , while the yellow men represent Persian or other Asiatics . A strong objection to this theory , however , is formed in the fact , that among the oldest tombs in Thebes , excavated and painted , in all likelihood before the siege of Troy , groups of white men aro discovered who may , therefore , be merely to represent white strangers wrecked by storm on tbe Egyptian coast , and sold as slaves to the princes and grandees of tbe Thebaic ! .

When we had sufficiently examined the paintings , we entered a long corridor , which , after ascending and descending for many hundred yards , terminated in a small chamber , in which we noticed a mummy pit filled with large stones to the top . In the wall was a hole about four feet and a half from the ground , which looked into another tomb , for through it we could discern long suites

of painted passages and apartments . After much consultation and many tempting proposals made to tho Nubian and Arabs , no ono would consent tobe thrust through that hole into the neighbouring tomb ; some pretended fear of ghosts and spirits , others refused to explain the ground of their apprehensions . I then volunteei-ed , and having been raised to a horiozntal position , my head and

neck were thrust through the opening in the wall , but no efforts of my friends sufficed to propel my shoulders after them . Growing apparently weary of keeping my body straight , they were on tho point of breaking my neck , when by a violent effort I forced back my head out of the opening , and dropped among , the piles of rubbish . The twinge I then felt in my spine seems to be renewed

as I write , as r < -ell as the auger with which I reproached my friends and followers of the disregard of my life . Hunger and fatigue now made me think of a retreat ; but it was easier to resolve upon it than to make , for so numerous were the passages , corridors , flights of steps , and suites of chambers ive had traversed , that no exit for a long time appeared . At length we arrived in the great

hall , whose roof rose into the mountain far beyond tbe reach of the light afforded by our tapers and torches , as well as of the stones which with strong arms we cast upwards in search of it . It was the opinion of some of our party that , in this instance , tho Egyptians had taken advantage of an immense natural cavern in forming this dome , which for height and breadth exceeded the largest cathedrals in the world . Under the impulse of keen appetite , the taste for the picturesque , however , became faint , so , in spite of the