Fergusson imagines that it was vaulted throughout.
It must in any case have been lighted from above; for it would have been impossible to read the inscriptions, or even to see the sculptures, merely by the light admitted at the two ends.
[Illustration: PLATE 45] From the passage in question--one of the few in the edifice--no doorway opened out either on the right hand or on the left.

The visitor necessarily proceeded along its whole extent, as he saw the figures proceeding in sculptures, and, passing through a second portal, found himself in the great inner court of the palace, a square of about 100 or 160 feet, enclosed on two sides--the south-east and the south-west-by buildings, on the other two sides reaching to the edge of the terrace, which here gave upon, the open country.

The buildings on the south-eastside, looking towards the north-west, and and joining the gateway by which the had entered, were of comparatively minor importance.

They consisted of a few chambers suitable for officers of the court, and were approached from the court by two doorways, one on either side of the passage through which he had come.

To his left, looking towards the north-east, were the great state apartments, the principal part of the palace, forming a facade, of which some idea may perhaps be formed from the representation.