The bodies were embalmed, wrapped in cloths, as we read in Scriptural accounts of burials, notably in that of our Saviour. “Each in his narrow cell forever laid,” they remained undisturbed until rude hands, ages afterwards, “rolled away the stone from the mouth of the cave” and rifled the contents.
Some of the entrances to the chambers had been completely filled up. In such cases the partition wall of rock had been broken through. Some of the chambers were larger than others, and there were two tiers of loculi. In order to get from one chamber to another it was often necessary to drag yourself along at full length upon the ground. In one case the roof had been broken through into a chamber above, and this probably led to more.
I had not time fully to explore this most curious and interesting spot. Examinations of this sort in the middle of a long day's ride are very fatiguing. The effort of scrambling about on all fours, or after the fashion of the serpent, is very great, and makes you very dirty. In the absence of a string you are haunted by the idea of not being able to find your way back, to say nothing of the chance of sticking in one of these narrow passages. Altogether, I entered about fifteen different chambers, and doubtless the others did not differ in any important particulars. I am afraid, however, that I was not the first to discover them, but that this honour rests with Captain Conder, Royal Engineers, of the Palestine Exploration Fund. The sheik told us he had once before guided a foreigner to this locality, and on the next cave we visited we found the letters R. E. scratched in red paint on the rock, which under these circumstances can only mean Royal Engineers.
The next cave was a much more comfortable one to examine, though not nearly so interesting. You could walk about it comfortably, but there was no ornamentation. The chambers were larger, but there were only five or six of them. The stone coffins had, in many instances, been completely destroyed, but the massive stone columns, or rather blocks, of living rock which supported the roof were finer than those in the “Cave of Hell.” Perhaps it owed its more dilapidated condition to the largeness of its entry, and its proximity to another huge cave which had evidently in crusading times been converted into a Christian place of worship. According to a rough measurement obtained by pacing it, the nave was seventy feet by thirty, the apse eighteen by twenty-one, and two apse-shaped transepts about twenty by eighteen; but these were very much filled with rubbish. The height of the cave was about thirty feet. The whole formed a subterranean church, which, in its perfect condition, when entered from the hillside, must have presented a very imposing appearance. On the slope of the hill, not far from this cave, was the carved pedestal of a granite column, and near it a handsome stone sarcophagus.