As soon as possible after our arrival, we mounted the rock on which the pyramids are built, and there observed the effect I have described with regard to the objects we had passed on our way. From the brightness of their colour, apparently little changed by the thousands of years that have passed since their erection, the pyramids do not appear venerable: there is an appearance of freshness about them which amazed me: but with regard to their wonderful magnitude, I found that I was no longer disappointed when I had ascended the rocky elevation on which they rest: when I was within a few yards of the base of the Great Pyramid, I was enabled to the full to comprehend its vastness.
We lingered late among the objects of our visit, and were interested in observing the enormous shadows of the two greater pyramids, stretching across the cultivated plain to the river, as the sun was setting. The general view from the rocky eminence on which they are built is the most imposing that can be conceived.
Returning to our grotto, we enjoyed our evening meal with the appetite of desert travellers, and went to rest with our minds impressed by reflections on what we had seen, and by the novelty of our situation.
We were not the only dwellers in tombs during our stay near the pyramids; for a row of sepulchral excavations, which Colonel Vyse and his party occupied in 1837, are now inhabited by a Nubian, who has taken possession of them to afford lodgings (for a small remuneration) to travellers. Also at a short distance from our grotto, an Arab had taken up his abode in a similar but better tomb. Living there as a hermit, he is esteemed a saint by the people of the neighbouring villages, and is supported entirely by casual charity. Very probably he has adopted the life of an anchorite because he is idle, and finds it easier to depend on others than to gain his own bread. It is common to see the Arabs on their way to leave a deposit of bread or other food, and sometimes money, with this recluse, more especially on Friday, when he receives numerous visitors.
My brother, during a long visit to the pyramids in 1825, occupied one of the tombs of which the Nubian has now taken possession. They are excavated in the eastern front of the rocky eminence on which stands the Great Pyramid. At that time a family consisting of a little old man (named ’Alee), his wife (who was not half his equal in age), and a little daughter, occupied a neighbouring grotto; guarding some antiquities deposited there by Caviglia. Besides these, my brother had no nearer neighbours than the inhabitants of a village about a mile distant. The Sheykh ’Alee made himself useful in bringing water from a well which Caviglia had dug in the sandy plain, just at the foot of the slope before the grottoes. He was a poor half-witted creature, but possessed strong feelings, as was exemplified by an occurrence which happened during my brother’s stay at the pyramids. One afternoon, his cook had sent old ’Alee’s little girl to the neighbouring village to purchase some tobacco. The child not having returned by sunset my brother became uneasy, and despatched a servant to search for her, and bring her back. ’Alee had also become anxious, and had sent his wife for the same purpose; but when the night had closed in, and he had received no tidings of the little girl, he became almost frantic: he beat his breast, stamped on the ground, and continued for some time incessantly screaming, “Yá Mebrookeh! yá Mebrookeh!” (the name of the child, signifying blessed.) After my brother had endeavoured for a little while to pacify him, he set off towards the village. About five minutes more elapsed, and my brother was sitting before the grotto, wondering that no one had returned, and that not even his two Bedawee guards had come as usual, when he was alarmed by loud and piteous cries in the desert plain before him. Leaving a servant in the grotto—for a strange youth was there—my brother ran towards the spot whence the voice seemed to issue. As it was dark, he could see nothing; but after he had proceeded some distance, he heard the following words repeated very rapidly over and over again. “I testify that there is no deity but God, and I testify that Mohammad is God’s apostle;”—and soon he found poor old ’Alee lying on the ground. He told my brother that an ’efreet (or demon) had seized him by the throat, and thrown sand into his mouth, and that he was almost suffocated. (It seems that the Arabs are subject to a spasm in the throat, which they attribute to the above cause.) The two Bedawees, in the meantime, whom the servant and ’Alee’s wife had engaged to assist them in their search, had found the child, and were, like my brother, drawn to that spot by the old man’s cries. They helped him to walk back, but the poor creature had been so terrified and distressed, that for several days after he was quite idiotic.
On the second day after my brother had taken up his quarters at the pyramids, a young Bedawee—the stranger I have mentioned—claimed from him the rights of hospitality. He remained with him until he quitted his sepulchral abode, and, being a very clever and witty youth, amused him exceedingly, every evening while he was smoking his pipe, by reciting stories and verses from the popular romance of ’Aboo-Zeyd: but at the same time he gave much offence to my brother’s Egyptian servants, by his contempt of the felláheen (or peasants). He had deserted from the Pasha’s army of regular troops, as he frankly confessed; and was afraid to enter the villages, lest he should be recognised, and sent to the camp. When my brother was leaving the pyramids, he asked this young man what he would now do for provision, as he dared not enter the villages. He replied, “Who brought you here? God is bountiful.”
On the occasion of our visit to the pyramids, my brother inquired of our guards if they knew or remembered poor old ’Alee, to which one of them replied that he was his son, and that he had been dead for some years. He then inquired whether Mebrookeh was living—“Yes,” answered the man, “she is well and married, and the mother of two children.” He went on to assure my brother he remembered his former visits well, and there was something satisfactory in the prospect of being guarded by one man, at least, who, for old acquaintance sake, might be on the alert. This man, though especially remarkable for his honesty, is not distinguished for his social virtues—he has married ten wives, and says he would marry twenty if he could afford to do so; asserting that although he has divorced several, he has only done so because they deserved it, for that they failed in their duty to him, notwithstanding his kindness to them. According to his own account, he was always good to them; he never reviled, but only beat them! The facility of divorce is a prodigious evil; often productive of want and misery. It is sadly common to find wives rejected for some trifling offence; when a kind admonition would have shown them all that had been amiss in their conduct, and would have rendered them valuable helpmates. I grieve to say that wives here are generally divorced merely from caprice.
Our guards, three in number, were remarkably picturesque objects; more like Bedawees than like peasants; belonging to a tribe which, not many years ago, exchanged the life of desert-wanderers for that of agriculturists; and having retained the dress of their fathers, which consists chiefly of a loose shirt, and a kind of blanket, which envelopes the body, and gives to the wearer an appearance quite primeval. It was at first amusing but at last very tiresome, to hear these men calling to each other during the whole night, as though they feared their companions might be asleep; their constant repetition of, “Open your eyes! open your eyes well!” effectually kept us watching also. One guard lay outside the tent, close to my head, and amused himself by singing constantly. I should have been very happy if something more substantial than canvass had separated me from such a lively neighbour. We rose in the morning fatigued, but the invigorating desert-air soon revived us; and we set out on our adventures with becoming energy.
The bed of rock on which the Great Pyramid is situated is about one hundred and fifty feet above the sandy plain which intervenes between it and the cultivated land. It is a soft testaceous limestone, abounding particularly with those little petrifactions described by Strabo as found in great quantities around the pyramids, and supposed to be petrified lentils, the leavings of the workmen who built the pyramids! These abound in many parts of the chain of mountains by which the valley of the Nile is confined on this side. The stone, when newly cut, is of a whitish colour; but, by exposure to the air, it becomes darker, and assumes a yellowish tint. The level parts and slopes of the rock are covered with sand and pebbles and fragments of stone, among which are found pieces of granite and porphyry, rock crystal, agates, and abundance of petrified shells, &c.
The Great Pyramid is that which is described by Herodotus as the work of a Pharaoh named Cheops, whom Diodorus Siculus calls Chemmis. Diodorus adds, that some attributed this pyramid to a king named Armæus. According to Manetho (a better authority in that case), it was founded by Suphis, the second king of the Fourth Dynasty, which was the second dynasty of the Memphite kings.