Page:History of Architecture in All Countries Vol 1.djvu/392

 360 ROMAN ARCHITECTURE. Part I. accentuate the weak lines of a sloping pyramid in such a situation. Taken altogether, perhaps no more graceful monument of its class has come down to rfX our days tlian this must have been when complete. Besides these there are in Algeria two tombs of very great interest, both from their size and the peculiarity of their forms. The best known is that on the coast a short dis- tance from Algiers to the westward. It is generally known as the Kubr Kou- meia, or Tomb of the Christian Virgin — a name it acquired from its having four false doors, each of a single stone divided into four panels, and the stile between them forming a cross, which has consequently been assumed to be the Christian symbol. The building itself, which is circular, and as nearly as may be 200 ft. in diameter, stands on a square platform measuring 210 ft. The perpendicular })art is ornamented by 60 engaged columns of the Ionic order, and by the four false doors just mentioned ; above this rose a cone — apparently in 40 steps — making the total height about 130 ft. It is, however, so ruined that it is very difficult to feel sure about its exact dimensions or form. From objects and scribblings of various kinds found in the in- terior, it appears to have remained open till nearly the time of the Moslem conquest, but shortly afterwards to have been closed, and to have defied all the ingenuity of explorers till a passage Avas forced in 1866 by Messrs. MacCarthy and Berbrugger, acting under the orders and at the expense of the late Emperor Napoleon III. i The entrance "-:==t::r:p^ 242. Tomb at Dugga. (From *a drawing by F. Calherwood.) ' " Le Toiiibeau de la Chretienne," par A. Berbrugger, Alger, 1867, from which the above particulars are taken.