Some Particulars of Discoveries in Egypt. 215 
the west twenty feet, which descends into a chamber thirty-two 
feet long, nine feet nine inches wide, and eight and a half high. 
In this room were only a few small square blocks of stone, and 
on the walls some unknown inscriptions. He now returned to 
the horizontal part and advanced north, ascending at an angle of 
60°; and in this, at a short distance from the horizontal part, he 
met with another niche, which had been formerly furnished with 
a granite door, the fragments of which were still there : at forty- 
seven feet and a half from this niche the passage filled with large 
stones to close the entrance, which issues out precisely at the base 
of the pyramid. All the works below the base are cut in the rock, 
as well as part of the passages and chambers. 
By clearing away the earth to the eastward of the pyramid, he 
found the foundation and part of the walls of an extensive tem- 
ple, which stood before it at the distance of forty feet; and laid 
bare a pavement composed of fine blocks of calcareous stone, 
some of them beautifully cut and in fine preservation. This 
platform probably goes round the whole pyramid. The stones 
composing the foundation of the temple are very large—one which 
he measured was 21 feet long, 10 high, and 8 in breadth. 
M. Belzoni, to whom the world is indebted for so many dis- 
coveries, is a native of the Papal States. About nine years ago 
he was in Edinburgh, where he exhibited feats of strength, and 
experiments in hydraulics, musical glasses and phantasmagoria, 
which he afterwards repeated in Ireland and the Isle of Man, 
whence he proceeded to Lisbon, where he was engaged by the 
manager of the theatre of San Carlos to appear in Valentine and 
Orson, and afterwards in the sacred drama of Sampson. For such 
characters he was admirably adapted, being in bis 25th year, six 
feet seven inches high, remarkably strong, and having an ani- 
mated prepossessing countenance. He afterwards performed be- 
fore the Court at Madrid, whence he proceeded to Malta, where 
he was persuaded by the agent of the Pashaw of Egypt to visit 
Cairo. Here he built a machine worked on the principle of the 
walking-crane, to irrigate the gardens of the Pashaw)by raising 
water from the Nile. Three Arabs with M. Belzoni’s servant 
(an Irish lad whom he had taken with him from Edinburgh) were 
put in to walk the wheel; but on the second or third turn the 
Arabs being either frightened or giddy jumped out, and the Irish- 
man had his thigh broken; which put an end to this undertaking. 
On this failure happening, and while meditating upon trying his 
fortune in search of antiquities in Upper Egypt, Mr. Salt arrived 
in Cairo; and on the representation of Sheik Ibrahim, who had 
witnessed his extraordinary powers, conceived him to be a most 
promising person to bring the head of the young Memnon to 
O04 Alexandria. 
