excavated down to the level of the catacomb in which the holy martyr's
body reposes. The long straight flight of steps down to the lower level
are also similar in these two very ancient churches, although the Church
of Der-el-Adra is poor and mean, whilst that of St. Agnese is a superb
edifice, and is famous for being the first basilica in which a gallery
is found over the side aisles. This gallery was set apart for the women,
as in the oriental churches of St. Sophia at Constantinople, and
perhaps, also, of the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem.

[8] It is much to be desired that some competent person should write a
small cheap book, with plates or wood-cuts explaining what an early
Christian Church was; what the ceremonies, ornaments, vestures, and
liturgy were at the time when the Church of our Lord was formally
established by the Emperor Constantine: for the numerous well-meaning
authors who have written on the restoration of our older churches,
appear to me to be completely in the dark. Gothic is NOT Christian
architecture--it is Roman Catholic architecture: the vestures of English
ecclesiastics are not restorations of early simplicity--they are modern
inventions taken from German collegiate dresses which have nothing to do
with religion.

[9] We are perhaps not entirely acquainted with the mechanical powers of
the ancients. The seated statue of Rameses II., in the Memnonium at
Thebes, a solid block of granite forty or fifty feet high, has been
broken to pieces apparently by a tremendous blow. How this can have been
accomplished without the aid of gunpowder it is difficult to conjecture.

[10] For the benefit of the reader I subjoin two of there songs
translated from the originals; or rather, I may say, paraphrased:
although the first of them has the same rhythm as the original. The
notes are but very little, if at all, altered from those which have been
frequently sung to me, accompanied by a drum, called a tarabouka, or a
long sort of guitar with only two or three strings. It must be observed
that the chorus, Amaan, Amaan, Amaan, is generally added to all
songs--_a discretion_--and that the way this chorus is howled out, is to
an European ear the most difficult part to bear of the whole:--

1.

Thine eyes, thine eyes have kill'd me:
With love my heart is torn:
Thy looks with pain have fill'd me:
Amaan, Amaan, Amaan.

2.

Oh gently, dearest! ge