and friends, suffered himself to be placed on another bier, with a pot of water, and seven small loaves, and was let down in the same manner. The ceremony being over, the mouth of the pit was again covered with the stone, and the company returned.
I mention this ceremony the more particularly, because I was in a few weeks’ time to be the principal actor on a similar occasion. Alas! my own wife fell sick and died. I made every remonstrance I could to the king not to expose me, a foreigner, to this inhuman law. I appealed in vain. The king and all his court, with the most considerable persons of the city, sought merely to soften my sorrow by honoring the funeral ceremony with their presence; and at the termination of the ceremony I was lowered into the pit with a vessel full of water, and seven loaves. As I approached the bottom I discovered, by the aid of the little light that came from above, the nature of this subterranean place; it seemed an endless cavern, and might be about fifty fathoms deep. I lived for some time in this awful place upon my bread and water, when, one day, as it was about gone I heard something tread, and breathing or panting as it moved. I followed the sound. The animal seemed to stop sometimes, but always fled and breathed hard as I approached. I pursued it for a considerable time, till at last I perceived a light, resembling a star; I went on, sometimes losing sight of it, but always finding it again, and at last discovered that it came through a hole
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