all the rest, and are supposed to be the sepulchres of the kings. One of these is in Jerusalem, and contains twenty-four cells; the other, containing twice that number, is in a place without the city." LowTH's Lectures on the Sacred Poetry of the Hebrews, vol. i. p. 159. GREGORY'S Translation.

In the introductory observations to Isaiah xiii. the same learned writer, speaking of these sepulchres of the kings, says, 66 you are to form to yourself an idea of an immense subterraneous vault, a vast gloomy cavern, all round the sides of which there are cells to receive the dead bodies: here the deceased monarchs lie in a distinguished sort of state, suitable to their former rank, each on his own couch, with his arms beside him, his sword at his head, and the bodies of his chiefs and companions round about him. Ezek. xxxii. 27." (See LOWTH'S Isaiah.)

The account which MAUNDRELL gives of such sepulchres is too interesting to be omitted. "The next place we came to was those famous grots, called sepulchres of the kings: but for what reason they go by that name is hard to resolve: for it is certain none of the kings, either of Israel or of Judah, were buried here, the holy scriptures assigning other places for their sepultures; unless it may be thought, perhaps, that Hezekiah was here interred, and that these were the sepulchres of the sons of David, mentioned 2 Chron. xxxii. 33. Whoever was buried here, this is certain, that the place itself discovers so great an expence both of labour and of treasure, that we may well suppose it to have been the work of kings. You approach to it at the cast side, through an entrance cut out of the natural rock, which admits you into an open court of about forty paces square, cut down into the rock, with which it is encompassed instead of walls. On the south side of the court is a portico, nine paces long and four broad,

hewn likewise out of the rock. This was a kind of architrave running along its front, adorned with sculpture of fruits and flowers, still discernible, but by time much defaced. At the end of the portico, on the left hand, you descend to the passage into the sepulchres. The door is now so obstructed with stones and rubbish, that it is a thing of some difficulty to creep through it; but within, you arrive in a large fair room, about seven or eight yards square, cut out of the natural rock. Its sides and ceiling are so exactly square, and its angles so just, that no architect with levels and plummets could build a room more regular; and the whole is so firm' and intire, that it may be called a chamber hollowed out of one piece of marble. From this room you pass into (I think) six more, one within another, all of the same fabric with the first. Of these the two innermost are deeper than the rest, having a second descent of about six or seven steps into them.

In every one of these rooms, except the first, were coffins of stone placed in niches in the sides of the chambers. They had been at first covered with handsome lids, and carved with garlands; but now most of them were broke to pieces by sacrilegious hands. The sides and ceiling of the rooms were always dropping, with the moist damps condensing upon them; to remedy which nuisance, and to preserve these chambers of the dead polite and clean, there was in each room a small channel cut in the floor, which served to drain the drops that fall constantly into it." (Journey from Aleppo to Jerusalem, p. 76, 7th edit.)

No. 242.-xiv. 13. I will sit also I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north.] Captain Wilford, in a paper communicated to the Asiatic society concerning Mount Caucasus, gives us the opinion of the

Hindus respecting the garden of Eden. "They place it," he says "on the elevated plains of Bukhara the lesser, where there is a river which goes round Brahmápuri, or the town of BRAHMA: then through a lake called Mansarovara (the existence of which is very doubtful), and is erroneously supposed by travelling fackeers to be the same with that, from which the Ganges issues, which is called in Sanserit, Bindu Sarovaru. From the Mansarovara lake come four rivers running toward the four corners of the world, through four rocks cut in the shape of the heads of four animals: thus taking literally the corresponding passage of scripture. The cow's head is towards the south, and from it issues the Gangá. Toward the west is a horse's head, from which springs the Chocshu or Chocshus; it is the Oxus. The Sitá-gangá or Hoang-ho, issues from an elephant's head, and lastly the Bhadra-gangá, or Jeniséa in Siberia, from a tiger's head, or a lion's head, according to others.

The Hindus generally consider this spot as the abode of the gods, but by no means as the place in which the primogenitors of mankind were created: at least I have not found any passage in the Puránas, that might countenance any such idea, but rather the contrary. As it is written in the Puránas, that on mount Méru there is an eternal day for the space of fourteen degrees round Su-meru; and of course an eternal night for the same space on the opposite side: the Hindus have been forced to suppose that Su-meru is exactly at the apex or summit of the shadow of the earth; and that from the earth to this summit, there is an immense conical hill, solid like the rest of the globe, but invisible, impalpable, and pervious to mankind: on the sides of this mountain are various mansions, rising in eminence and pre-excellence, as you ascend, and destined for the place of residence of the blessed, according to their merits. God

and the principal deities are supposed to be seated in the sides of the north, on the summit of this mountain, which is called also Sabha, or of the congregation. This opinion is of the greatest antiquity, as it is alluded to by Isaiah, almost in the words of the Pauranies. This prophet describing the fall of the chief of the Daityas, introduces him saying, that he would exalt his throne above the stars of God, and would sit on the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north. The mountain or hill of God is often alluded to in scripture." (ASIATIC RESEARCHES, vol. vi. p. 488.) The circumstances here narrated are too curious to be overlooked, especially as they present us with a striking coincidence with what Moses has recorded, and afford us some light into the allusion of the prophet Isaiah in the passage here referred to.

No. 243. xviii. 2. A nation whose land the rivers have spoiled.] Great injury has often been done to the lands contiguous to large and rapid rivers, especially when inundations have happened. Various occurrences of this nature are mentioned by different travellers, which clearly show the meaning of the prophet in these words. Sonnini relates a circumstance of this kind, to which he was a witness, in passing down the Nile. He says "the reis and the sailors were asleep upon the beach; I had passed half of the night watching, and Ì composed myself to sleep, after giving the watch to two of my companions, but they too had sunk into slumber. The kanja, badly fastened against the shore, broke loose, and the current carried it away with the utmost rapidity. We were all asleep; not one of us, not even the boat-men, stretched upon the sand, perceived our manner of sailing down at the mercy of the current. After having floated with the stream for the space of a good league, the boat, hurried along with violence, struck with a terrible crash against the shore, precisely

a little below the place from whence the greatest part of the loosened earth fell down. Awakened by this furious shock, we were not slow in perceiving the critical situation into which we were thrown. The kanja, repelled by the land, which was cut perpendicularly, and driven towards it again by the violence of the current, turned round in every direction, and dashed against the shore in such a manner as excited an apprehension that it would be broke to pieces. The darkness of the night, the frightful noise which the masses separated from the shore spread far and wide as they fell into a deep water; the bubbling which they excited, the agitation of which communicated itself to the boat, rendered our awaken

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ing a very melancholy one. There was no time to be lost; I made my companions take the oars, which the darkness prevented us from finding so soon as we could have wished I sprung to the helm, and, encouraging my new and very inexperienced sailors, we succeeded in making our escape from a repetition of shocks, by which we must all, at length, have inevitably perished; for scarcely had we gained, after several efforts, the middle of the river, than a piece of hardened mud, of an enormous size, tumbled down at the very spot we had just quitted, and which must, had we been but a few minutes later, have carried us to the bottom." Travels in Egypt, vol. iii. p. 148.

Mr. Bruce has a passage which is much to the purpose. He says, "the Chronicle of Axum, the most ancient repository of the antiquities of that country, a book esteemed, I shall not say how properly, as the first in authority after the holy scriptures, says, that between the creation of the world and the birth of our Saviour there were 5500 years; that Abyssinia had never been inhabited till 1808 years before Christ, and 200 years after that, which was in 1600, it was laid waste by a flood, the face of the country much changed and de