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.
[Illustration: 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.
[Illustration: 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.
[Illustration: 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.
[Illustration: 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?
[Illustration: 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!
[Illustration: 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.
[Illustration: 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.
[Illustration: 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.
[Illustration: 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 4-1/2 feet long, the nose 5-1/2, and the mouth 7-1/2.
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.
[Illustration: 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.
[Illustration: 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.
[Illustration: 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.
[Illustration: 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.
[Illustration: 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.
[Illustration: 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.'
[Illustration: 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."
[Illustration: AN ARCHED TOMB AT SAKKARA.]