Egypt of the Pharaohs and of the Khedivé

by F. Barham Zincke

Of finer form, or lovelier face.

A foot more light, a step more true,

Ne’er from the heath-flower dashed the dew;

E’en the light hare-bell raised its head

Elastic from her airy tread.

My young friend, late from Harrow, and great in athletics, was, of course, one of the four.

And so was an older friend of mine, with whom and another lad, in the year 1836, each of the three being then seventeen years old, I had gone, I believe, the first open-boat cruise on our home rivers. We started from Bedford and went to York and Hull, and back again, 700 miles in an open boat, pulling it all the way ourselves, and lying down in it at night to sleep, accoutred as we were in Jersey frock and canvas. During the whole expedition we cooked our meals ourselves. From that boat we had looked forward into the unknown world before us: I can still recall the anticipations, visions, and resolves of that time. Now, from the top of the Pyramid of Cheops, we looked back on our course, so far, through the world. Well, just like other people, we had had each of us to make some discoveries for himself, and to pay for his experience. But the fight had not been always against either of us. On the whole we had not found it a bad world. We were glad, after thirty years of the chanceful life-battle, to meet again, on the summit of the Great Pyramid, if not quite unscathed, yet not crippled. I suppose we each thought that the time to come could not be as pleasant as the interval had been that separated our two excursions.

The Great Pyramid is built of extremely hard and compact nummulitic limestone. The third was cased, at all events, to half its height, perhaps completely, with enormous blocks of granite. A few are still in their places, but most of them have been thrown to the ground. A small portion of the external casing at the top of the Second Pyramid is still uninjured. It is of so pale and fine a limestone that it looks as if it were of polished white marble.

I found the best way of getting an impressive idea of the enormous magnitude of these Pyramids was to place myself in the centre of one side, and to look up. The eye then travels over all the courses of stone from the very bottom to the apex, which appears to pierce and penetrate the blue arch above. This way of looking at the Great Pyramid—perhaps it is a way which exaggerates to the eye its magnitude unfairly—makes it look Alpine in height, while it produces the strange effect just noticed.