remains of the valley of the Nile is luxuriantly covered with verdure and beauty: corn-fields, green meadows, woods of various growth and foliage, scattered villages, a thousand shining sheets of water, and, above all, the broad glittering stream of the Nile, spreading fertility and abundance on all sides, like a god. Beyond this were the white buildings of Cairo, Babylon, and Rhoudah, backed by the long lofty range of the Gebel Mokattam, reflecting the bright warm rays of the mid-day sun.

XC. We remained for some time on the summit of the pyramid, as if loth to quit the spot, admiring, with untiring delight, the extraordinary features of the landscape beneath: but it at length became necessary to descend. When I approached the edge of the platform, and looked down the steep rugged side of the pyramid (a slope of nearly eight hundred feet), I no longer wondered at the accident which caused the death of poor Maze; who, as some persons in Egypt suppose, threw himself purposely down, from the same motive which impelled Eratostratus to destroy the temple of Diana at Ephesus. But the accident may very well be accounted for without this supposition : in fact, the wonder is, that such things should not frequently happen. Hasselquist, we know, failed twice in his attempt to reach the top: the first time, because he feared that the high wind, then blowing, would have hurled him down; the second, because the steps had been so intensely heated by the sun, that they burned his feet through his boots.

KING'S CHAMBER.

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We descended rapidly. I had an Arab on either hand, who actively assisted me, springing from step to step with the agility of a chamois. It was now that the height looked pernicious, the blocks on which we stood vast, and the labour that had piled them upon each other marvellous; but we reached the bottom in perfect safety, in considerably less time than it had taken us to ascend.

XCI. We now prepared to descend into the interior chambers. The heat and closeness being very great within, we partly undressed, and leaving our superfluous garments at the entrance, each person took a lighted taper in his hand, and followed his Arab guide, who, accustomed to the place, crept down the sloping passages like a cat; but raised in his progress such clouds of dust, that I considered myself fortunate in being the foremost of the party. The passage was entirely cased with slabs of oriental porphyry, finely polished, and so exquisitely fitted to each other as to seem but one piece. Having reached a certain depth, we climbed over a high slippery rock, overhanging the mouth of the well, and entered the adit leading to the King's Chamber. This narrow smooth corridor, which mounts with a steep ascent, is cased, like the former, with porphyry. We passed over the mouth of the entrance to the Queen's Chamber, which lies directly under that of the king. Notches cut in the pavement enabled us to fix our footsteps; and, after groping along for a considerable time, through dust and heat, arrived at a level

passage of no great length, which led directly into the royal chamber.

XCII. Here our tapers, though numerous, at first seemed inadequate to the lighting up of the apartment; but our eyes by degrees began to pierce through the gloom, and to discover the form and dimensions of objects. The mysterious sarcophagus, which, in my opinion, was never meant to contain the bones of any mortal, is placed with its head towards the north, the sacred quarter towards which the fables and traditions of all ancient nations pointed as to the birth-place of their ancestors. It has been much injured, the cover has been removed, and it is more than half filled with dust and fragments of sandstone. In the southern wall of the apartment there is a small niche, which may have contained a mimic coffin during the celebration of the Mysteries ; but it is now empty. The pavement is covered with dust. The walls are beautifully coated with square slabs of polished granite, exquisitely joined. The ceiling is formed of a number of blocks of stone, about three feet in breadth, which reach across the apartment, and being alternately of a lighter and darker grain, give the roof the appearance of being painted in broad stripes of different colours. We found the length of the apartment to be about thirty-nine feet, the breadth about eighteen, and the height about twenty-two. In the north-west corner there were two small square cavities sunk in the floor, and probably of great depth; but they

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were now nearly filled up with dust. Their use we could not conjecture. Before we left this apartment, a small pistol was fired off. The sound, which seemed louder than that of a cannon, almost rent the drum of the ear; and went on rolling through the pyramid, as if multiplied by a thousand echoes. Indeed, the interior of these mysterious structures doubtless contains innumerable undiscovered chambers and passages; and, as I listened to the sound, it seemed to sink or mount from cavity to cavity, to rebound repeatedly from obstructing walls; to divide, to be multiplied, and at length to die away in distant vaults. If this was fancy, it produced, at the time, all the effect of reality: and I am not sorry to find that the idea has likewise occurred to others, possessing the amplest means of giving extensive publicity to their opinions. The queen's apartment, to which we now descended, is considerably smaller than that of the king; and the ceiling rises to a point in the middle, like the inside of the roof of an European house. Being ignorant, when we left Cairo, that the Bedouins had destroyed the wooden staircase by which travellers used to ascend into what is commonly called "Davison's Chamber," we had come unprepared with a ladder, and our guides were unable to supply the deficiency. As, moreover, the greater part of the day was spent, it would have been too late to remedy the evil by searching for a ladder

* A writer in the Quarterly Review has advanced the same conjecture.

among the distant villages. In consequence, this part of our task was deferred until our return from Nubia; when other circumstances, perhaps of greater importance, caused us to neglect it, as well as the descent into the well, where, in reality, there is nothing to be seen. The heat in the interior is very great. The big drops of perspiration stood upon our faces, like peas; and, when we emerged into the open air, two heavy cloaks could scarcely enable us to bear the change of temperature, even in the sunshine.

XCIII. We dined in the rocky chambers in the eastern face of the hill; after which I quitted the party, and returned alone to explore the numerous sepulchral chambers which here occupy the skirts of the desert. I found the whole surface of the ground, east of the pyramid of Cheops, strewed with Egyptian pebbles, or agates, of which I picked up several. I likewise took three small pieces of calcareous stone from the pyramid itself; together with a little of the mortar, of a pale pink colour, in which the stones were embedded. Now the vast structure presented itself to my mind in all its grandeur. I stood by it alone. Neither noise, nor laughter, nor contests with the Bedouins disturbed me. No living thing was any where to be seen, save the eagle of the desert, which wheeled and floated in the sunshine, far aloft, towards the alpine summit. Below and all around were tombs, and absolute stillness. I wandered to the mouth of the second pyramid. The entrance,