We now reached a ridge, whence we looked down through the forest upon a long valley, nearly half a mile wide, and bordered on the opposite side by ranges of broken sandstone crags.  This was the place we sought—­the Valley of the Phrygian Tombs.  Already we could distinguish the hewn faces of the rocks, and the dark apertures to the chambers within.  The bottom of the valley was a bed of glorious grass, blazoned with flowers, and redolent of all vernal smells.  Several peasants, finding it too hot to mow, had thrown their scythes along the swarths, and were lying in the shade of an oak.  We rode over the new-cut hay, up the opposite side, and dismounted at the face of the crags.  As we approached them, the number of chambers hewn in the rock, the doors and niches now open to the day, surmounted by shattered spires and turrets, gave the whole mass the appearance of a grand fortress in ruins.  The crags, which are of a very soft, reddish-gray sandstone, rise a hundred and fifty feet from their base, and their summits are worn by the weather into the most remarkable forms.

The principal monument is a broad, projecting cliff, one side of which has been cut so as to resemble the facade of a temple.  The sculptured part is about sixty feet high by sixty in breadth, and represents a solid wall with two pilasters at the ends, upholding an architrave and pediment, which is surmounted by two large volutes.  The whole face of the wall is covered with ornaments resembling panel-work, not in regular squares, but a labyrinth of intricate designs.  In the centre, at the bottom, is a shallow square recess, surrounded by an elegant, though plain moulding, but there is no appearance of an entrance to the sepulchral chamber, which may be hidden in the heart of the rock.  There is an inscription in Greek running up one side, but it is of a later date than the work itself.  On one of the tombs there is an inscription:  “To King Midas.”  These relics are supposed to date from the period of the Gordian Dynasty, about seven centuries before Christ.

A little in front of a headland, formed by the summit walls of two meeting valleys, rises a mass of rocks one hundred feet high, cut into sepulchral chambers, story above story, with the traces of steps between them, leading to others still higher.  The whole rock, which may be a hundred and fifty feet long by fifty feet broad, has been scooped out, leaving but narrow partitions to separate the chambers of the dead.  These chambers are all plain, but some are of very elegant proportions, with arched or pyramidal roofs, and arched recesses at the sides, containing sarcophagi hewn in the solid stone.  There are also many niches for cinerary urns.  The principal tomb had a portico, supported by columns, but the front is now entirely hurled down, and only the elegant panelling and stone joists of the ceiling remain.  The entire hill was a succession of tombs.  There is not a rock which does not bear traces of them.  I might have