254 Discoveries made in Egypt. 
there alluded to, and to whom Mr. Salt ascribes the entire merit 
of these and other important discoveries which we shall briefly 
notice, is Mr.Caviglia, the owner and master of a Mediterranean 
trader, enthusiastically fond of such pursuits. 
Mr. Caviglia’s first object was to examine the well in the 
chamber of the great pyramid, neither he nor Mr. Salt being then 
aware that Mr. Davison had been at the bottom of it forty years 
before. With a rope round his body, his friends remaining above 
to secure the other end, he descended the shaft twenty-two feet 
in depth: from this a passage of about eight feet, led to a second 
shaft of only five feet in depth ; and four feet ten inches from this 
was another well somewhat tortuous twenty-nine feet deep, where 
there is a grotto about fourteen feet long and five wide, and about 
the height of a man: here a new shaft, somewhat inclined, com- 
mences of ninety-nine feet in depth, where all further progress was 
prevented by dirt and rubbish. He found but little difficulty in 
reaching the bottom, but the heat was excessive and the air very 
impure. Dissatisfied with this first attempt, he afterwards hired 
some Arabs, and absolutely set to work to clear away the rub- 
bish from the bottom of the well; but which he was obliged to 
abandon, the air being so bad that a candle would not burn in it. 
Disappointed in this object, he next proceeded to clear out the 
principal entrance of the pyramid; and now he discovered that 
this passage, instead of terminating where it had hitherto been 
supposed, continues in the same inclination downward, of the 
same dimensions, and having its sides worked with the same 
care as the entrance, though filled nearly to the top with earth 
and stones. At the length of 150 feet the foul air became again 
very troublesome: however, he persevered; and having penetrated 
200 feet, he found a door-way on the right, from which having 
cleared the rubbish, he found himself in the bottom of the well, 
and there his baskets and implements which had been Jeft on his 
recent attempt to clear it out. The opening of this passage to 
the well had the effect to produce a free circulation of air, and en- 
abled him to pursue his researches without any further hindrance 
from that cause. The new passage did not terminate at the 
opening into the well: twenty-three feet beyond this, in the same 
angle of inclination, it became narrower, and then proceeded ho- 
rizontally about twenty-eight feet further, where it opened into a 
chamber sixty-six feet long and twenty-seven broad, but of un- 
equal height—the floor which is cut out of the rock, having never 
been levelled. The half of the length from the east or entrance 
end is fifteen feet between floor and ceiling: in the middle it is 
five feet lower, presenting the appearance of the commencement 
of another well; and from this it rises towards the west end, 
where 
