In Search of an Unknown Race — page 135: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

VAN. 125 the courtyard, and in obedience to a mute gesture from Mr. Briscoe, the two followed him thither. He passed through an arched doorway on the opposite side of the courtyard from the living apartments, leading into a part of the house Van had not before visited. Guiding them through a connecting. suite of small rooms with low stone ceilings curiously ornamented in arabesque, Mr. Briscoe paused before the southern wall of the final chamber. The room was bare of all attempt at furnishing, except for its hangings of leather stamped in curious designs, representing birds, beasts and flowers with a consider- able degree of skill. All these were in excellent pre- servation, considering the unknown centuries through which they had thus remained. Mr. Briscoe raised a fold of the hangings on the eastern wall, displaying the admirable masonry of the ancients, fitting so cleverly as to need no confining cement. The solid slabs of stone, about four feet in width, reaching from the ceiling to the floor, were jointed so neatly together that a knife-blade could not be inserted between them. They were placed horizontally side by side, instead of being laid transversely. EOmMmiIicdoo cS (E(e) im