A pilgrimage to the temples and tombs of Egypt, Nubia, and ...

364 SEPULCHRAL ARCHITECTURE.
must have rested somewhere during the three
hundred years that intervened between the period
of his death and the Exodus of the Israelites ;
and why not in the excavations of Beni Hassan,
which were the creation of his own time ?
The i)rincipal tombs are entered by large door-
ways hewn into the rock, and the first chambers
are level with the entrance (not descended to by
stairs, as in the case of the royal tombs at Thebes),
and are light and spacious rooms, supported by
columns, forming a part of the rock, some of
them fashioned in the Doric order, (a proof that
the Greeks, to whom the invention is ascribed,
had only copied from the Egyptians) ; others
and these are by far the most beautiful—repre-
senting the slender stalks of the lotus bound
together, the leaves forming the capital. The
tombs are placed in a line, and extend to a
great length along the face of the cliff, present-
ing a row of sepulchral abodes, the entrances to
which are numbered as in a street; and from
the esplanade that runs before these entrances
there is a noble view over the river and the fer-
tile land to a great extent. Unlike the gloomy
valley of Biban el Moluk, all is light, sunshine,
and air, upon these breezy heights ;
—
and if ever the
tomb could be said to wear an inviting aspect, it