"These young parties have a way of looking at one, sir," he would say
apologetically, "which I don't call respectable."

This chamber was twice the size of the sleeping caves, and I saw at once
that it had originally served as a refectory, and also probably as an
embalming room for the Priests of the Dead; for I may as well say at
once that these hollowed-out caves were nothing more nor less than vast
catacombs, in which for tens of ages the mortal remains of the great
extinct race whose monuments surrounded us had been first preserved,
with an art and a completeness that has never since been equalled,
and then hidden away for all time. On each side of this particular
rock-chamber was a long and solid stone table, about three feet wide by
three feet six in height, hewn out of the living rock, of which it had
formed part, and was still attached to at the base. These tables were
slightly hollowed out or curved inward, to give room for the knees of
any one sitting on the stone ledge that had been cut for a bench along
the side of the cave at a distance of about two feet from them. Each of
them, also, was so arranged that it ended right under a shaft pierced
in the rock for the admission of light and air. On examining them
carefully, however, I saw that there was a difference between them that
had at first escaped my attention, viz. that one of the tables, that
to the left as we entered the cave, had evidently been used, not to
eat upon, but for the purposes of embalming. That this was beyond all
question the case was clear from five shallow depressions in the stone
of the table, all shaped like a human form, with a separate place
for the head to lie in, and a little bridge to support the neck, each
depression being of a different size, so as to fit bodies varying in
stature from a full-grown man's to a small child's, and with little
holes bored at intervals to carry off fluid. And, indeed, if any further
confirmation was required, we had but to look at the wall of the cave