[98] “The chests were carved on the outside with ox heads, and wreaths hanging between them, after the manner of adorning heathen altars.”—Maundrell, p. 11, f. ed.
[99] A flat tablet, once in my possession, was found, together with the earthenware coffin, near Abra spring. I could not gain correct information as to the position which it occupied.
[100] I have found among my papers the copy of an inscription which I believe to have been taken from one of them. It is as follows:
ΔΗΜΗΤΡΙΟΣΔΙΟΝΥΣΙΟΥΦΙΛΙΟΣ ΛΕΟΝΙΔΟΥΑΛΥΠΟΙΧΑΙΡΕΤΕ.
[101] Maundrell seems to have thought that they were calculated for places of security, for he says (page 117, Oxford, 1732, 8vo.)—“We were carried ... to see a place ... which very well deserves a traveller’s attention. At about the distance of a mile from the sea there runs along a high rocky mountain, in the side of which are hewn a multitude of grots, all very little differing from each other. They have entrances of about two feet three quarters. On the inside you find in most of them a room of about four yards square, on the one side of which is the door, on the other there are as many little cells, elevated about two feet above the floor.... The great doubt concerning them is whether they were made for the dead or for the living.”
[102] Maundrell bears testimony to the neat workmanship of places of this description in Syria. He says, “But, within, you arrive in a large and 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 lead and plummet, could build a room more regular, and the whole is so firm and entire that it may be called a chamber hollowed out of one piece of marble.”
[103] Pauca adhuc dicenda restant de floribus, coronis, et sertis variis, quæ in hoc multisq: aliis sepulchris picta et sculpta reperiuntur. Nimirum pertinet ad morem veterum Romanorum, à Græcis derivatum, non solum coronandi mortuos suos, sed etiam sepulchra eorum quotannis honorandi sparsione florum, rosarum, et unguentorum; quoniam existimabant hæc defunctis esse gratissima. Mos hic adeo erat receptus, ut quidam, moribundus, hæredes suos, in tabulis testamenti, officii hujus præstandi necessitate adstringeret; ingenti pecuniæ summâ huic fini destinatâ. Quod testantur, non solum auctores Græci et Latini, sed etiam—inscriptiones et ornamenta sepulchralia, quæ, ut hodieque ex antiquis monumentis apparet, ex coronis, sertis, frondibus, et floribus, constabant. Neque solum præcipiebant ut sibi quotannis rosis et odoribus parentaretur, sed etiam, eum in finem, sibi comparabant hortos, sepulchris suis vicinos, ut ex illorum reditibus parentalia ille fierent: quod ex sequenti inscriptione colligitur. Long: Patrollus, secutus pietatem col: centum hortos cum ædificio huic sepul. juncto vivus donavit, ut ex reditu eorum largius rosæ et escæ patrono suo et quandoque sibi parentaretur.—Forma usitata est in antiq: inscrip.—Ut quotannis rosas ad monumentum ejus deferant. Rosæ, minirum, præ omnibus aliis floribus in maximo habebantur pretio. Sed, &c.—Vid. eod. vol. De jure manium à Jacobo Gutheri, lib. 2. cap. xxviii. Again,—Porro solenne fuit antiquis Græcis et Romanis cænas ferales apparare statis et anniversariis sæpe temporibus, cùm in honorem ac memoriam defuncti, tùm ut per vini cibique lenimen ejus desiderium levaretur. Petebat autem stulta gentilitas mortuorum animas ab inferis reduces iis vesci et delectari.
[104] The provisions for the monastery were:—4 kilos of borgûl; 75 rotolos of oil; 2 cwt. of figs; butter, dibs, raisins, wood, and charcoal in proportion: also flour, rice, &c.
[105] I chanced afterwards to hear the same ballad sung on other occasions, but I remarked that those who sung it always arranged themselves in file, and assumed an attitude such as is seen on Egyptian monuments, where all the arms and legs have the same position.
[106] “And here we may remark that, in our minds, the notion is altogether ill-founded, which attributes a preventive efficacy in cases of fever to certain drugs; such as camphor, aromatic oils, and perfumes, which are probably all of them worse than nothing.”—Quarterly Review, No 54, for Oct. 1822, p. 527. The names in Arabic for the plague are webá, the plague; cubbeh, a cupola, as marking the shape of the swelling; (Koubeh and webá, or vebi, are terms now used to designate the plague.—Brown’s Travels;) also el derebeh el tâaûn, which was the term most in use; el fená.