258 RELIC-COLLECTING—STATE OE THE MONUMENTS.

were saved in a great measure from the chance of
being gradually dismembered, or utterly swept away
like structural buildings. But although it is true
their chambers and passages, deep in the sides of lime-
stone mountains, may last to the end of time, these
might still be but as the shadow when the substance
was gone; for the more perishable decorations on the
walls, which may be regarded as the latter, enjoy no
similar immunity. Indeed the deterioration, which in
point of fact they have experienced even of late years,
is very considerable, as they manifestly show, and as I
have been assured by those familiar with them at the
period when a voyage up the Nile was only undertaken
by the zealous few, and who have seen what they are
to-day. They, like the temples, have suffered from
the presence in their midst of a lingering population.
Inhabited now, as indeed some were centuries ago, dust
and smoke and other impurities are accomplishing their
work of obliteration in cases where such occupancy, to
which all are exposed, exists. The remarkable tomb,
known as the Brickmakers', at Goorneh, in which scenes
of the most interesting description, illustrative of arts
and customs, are depicted with great precision, is by no
means the only important one at present subject to
these risks.* That under such circumstances the
paintings on the walls should grow dim is not sur-
prising; and it may be anticipated with regret, that

* I mention it, as a well-known Eastern traveller has specially
deplored its impending fate. Robertson's Biblical Researches in Pales-
tine, &c, vol. i. p. 543.