The Pillar of Fire; or, Israel in Bondage

by J. H. Ingraham

LETTER XVI.

City of On.

My honored and dear Mother:

I have described my chariot ride through the plain of tombs, along the magnificent causeway, which extends from the Lake of the Dead to the feet of the sphinx. All that I beheld of the grandeur of the monuments showed, that the Egyptians of past generations who built them, and lie buried here, were a populous and powerful nation, in advance of all others in the arts of life; since not only do the cities for the living, but the "Homes of the Dead," attest their taste and love for the beautiful and sublime in nature and art. The culmination of all Egyptian marvels in architecture is the sphinx-guarded pyramidal temple.

We approached the central pylon along a paved court, across which two hundred chariots could have driven in a line. This court was entirely surrounded by a double row of majestic columns, with the lotus-leaf capitals I have before described. The vastness of their proportions seemed to be increased by contrast with a group of priests, who looked like pigmies in size as they stood by their bases. The gigantic entablature, which united their summits, was covered with sacred symbols, richly colored, and crowned with statues of kings, hewn out of the dark-gray granite of Ethiopia. But some of these were mutilated by Time, which, indeed, had thrown its mantle of decay over the whole,—pillars, architecture, and sculpture; for this court is coeval with the sphinx crouched at its entrance, and but a little later than the two pyramids. In a few centuries, decay will have brought the mighty fabric to the earth; for, massive as it looks, it is built of brick, covered with pictured stucco; but the pyramids of stone, which have withstood the lapse of ages beyond history, will last as long as the everlasting hills of granite from which their enormous blocks were hewn.

Passing beneath the great portal, we found ourselves in the sacred square of the temple of the Pyramids, and I could now perceive the mighty design. Connected by stupendous columnar wings, the pyramids rose in sublime grandeur on either hand. Their summits shone with the light of the setting sun, which, reflected from the polished casing of the pictured tiles yet remaining near the top, and that once covered the whole surface from base to apex, lent a splendor to them indescribable. On the opposite side of the quadrangle, formed by the temple in front and the bases of the pyramids on the two sides, is a dark grove of palms, intermingled with statues and altars; and beyond rise the dark hills of Libya—a fitting and solemn background to the scene.

About the summits of the Queen's Pyramid, which is a little smaller than the other, though it appears to be of equal height, from the superior elevation of the platform of rock on which it stands, soared flocks of the white ibis, their snow-white wings flashing like pinions of silver as they wheeled in mid-air. At that immense height they looked no larger than sparrows.

A statue of Horus, whose name I had also seen inscribed on the tablet of the temple of the Sphinx, rose a colossal monolith in the centre of the quadrangle, with one of Thoth upon his right, and another of Anubis on his left hand. These figures were symbolical of the funereal use of the pyramids between which they stood.

After walking around the columned avenue of this great mausoleum, we began the ascent of the larger pyramid, known as that of Cheops; the other bearing the name of Chephres, as the high-priest informs me; and the third, which towers in its own unaided grandeur farther to the south, being that of Pharaoh-Men-Cherines. We found the ascent extremely difficult—indeed, in ancient times it must have been impossible, when its polished and beautiful casing remained entire; but this having been removed by time and accident in many places, and purposely in others, a path, if it may be so termed, is made to the summit. We were aided by attendants of the temple, who from long practice ascend with ease, assisting also those strangers who would climb the perilous height.

As we reached half-way, a block, which had been removed from its place either by the irresistible force of a sirocco from the desert, or by lightning, gave the high-priest and myself a welcome resting-place.

As we stood here a few moments, I looked down upon the prospect below. The sight at first made me dizzy, for we were elevated four hundred feet above the base. I seemed to be suspended upon wings above an abyss, and a dreadful desire to throw myself out into mid-air seized me; so that to resist it I closed my eyes and clung firmly to the attendant. It soon passed off, and I gazed down upon the vast quadrangle, the persons in which looked no bigger than ants, while the three colossi of the gods, in the centre, were reduced to the natural size of men.

Opposite, not six hundred cubits distant, stood Chephres. From each pyramid swept the avenues of columns and the great wall connecting both with the central temple and its pylon. From the grove of palms, curled up into the pure orange-colored atmosphere a blue cloud of incense, where some priest offered at one of its shrines.

Again we mounted upwards, and, after incredible fatigue, gained the summit—not without peril, for a slip of the foot or the hand, each block being as high as a man's neck, would prove fatal. Indeed, more than one life has been lost in falling down the side of the pyramid. A prince of Midian, a country in Arabia, lost his life last century by losing his hold and falling from Chephres, which is more difficult of ascent than Cheops, (or Chuphu), as the priests there call its name.

How shall I describe to you, my dear mother, the scene which burst upon my vision, as I gazed about me from this mountain-like elevation! As I ascended, the prospect of the country enlarged at every step, but now I seemed to behold the earth itself spread out beneath me. The place where we stood, which looks from below like a sharp apex, is a platform several cubits across, on which twenty men could stand or move about with ease.

I can give you no adequate conception of the scene I beheld. First, the valley of the Nile was visible, extending for many leagues to the right and left, and resembling a green belt a few miles wide, through which the river flowed like a silver band—while upon its borders countless cities were set like precious stones. It was a gorgeous and magnificent assemblage of cities, temples, palaces, obelisks, villas, gardens, monuments, avenues of trees and sphinxes, sepulchres, aqueducts, statue-lined causeways, galleys and pleasure barges, chariots, horses, and multitudes of people. Nor should I omit what now became visible in one field of view, to the north and south. I mean not less than one hundred pyramids, all much smaller than the mighty triad, but each, had not the others been up-builded, would have been a marvel of grandeur.

"Those are all tombs of kings, but of a later age than this one," said the hierarch, looking towards them. "Each monarch, at the commencement of his reign, laid the foundation of a pyramid. He built first a small one, containing his sarcophagus and sepulchral chamber. Then every year he added to the outside a complete layer of stones, which, after many years, extended its base, and increased its elevation in like proportions. Therefore the size of the pyramids marks the age to which the king lived."

"Then," said I, "the kings who built the multitude of lesser pyramids, which we behold in the distance, must have had much shorter lives than the builders of these vast piles."

"You are right, O prince," he said. "When the pyramid, on which we now stand, and its companions were builded, men's lives were of the duration of a thousand years."

"That was before the traditional deluge?" I replied, with surprise and interest.

"True, O Prince of Tyre!" he answered. "These two great pyramids, say our sacred books, were the work of the giants who lived in the days before the flood of Noachis, or Noah. They are the tombs of their kings, and were centuries in being built according to our years. And when the gods brought the unknown oceans over the earth, to punish the nations which living so long became as wise as the gods, but at the same time grew as wicked as wise, these vast sepulchres withstood, like the lesser hills, the waters of desolation, and remained in ruinous grandeur, not only as witnesses of the flood, but monuments of a past people whose towers, as well as tombs, reached unto the heavens. You see these pyramids, and how they are now defaced by the billows that dashed against and over them. Anciently, when they were completed, their whole surfaces were encased with beautiful tiles of the brightest blue and purest white, inlaid alternately in perfect squares. Upon this magnificent encasing was inscribed, in pictorial signs, the history of man; but no person has ever interpreted them. You see, my prince, that here, at the top, are a few strata still remaining of this rich encasement; all the rest having been destroyed by the deluge—by the abrasion of the waves, and the hurling against its sides of mighty ships, driven by the huge and angry billows which rolled like a boiling sea across the earth. Thus you behold these vast structures, as it were in ruins, yet still retaining fragmentary portions of their original glory and beauty. When the waters departed, the gods limited the lives of men to one hundred years; hence the pyramids that the kings this side the flood have erected are comparatively small in magnitude."

"But the third, was it not built before the flood?"

"I did not intend you should so understand," he answered. "It was commenced before the flood by the king who was destroyed thereby. But the son of the wise and good Prince Noah completed it during the several hundred years that he lived—as did his father also—after the flood; for it was only the lives of their descendants that were to be limited. Thus Amun, says tradition, finished the third pyramid, but did not encase it, as the art was lost by the deluge which had destroyed those who were skilled in it. There are other accounts, my prince, but they either come near this one, or so far differ from it that they are entitled to no credit."

"It is your opinion, then, O high-priest, that these two pyramids were built by the giants of the ages before the great deluge?" I asked.

"I have no other one," he replied firmly. "When the age of man was shortened to one hundred years from one thousand, his stature was also lessened. Hence the men of the ages since the flood cannot build a pyramid like one of these. All the power of engines and art cannot uprear such stones six hundred feet into the air. This is giants' work."

"Then you believe that there were giants in the earth in the days before the flood?" I said, doubtingly.

"These pyramids attest the fact," he replied, with an impressive gesture of his right hand towards the opposite one. "Noah himself, says tradition, and his sons, Chephres, Chufu, and Amun or Men-Cherines, were gigantic, and are worshipped as gods, as you know, not only here and in Syria and Ethiopia, but in the Orient, and beyond the seas, under various names. In the third pyramid Amun was entombed. In the second is Chephres, or Chefret, who, when an aged king, was brought from the place where he died, and placed in a sarcophagus above the chamber where lay the king who found sepulture there before the flood. Within the pyramid on which we are, rest the sacred bones of the Prince-god Noah, who, at the age of nine hundred and fifty years, came hither to be buried by the side of his eldest son Chephres. 'Such a mourning of the nations, all of whom sprung from his loins, the earth never knew, and will never witness more,' say the sacred scrolls of the temples. All kings, and queens, and princes, and lords, and nobles, of every realm followed the embalmed body of their father and deity; and King Menes, his grandson, went up from Egypt with all the hosts of the land to meet the funeral procession, and to receive the divine body. Cheops is but another name for Noah. Here also is entombed Menes."

Such, my dear mother, is the priestly tradition of the pyramids. We, of Tyre, have a myth that the Father of the Flood is buried in Damascus; but though Egyptians love to concentrate all history around their own land, and make Egypt the cradle of the human race, yet as this tradition seems to be better founded than ours, and as they can point to the grand tombs of these kings of the flood, I am ready to concede to her the honor which she claims of being the place of sepulture of the giants who survived the deluge. And what fitter tombs, than these eternal mountains of granite, could the progenitors of the race repose in! Fit sepulchres are these in their grandeur of proportions, for men whose stature was gigantic, and whose lives extended through a thousand years!

But I must return to the prospect from the summit of this mausoleum of giants. The sun was near the horizon, and sent his level and mingled rose, golden, and purple beams aslant across the valley. The air was perfectly clear, and our view unimpeded in all directions.

To the south, along the verdant plain of the Nile, the pyramids shone in the sun as if sheathed with plates of gold. Palms, temples, obelisks in pairs, and pylones were mingled with them in the richest confusion; while as far as the eye could penetrate they receded into the desert, till their size was diminished by distance to shining mounds.

Turning my eyes to the west, the yellow plain of Libya, with its rocky hills inclosing the verdant valley of the Nile in that direction, rolled away to the edge of the horizon, an arid, undulating, illimitable expanse, which, under the sun, blazed like a lake of fire from the burning reflection of its sands. The contrast of this realm of desolation, and its storm-piled drifts of gray, brown, and dusky sand, lying so near the groves, and green fields, and blooming gardens which surrounded the pyramids and extended to the base of the ridge, was very remarkable. One part looked like the abode of Osiris, full of beauty, and light, and happiness: the other like that of Typhon, or the spirit of evil, who strove, ever battling with his storms of sand, to invade, overwhelm, and desolate these scenes of beauty! And, ere many centuries, his arid hosts threaten to sweep past the pyramids, and to overleap the very gates of Memphis! But at present, all the land within the hills is a region of delight, presenting a pleasing contrast, with its perennial green, to the desolate and savage realm of the desert. Luxuriantly covered with verdure; bright with golden wheat-fields, charming green meadows, foliage of every variety; groups of trees rising from a thousand courts; countless villages everywhere, and myriads of brilliant lakes, it was a scene of unmixed beauty. Jizeh, a little to the east, with its temple-palaces and gardens, filled the view. Farther east lay, first, the glorious city of Apis, its squares, avenues, lakes, groves, fanes, and monuments, all open to the eye like a magnificent picture. Beyond the glittering Nile, the banks of which were rich with fertility and adorned with villas, I beheld Raamses, and still farther Pythom, the treasure-cities, in the fair expanse of the land of Goshen,—alas! beautiful only to the eye, for upon it rests the dark shadow of Hebrew bondage; and south, a few miles, after a thousand scenes of rural beauty fill the vision, towers, like the throne of the kingdom, the city of the Lord of the Sun, its gorgeous temple and forest of obelisks flinging back the sunbeams with a splendor that fills the soul with wonder and delight!

"O happy, glorious, mighty Egypt! what a blessed and favored land art thou! With one foot upon the seven mouths of thy mighty river, another upon Ethiopia, and thy head in the clouds, all nations bow down to thy might and greatness! Leader of the kingdoms of the earth! what a future is thine, if thy kings and rulers are true to thee and to themselves!"

The hierarch heard me utter these words, for I spake aloud in my wonder at the glory of this kingdom and the magnificence of her power.

"The future of Egypt, my prince, no man can foresee. But the sacred books contain a prophecy, that during one cycle of a soul, three thousand years, she will be a nation despised and ruled by kings of another race, and all that will remain to her will be her defaced pyramids and temples; the marvel of which will bring strangers from the ends of the earth, curious to gaze upon these mute witnesses of her ancient power and glory."

"The gods forbid!" I said warmly.

"The gods," he answered, "govern the earth, and do what they will with its kingdoms. These sacred papyri also speak of Tyre and prophesy its desolation, and say that the empire of commerce shall be removed to an unknown world beyond the great sea of the West, and that a race yet unborn shall sway the destinies of the earth, and another religion shall prevail in the hearts of men."

"What are these papyri?" I asked.

"Books which have been handed down from the first kings, who in their turn received them from the ancient gods."

I turned away sorrowfully at the thought of this prediction, my dear mother. The idea that Tyre, which now sits a queen upon the shores of her sea, will ever be desolate, is not possible for me to conceive. May her prosperity and peace be prolonged to the ends of the ages!

We now turned to descend this elevation, from whence the heart of Egypt lay open before us. The sight of the sheer eight hundred feet along the inclined side of the pyramid was fearful. The projections which were to receive our feet were not apparent; and we commenced the descent with the greatest caution, being obliged to lower ourselves from block to block; and where the encasement of tiles remained, we were sustained by the iron heads of short spears with which each of us was provided, a hook being secured at the opposite end.

At length we reached the broad terrace which surrounds the pyramid, and upon which are statues and small sphinxes facing outward. Between two of large size, representing Osiris and Isis, we descended a broad flight of steps to an ancient gate, which, as I was told, led to the entrance of the pyramid. The passage, however, has not been opened for many centuries—the piety of the Pharaohs permitting the mighty dead to rest in their granite tumuli undisturbed by curiosity or cupidity.

When we had crossed the court, the priest ascended with me one of the towers of the pylon. From thence he showed me a mass of rock lying in a position which answered, in reference to the main pyramid, to that which the sphinx occupied.

"Seest thou, O prince," he said, "that isolated rock? The ancients intended to chisel it also into a sphinx to match this one, for they used to place them in pairs, like their obelisks. But the grand conception has never been carried out; and you perceive that our noble queen, Amense, is erecting the pyramid of her years so near, that it in part stands upon it. Two such sphinxes crouched in front of Cheops would have been an entrance to the mausoleum worthy of it, and of him who reposes therein. Instead of carrying out this original design, the great temple and colossal wings have been built, and the avenue from the sphinx so turned aside by a slight angle, as to terminate at the central pylon; thereby making one sphinx answer the purpose of two, but at the sacrifice of proportion; for the twofold grandeur of the combined pyramids lessens the impression of the single sphinx, while the two reposing before Cheops alone, would have been in keeping with its majesty."

As it was now sunset, we hastened to our chariot and drove back to the city, along the magnificent causeway I have before described.

Upon my return to the palace of the high-priest, and after describing to his beautiful daughter, Luxora, the incidents of my visit, she said, with an arch smile—

"You ought not, O Sesostris, to have come away without seeing the emerald table of Hermes!"

"I heard nothing of it, lady," I answered. "I have, moreover, seen splendor enough for one day. What and where is this table?"

"In the central chamber of the great pyramid. The people of Egypt believe the tradition, and so also have some of its kings."

"What is the tradition?" I asked. "But first, do you believe it?"

"With all my heart. I never doubted it since I was a child," she answered, smiling, yet with a tone of sincerity. "My father thinks if it were true, it would have been removed when the god Noachis was placed there."

"It is not in the chamber of the sarcophagus, sister," said Osiria, the sister younger than Luxora—a maiden remarkable for her sprightliness and intelligence; "it is in a vault of crystal under the pyramid."

"You are right, my dear sister," replied the elder, gracefully. "I will tell the prince the legend."

"Then I will tell him mine," said Osiria, with an arch look. "I know he will like mine the best."

"Because he likes you the best, is it?" her sister replied, playfully. "But have a care, Osiria; our guest is betrothed to a great princess in his own country."

"That need not prevent him from being my good friend in this," responded Osiria, pleasantly.

"Your tradition, noble Luxora?" I asked.

"It is this. In the ancient days of the earth, before the deluge of the gods, the thrice great Hermes, who knew all the secrets of alchemy, engraved them upon an emerald table and placed it in a cave, which he sealed up. His motive for doing this was both to preserve them and to conceal them from men—for the race of man had grown so wicked, that they made use of what they knew of alchemy to injure one another and defy the deities, answering back the thunder of heaven with thunders of their own. Over this cave the first pyramid was built, and there the emerald table, with all its secrets, so dear to our sex, has remained to this hour!"

I thanked Luxora for her legend, and assured her that I had quite as much curiosity to see the wonderful emerald as she had.

"But if it were discovered," said Osiria, "who could read and understand the writing upon it! Now, O prince, hear my tradition; for, having visited the pyramids, it will be agreeable to you to hear all that is said about them."

"I will listen with the greatest pleasure," I answered.

But, dear mother, I will here close this long letter, and reserve, for the commencement of my next, the singular tradition related to me by Osiria.

Your affectionate son,

Sesostris