At last we reached the King's Chamber. This is the largest in the pyramid. It is more than thirty feet long and about half as wide. The roof is flat, made of seven immense blocks of red granite, with halves of two other blocks. The walls are of the same red granite. In this room we saw a large granite sarcophagus, but there was neither any inscription on it nor any of the hieroglyphics which the old Egyptians used in writing.
There are five other rooms above the King's Chamber. But the guides told us that we could not get to them without ladders. As we could not find out that there was much worth seeing in them, we left them unvisited. Many travellers suppose that these rooms were only built to break the great weight of the large upper part of the pyramid, and to prevent it from pressing too heavily and crushing in the ceiling of the King's Chamber.
Colonel Howard Vyse (who made a great many researches in Egypt, and has written a very interesting book about them) says that the Great Pyramid is now four hundred and fifty feet high, and that when it was entire it must have been four hundred and eighty feet high. The blocks of stone become smaller in size as they near the top. The lowest fifty rows measure one hundred and thirty-eight feet three inches; the highest row, only three feet six inches.
When we had come back again into the fresh air the guides asked if we wished to go up the outside of the pyramid. Hugh wished it very decidedly. I was advised not to attempt it, and told that the view would not repay me for the exertion. So I consented to stay below. The others went up, and returned in about twenty minutes. Hugh said that the steps were steep, and made of irregular broken stones. All agreed that the view was not so fine as might have been expected. Cairo; the Mokattan Hills; the Nile, with its fresh green banks; the Pyramids of Aboosir, Dashoor, and Sakkara, were the chief objects.
Hugh asked one of the guides in how short a time he could go to the top of the pyramid and down again. He said he would show us, if we would give him a present. We agreed. Within five minutes he was at the top, and in three more he was by our side again below, claiming his reward.
The Great Pyramid is seven hundred and forty-six feet square at its base.
"How many yards is that, Hugh?"
Hugh thought for a minute. "Two hundred and forty-nine yards all but a foot," he answered.
"Right, so that if you were to build a straight piece of wall as long as the four sides of the pyramid, it would stretch more than half a mile."
"How wonderful!" exclaimed Hugh, gazing in astonishment at the gigantic pyramid. "May I ride round it?"