VII. THE PYRAMIDS.

HAVING devoted a day to visiting the battle-field of Embabeh and Erbekieh, the scene of Kleber's assassination, we resolved, on the following morning, to extend our researches to the pyramids, crossing the battle-field, and returning by way of Ghizeh. At day-break, they brought us donkeys of the first order, with which, in less than ten minutes, we reached Boulak. There we crossed the Nile, and instantly found ourselves on the plain, where, forty years ago, the last great quarrel between the East and the West was decided. The investigation was brief; every part was discernible from the heights of Embabeh but as this is a subject for memory and contemplation, there is nothing for description.

We took a direct line to the pyramids; we were soon forced to proceed at a snail pace, for our donkeys sunk up to their knees in sand at every step, so that we were nearly five hours in reaching the first pyramid, though, when we landed, it seemed as if we could touch it by stretching out our arms.

The largest of the pyramids, and that most usually ascended, rests on a base, nearly equal to the area of Lincoln's Inn Fields, in London, and from below it

appears slightly sloped at the top. The stones are laid in courses gradually receding, so as to form a gigantic staircase, every step of which is about four feet and a half high, and one foot wide. The ascent at first appeared, if not impossible, at least rather inconvenient to accomplish; but Mohammed attacked one corner, fixed his knee on one course, grasped the second, and made us a signal to follow him, as if it was the simplest thing in the world. Moderate as was the pleasure of mounting more than four hundred and fifty feet, under a burning sun, whose heat was aggravated by the reflection of the stones, to which we clung like lizards, shame prevented any from remaining behind. Mayer, accustomed to climb the shrouds and rigging of his ship, was quite at home; he now triumphed in his turn, and leaped from course to course like a goat at play. Finally, after twenty minutes of very hard work, after having torn our nails, and barked our shins to our hearts' content, we reached the summit; but it was necessary instantly to think of coming down again, under pain of seeing immediately the little flesh which an Egyptian sun had left upon our bones quite melt away. Still I had time to take a survey of the landscape. Turning my back to Cairo, I had on my left the immense forest of palm-trees which conceals the ruins of Memphis; beyond this forest the pyramids of Sakkara, beyond these the Desert; in front the Desert,

on my right, the Desert: that is to say, this vast plain, the colour of fire, and which offers, as its only variety, hillocks of sand heaped up and again levelled by the wind. On the opposite side was Egypt; that is to say, the Nile, flowing through its emerald valley; then Cairo, a living city, between Fostat and the tombs of the Khaliphs, its dead waters; beyond the tombs of the Khaliphs, the sterile chain of Mokattan, which seems to bound the horizon with a wall of granite.

I walked for a few minutes on the platform at the summit of the pyramid, which appeared to me about thirty-five or forty feet in length. Some enormous blocks resting on the top resemble peaks torn from a mountain-crest. These rocks are covered with names, among which there were still visible those of some of the generals of the French expedition of 1798. Beside these illustrious names, were those of Charles Nodier and Chateaubriand, which Baron Taylor had written in a former visit.

I then turned my eyes down, and saw our donkeys and their drivers like grasshoppers below. I tried to throw a stone, but with all my force I could not fling it beyond the sides of the pyramid; and it reached the ground, bounding from one course of stones to another.

This last exercise led me to think of descending; and it must be confessed that the matter appeared at

first not less difficult than the ascent, though in a different way. Each course of stones, on account of the disproportion between the height and breadth, hides the step beneath, so that it would seem as if there were no means of descending the inclined plane but sliding down in a sitting posture. Luckily one thinks twice before venturing on such a slide; besides, when you get down the first step, you see the second, and so on to the end. Still I must repeat, that the road is no way convenient, and persons who are subject to vertigo, had better let the ascent alone.

When I reached the base, I fell on the sand, half dead with heat and thirst; I had not felt them during the descent, being too much occupied in looking after my safety. Mohammed gave me a lecture on the necessity of drinking only a small sup at a time; I snatched the bottle from his hands, and swallowed its contents at a single draught. sooner had I quenched thirst, than I felt hunger. Luckily each of us frankly confessed to similar feelings, so that breakfast was voted unanimously. The donkey that carried our provisions was brought, and we joyously discovered that no accident had happened to our stores.

No

We made the circuit of the pyramid to discover a shady place. Unluckily the sun was in the zenith, so that the four sides of the tomb of Cheops were

equally scorching. We went round the whole without finding a spot where a person could remain for five minutes together, without being driven mad. At length, our Arabs showed us on the northern side of the pyramid, and at about the third of its height, the entrance by which persons get to the inside of the monument. This dark mouth, which the colossus seems to have opened for breath, appeared to us so shady and cool, that in spite of our fate, we began clambering up again, and in less than five minutes attained our point. We found a spot for a breakfast-parlour, which, though not very convenient, was very cool, and this was all we required.

When our repast was finished, we lighted our torches to visit the interior of the pyramid. The entrance into the monument is through a narrow square corridor, through which the visiters must crawl; this gallery slopes down an angle of about 45°. As you advance, the heat sensibly diminishes; but the smoke of the torches, mixed with the impalpable dust raised by the visiters, renders respiration difficult. At length we reached two chambers, called those of the King and Queen; the first contains a sarcophagus, the cover of which is broken, the second is quite empty.

We quitted the chambers of their majesties, where there is absolutely nothing to see but empty walls, to go and salute his or her highness the sphinx; it is some hundred paces nearer the Nile than the