THE TEMPLE OF SOLEB. 467 adyta of the temple, now completely levelled to the earth. The entire length of the ruin is about two hundred feet. There are nine pillars, with a single block of their architrave, and portions of two of the porticoes still standing : the remainder of the temple is a mass of ruins. The greatest pains have been' taken to destroy it completely, and all the mound on which it stands is covered with huge blocks, thrown one over the other in the wildest confusion. In one place, only, I noticed the disjointed segments of a column, still lying as they fell. The pedestals remain in many places, so that one can partially restore the original order. When complete, it must have been a majestic and imposing edifice. The material is the white limestone of the adjacent mountains, veined with purple streaks, and now much decomposed from the sun and rain, From the effect of this decomposition, the columns which remain standing are cracked and split in many places, and in the fissures thus made, numbers of little swallows and starlings have built their nests, where they sit peeping out through the sculptures of gods. The columns and doorways are cover ed with figures, now greatly blurred, though still legible. I noticed a new style of joining the portrait of a monarch with his cartouche, the latter representing his body, out of which his head and arms issued, like the crest of a coat of arms.

The columns represent the stalks of eight water-plants bound together, with a capital, or rather prolonged abacus, like the Osiride column. They are thirty feet in height, without the pedestal, and five feet in diameter. This is the sum of my observations : the rest belongs to the antiquarian.

Before night, we passed a third akaba, to get around the limestone ridge, which here builds a buttress of naked rock