Page:Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile - In the Years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772, and 1773 volume 1.djvu/229

Rh nant of the partiality of the builders for their first domiciles; an imitation of the slope, or inclination of the sides of mountains, and that this inclination of flat surfaces to each other in building, gave afterwards the first idea of Pyramids.

of robbers, who much resemble our gypsies, live in the holes of the mountains above Thebes. They are all out-laws, punished with death if elsewhere found. Osman Bey, an ancient governor of Girgé, unable to suffer any longer the disorders committed by these people, ordered a quantity of dried faggots to be brought together, and, with his soldiers, took possession of the face of the mountain, where the greatest number of these wretches were: He then ordered all their caves to be filled with this dry brushwood, to which he set fire, so that most of them were destroyed; but they have since recruited their numbers, without changing their manners.

half a mile north of El Gourni, are the magnificent, stupendous sepulchres, of Thebes. The mountains of the Thebaid come close behind the town; they are not run in upon one another like ridges, but stand insulated upon their bases; so that you can get round each of them. A hundred of these, it is said, are excavated into sepulchral, and a variety of other apartments. I went through seven of them with a great deal of fatigue. It is a solitary place; and