THE PYRAMIDS OF GIZEH AND SAKKARA.—MEMPHIS AND THE APIS MAUSOLEUM.
The day after the visit to the museum was devoted to an excursion to the pyramids. An early start was made, so as to have all the time possible for seeing the great works which bear the names of Cheops and Cephren.
Down to a few years ago the traveller on his way to the pyramids was obliged to cross the Nile by ferry, and make his land journey on foot or on the back of a donkey. But at present the bridge over the river at Boulak, and the carriage-road all the way to the foot of the pyramids, have made the excursion comparatively easy. A ride of two hours suffices, as the distance is not over ten or twelve miles, and the route is along the level ground of the Nile Valley. The last two or three hundred yards must usually be made on foot, as the sand covers the road, and makes the progress of a carriage exceedingly difficult, even when empty. The sand is drifted by the action of the wind, exactly as snow is whirled in the Northern States of America, and sometimes drifts will form in a few hours several feet in depth.
CAMELS AND THEIR BURDENS.
The boys looked with interest on the troops of camels they met, just after leaving Cairo, carrying great loads of freshly-cut grass for feeding the donkeys and other beasts of burden in the city. Although the roads were good, the natives seemed to prefer the old ways of transportation, and almost the only vehicles to be seen were the carriages carrying visitors to the pyramids. As they drew nearer, our friends began to realize the great height of those structures; while they were yet an hour's drive from their base, it seemed to Frank and Fred that they would be there in ten or fifteen minutes. The optical illusion was partly due to the clear atmosphere, and partly to the immensity of the piles of stone. There was a house two stories high close to one of the pyramids; it seemed a mere speck against the great mass, and revealed the contrast more plainly than could be done in words. It was like placing a cigar-box in front of an ordinary dwelling, and comparing the one with the other.
OLD MODE OF TRANSPORT ON THE NILE.
A mile or two from the pyramids they passed some villages of natives; two or three dozen Arabs swarmed from these villages and surrounded the carriage, keeping even pace with its progress, no matter how fast the horses went. They had an eye to making something out of the strangers, and were quite indifferent to suggestions that their company was not wanted.
NEAR VIEW OF THE PYRAMIDS.
We will let the youths tell the story of their visit to the pyramids:
"When we reached the stone platform at the base of the pyramids the driver unharnessed his horses and removed the pole from his carriage. The Arabs gathered about us to assist in making the ascent, and they proved the most persistent and annoying rascals we have yet seen. The hackmen and their kindred at Niagara Falls are politeness itself compared with the Arabs at the pyramids.
"There is a sheik or chief of the Arabs, and he expects two shillings from each visitor who ascends the pyramids, and two more if he goes inside. For this sum he furnishes two men to assist you; half a dozen will offer to go, but two are enough. If you are liable to be thirsty, it is well to employ a boy to carry a gargolet (or bottle) of water, and you may also let him carry your overcoat.
"There are three pyramids in the group at Gizeh, and they are called respectively, in order of size, the Great, the Second, and the Third. The Great Pyramid is the one usually ascended by visitors; in fact, it is the only one they ascend, as it the highest; and, besides, the ascent of the others is much more dangerous. Perhaps you will wonder why it is so.
"When the pyramids were finished, they were covered with a casing of red granite, which was fitted into the steps between the blocks of limestone; the limestone came from the quarries on the other side of the river, but the red granite was brought from Assouan, at the first cataract of the Nile, and was consequently much more costly than the other material. When Cairo was founded and built, much of the stone needed for it was taken from the pyramids, and from the ruins of Memphis; all the granite casing of the First Pyramid was removed, and some of that of the Second, but enough remains on the latter to make the ascent quite difficult.
"As soon as a bargain had been made, and the men were selected to accompany us, we started up the north-east corner of the huge pile. The blocks of stone are so large that the ascent is by a series of steps from two to four feet high, rarely less than three feet. Imagine a long stairway, with steps as high as an ordinary dining-table, and remember that you must gain an elevation of four hundred and eighty feet before your journey is ended. The Arabs go ahead of you, indicating the points where you are to put your feet, and pulling you up by the arms. We reached the top in about fifteen minutes, and then the whole crowd of Arabs gave a loud hurrah, and demanded pay for it.
"Originally the pyramid had a sharp apex, but it has been torn away, so that the top is now an irregular platform, about thirty feet square, and makes a comfortable resting-place after the fatigue of the ascent. We were tired enough when we got there, and quite willing to sit down. The Arabs kept bothering us for money, and would give us no peace till we told the men who accompanied us that we would give them a good backsheesh on condition that they kept all the rest away from us, and if they failed to do so they would not have a penny. The plan worked very fairly, but did not save us altogether from annoyance.
"We were disappointed with the view from the top, and this is said to be the case with most travellers. There was the desert on one side, and the rich Valley of the Nile on the other; to the eastward, and across the river, were the walls of Cairo, with the Mokattam and other hills behind it; on the south was the valley of the river, with the double line of desert closing in upon it; while to the north was the Delta, spreading out toward the Mediterranean, and contrasting sharply with the clear blue sky above it.
THE BATTLE OF THE PYRAMIDS.—"FORTY CENTURIES LOOK DOWN ON YOU."
"The walls and domes and minarets of Cairo gave an Oriental aspect to the view in that direction, and told us, if nothing else had been needed to do so, that we were in the land of the Moslem. But the most noticeable thing in the landscape was the contrast between the desert and the Delta—between the most fertile soil in the world and the most barren. There is no middle ground; at one place lies the richest of all rich earths, and six inches away it is the driest and most unproductive sand. You may sit at the dividing line, and while you rest one hand on the dark green carpet of grass growing from the black alluvium, you can gather the gray sand with the other. It is the perfection of fertility on one side, and the perfection of desolation on the other. Probably there is not, nor can there be, anywhere else in the world a sharper contrast in a picture drawn by nature.
"The Doctor had a magnifying-glass in his pocket, and we looked at some of the sand with it. It is not composed of angular fragments with sharp corners, such as you will see in the sand which you dig from the ground at home, but every particle is worn as smooth as the marbles that boys play with, or as the 'cobble-stones' with which our streets are paved. Many centuries of attrition under the winds of Africa have done the work.
"Do you want to know how large the Great Pyramid is?
"Well, it is about seven hundred and forty feet square, and four hundred and eighty feet high. It covers an area of nearly thirteen acres, and contains eighty-nine million cubic feet of stone. What do you suppose you could do with that amount of stone?
EGYPTIAN CAPTIVES EMPLOYED AT HARD LABOR.
"You could build a wall four feet high and two feet thick—a good wall for a farm or yard—all the way from New York to Salt Lake City; in round figures, two thousand miles! If you wanted a good solid wall, twelve feet high and four feet thick, from Cincinnati to St. Louis (three hundred and forty miles), you would find the stone for it in this Great Pyramid! And if New York City is in danger of an attack, and wants to surround the whole of Manhattan Island (twenty-one miles around) with a wall forty feet high and twenty feet thick, here is the material to do it with. And remember that all this stone was hewn from the quarries, and moved and set up, centuries before the power of steam was known!
REMOVING STONE FROM THE QUARRIES.
"Of course we asked the Doctor to tell us how the pyramids were built, but he says it is a conundrum he cannot answer. Various engineers have made theories as to the mode of building the pyramids; but no sooner does one demonstrate how the work was done than somebody else shows how the theory is incorrect. Doctor Bronson says it is generally conceded that the Egyptians must have had a knowledge of some mechanical power of which we are ignorant. One of the most convenient theories is, that as fast as a course of stone was laid, the earth was heaped up so as to form an inclined plane or road, and that this road was repeatedly increased till the top was reached. Then, as the top was finished, and the granite casing placed in position, the earth was taken away, and the pyramid stood out in all its glory.
"But we've kept you waiting while we talked about the size of the pyramid. We've been resting from the fatigue of the ascent, so you must not be impatient.
"One of the Arabs proposed to run from where we were to the top of the Second Pyramid in ten minutes; it seemed impossible for him to do it, but on our offering him five francs he started. How he jumped down from block to block, ran across the open space, and then mounted to the top of the Second Pyramid! Of course he has been practising every day, at least during the season of visitors, and knows just what he can do. The Doctor says this is one of the regular performances of the Arabs at the pyramids; everybody who has written about the place in the last fifty years speaks of it, and the only reason why Herodotus does not mention it is that in his day it was impossible to ascend the pyramids, their granite casing being complete and uninjured, and there were no Arabs in existence. These Arabs are the most impudent fellows in the world, and Herodotus didn't lose anything by their absence. They have always had a bad reputation, and not unfrequently have been guilty of downright robbery; their demands for backsheesh are extremely insolent, and if they do not always threaten violence with words, they do so in their manner.
"The man who built the pyramid was not there to meet us; he has been dead some time, how long we don't know exactly, but it is a good while. According to history the Great Pyramid was built by Cheops, one of the kings of Memphis, who belonged to the fourth dynasty, and ruled fifty years; Mariette assigns him to 4235 b.c., and Wilkinson to 2450 b.c. Either date allows him plenty of time to be dead, and for the correctness of Napoleon's remark to his soldiers at the Battle of the Pyramids, 'forty centuries look down upon you!' Three hundred thousand men were employed twenty years in its construction, and some authorities say it was not completed till after Cheops's death. When he had passed through the hands of the embalmers his mummy was taken to the inside of the pyramid, to the chamber prepared for it, and there stowed away. Let's go and see where it was.
CUTTING AND SQUARING BLOCKS OF STONE.
"We descend the pyramid by the way we came, and in another quarter of an hour are on the ground again. Then we walk about half-way along the north face of the pyramid and some distance up the side to a hole about three and a half feet square, descending at an angle of twenty-six degrees. It is hot and wearisome to go inside the pyramid, and most persons say it is much worse than the ascent to the top. We go about sixty feet down an incline, then ascend at the same angle nearly three hundred feet, and finally come to an apartment called the King's Chamber; it measures thirty-four feet by seventeen, and is about nineteen feet high. The sides are of polished granite, and the only furniture is an empty coffin of stone, too large to be removed.
"There is another room smaller than this directly beneath, and called the Queen's Chamber, and there are some other small rooms of no consequence. The dust chokes us, the heat threatens to melt us, the Arabs keep up a frightful din—ten times as bad as they do outside—and altogether we are glad to get out again.
"The Arabs used to have the trick of taking away the lights, and leaving visitors in the black darkness, where they might easily become lunatics in a short time. They would stay away till they thought their victim was badly frightened, and then they shouted from the passage-way that they would only bring a light on condition of a heavy backsheesh. Many a person has been robbed in this way, and not a season passes without an outrage of this sort. Several times the government has been obliged to punish these rascals. They behave comparatively well for a short while after receiving punishment, but very soon they begin their outrages again.
SECTION OF THE GREAT PYRAMID.
"The passage by which we enter the pyramid continues at the same angle for more than three hundred feet, and it is so straight that you can see the sky from the farther end, as though looking through the tube of a telescope. It is said that the north star was visible through this passage-way two thousand years ago, but its position has changed so that it is now out of range.
THE SPHINX.
"From the pyramid we went to see the Sphinx, which is about a quarter of a mile away in a south-easterly direction. It had originally the head of a man, the breast of a woman, and the body of a lion. But only the head and part of the back are now visible, the rest being covered by sand. By some it is thought to be as old as the Great Pyramid, or even older, while others believe it was made in the eighteenth dynasty, or long after the pyramids were built. The whole figure was hewn from the solid rock, and there was formerly a temple between the paws and directly beneath the head of the Sphinx.
"We walked around it, and one of us climbed up as far as he could without too much danger of a fall. It is an enormous head, as you will understand when we tell you that the width of the face is 13 feet 8 inches, the ear is 4½ feet long, the nose 5½, and the mouth 7½. From the top of the head to the pavement below was 66 feet, and the length of the body is 140 feet. It is 30 feet from the top of the forehead to the bottom of the chin, and the front paws are 55 feet long. Don't these figures give you an idea of the grandeur of the Sphinx?
"How it has suffered in the five thousand years it has looked out on the unchanging landscape of Egypt! Large portions of the rock have been hewn away, or have broken off by the action of the elements on the soft limestone; but, worse yet, the great solemn face has been wantonly ruined by the hand of man. An Arab fanatic tried to destroy it, then the Mamelukes used it for a target for rifle practice, several explorers have dug into it, and the Arabs of the present day have no hesitation in breaking off pieces of the head for any one who will pay for them. One of them climbed up to the face while we were there, and wanted to break off some fragments for us; but we told him to come down at once, as we would neither buy the pieces nor allow him to do any farther injury to the ancient monument, which is, next to the pyramids, the most interesting in this part of Egypt. There were plenty of pieces on the ground in front of the Sphinx, and we picked up a few of them to carry away as souvenirs of our visit.
THE SPHINX BY MOONLIGHT.
"We went to a temple not far from the Sphinx, which was discovered and excavated by Mariette Bey, but has since been partly filled by the drifting sand. It is built of red granite and alabaster, and is supposed to be as old as the Sphinx, and to have some relation to its worship. The shaping and polishing of the hard granite is quite equal to that of any stone-cutter of the present day, and our admiration was excited at every step. A sitting figure of Cephren, the builder of the Second Pyramid, was found in this temple, and is now in the museum at Boulak. It was hewn from a single block of green breccia, or diorite, an exceedingly hard stone, and all the details of the work are as finely finished as that of the most careful sculptor in marble. Eight other statues were found at the same time, and all bear evidence of the excellence of the Egyptian workers in stone four or five thousand years ago.
"We visited two or three tombs in the neighborhood of the Sphinx, but after what we had seen they were not especially interesting. The whole stone platform where the pyramids stand is full of tombs; but they have all been examined and their contents removed.
EGYPTIAN CAPTIVES MAKING BRICKS.
"We carried our lunch with us from the hotel, and ate it after visiting the Great Pyramid, and before going to examine the Sphinx. The Arabs crowded around, and almost threatened to eat our lunch for us, and ourselves into the bargain; we tried in vain to drive them away, and finally drew a circle in the sand enclosing our carriage, and about ten feet from it, and stationed a couple of Arabs inside with sticks to keep out the rest. The sticks were strong, and so were the men who wielded them. The Doctor told our guards they would get no backsheesh if they failed to keep the rest out of the ring, and with this promise before them they succeeded. It is interesting to see how ready these men are to pound their most intimate friends for the sake of a little money. The more we see of the nature of these natives the more we despise it: perhaps they are not altogether to blame, and are only practising the lesson of rascality they have learned through centuries of oppression.
"We returned to Cairo by the carriage-road, and were followed a long way by the Arabs shouting for backsheesh. A couple of days later we made an evening excursion there in order to see the Sphinx and pyramids by moonlight, and were well repaid for the journey. Many travellers go out there very early in the morning, so as to see them by sunrise; but we were too much fatigued with our work every day to leave our beds two or three hours before daybreak.
"The day after our trip to Gizeh we went to Sakkara and Memphis. There is very little to be seen of Memphis, as the stone was mostly taken away for building Cairo, and the site of the city is frequently overflowed in the inundations of the Nile. The chief object of interest is a statue of Rameses the Great, originally forty-two feet high, but now lying on the ground, and about half covered with water. Unfortunately its face is downward, so that we could not see its features; but it is said to be a fine work of art, and it is a great pity that it cannot be removed and placed on its feet again.
PLOUGHING AND SOWING.
"At Sakkara there are several pyramids. One of them is of sun-dried bricks instead of stone; it is built in a series of five steps, or degrees, and for this reason is known as the 'Step-pyramid.' Some authorities say it was built in the first dynasty, and is consequently the oldest pyramid in the world; others think it belongs to the fifth dynasty, and therefore is later than the structures at Gizeh. Tradition says it was built by the labor of the children of Israel when they were captives in Egypt, and it was here they complained that they were compelled to make 'bricks without straw.' The history of the pyramid is very obscure, and one theory may be just as good as another. The structure is less than two hundred feet high, and, as the ascent is dangerous, and the view from the top of no consequence after that from Gizeh, we did not climb it.
TAKING IT EASY.
"The things of greatest importance at Sakkara are the tombs. They cover an area nearly four miles long by a mile in width, and there is little doubt that the necropolis of Sakkara is the most extensive in all Egypt. Many tombs that were opened have been filled up again by the sand; at present there are only two which are shown to visitors, but they are so large and interesting that nobody misses the others. One is the tomb of Tih, a priest of Memphis, who lived during the fifth dynasty, or about five thousand years ago; its walls are covered with inscriptions showing the manners and customs of the time, and it is said that we have learned more from this tomb than from any other about the life of the ancient Egyptians.
"The sculptures show the owner of the tomb, Mr. Tih, in a great many occupations. According to the custom of the period, he built the tomb during his lifetime, and made it all ready for use after death. An ancient writer says, 'The Egyptians call their houses hostelries, on account of the short period during which they inhabit them; but they call their tombs eternal dwelling-places.' This tomb was built in Tih's lifetime, and made ready for his long occupation by representing the scenes of his terrestrial existence.
A HUNTING SCENE.
"We have the priest of Memphis engaged in agriculture, or, rather, he is present while his men are in the fields ploughing, sowing, harvesting, thrashing grain, driving oxen, donkeys, and other animals, and performing other ordinary work. We see him hunting, fishing, sailing in boats, listening to music, witnessing dances, and otherwise amusing himself; and we see him worshipping in the temple, and superintending sacrifices of oxen, according to the religious practices of his day. The sculptures are so numerous that it would take a ream of paper to describe all of them; they show that the artists knew their work, and many of them had a sense of the ridiculous that would secure them good situations on the comic papers of to-day.
BRONZE FIGURE OF APIS.
"After seeing the tomb of Tih we went to the Apis Mausoleum, or tombs of the sacred bulls. You know that Apis, or the sacred bull, was worshipped as a divinity at Memphis; he was kept in a temple during his lifetime, and a magnificent tomb was given him after his death. The site of the Apis Mausoleum was unknown for many centuries; it was found by Mariette (in 1860) through the writings of one of the Greek historians. While clearing away the sand in a certain place he found a sphinx, and he then remembered a passage in Strabo, which says:
"'There is also a Serapeum in a very sandy spot, where drifts of sand are raised by the wind to such a degree that we saw some sphinxes buried up to their heads, and others half covered.'
HUNTSMAN WITH DOGS AND GAME.
"This was a hint to the explorer, and he acted on it by following up the line of sphinxes till he came to the entrance of the great tomb. The guide showed us into the tomb, and then lighted candles, by which we explored a series of long galleries cut in the solid rock; altogether there are more than four hundred yards of these galleries, and they have on each side of them niches, like large rooms, for holding the coffins of the bulls. Some of these rooms are empty; but there still remain twenty-four coffins of solid granite in the places where they were left many years ago. The coffins are not all of the same size, but generally about thirteen feet long, eight wide, and eleven high; most of their covers are pushed aside or altogether removed, and it was evident, when the tomb was opened by Mariette Bey, that the place had been plundered, as nothing was found in the coffins except the mummy of a bull in one of them.
"There was a ladder by the side of one of the coffins, so that we climbed into it, and found that four or five persons could sit there comfortably. And think that these coffins were of solid blocks of granite, and were brought down the Nile from Assouan, and put in the rooms made for them! How they were put there nobody can tell; a thousand men worked for three weeks to take out one of these coffins, under the direction of an engineer, and, with all sorts of pulleys and apparatus, he only got it a short distance along the gallery. The enterprise was then abandoned, and the coffin stands where they left it.
"Irreverent visitors sometimes call these tombs the 'bull pits,' and they speak of the necropolis of Sakkara as the 'bone-yard.' But there are no bulls here at present, and the tombs of the surrounding region have been so thoroughly explored and plundered, that it would not be easy to find any bones in them."
AN ARCHED TOMB AT SAKKARA.