368 EGYPT. 



It is no reflection on other travellers that they did not make the 

 discoveries before me, as perhaps none of them had the like 

 advantages, excepting Maillet, who did not avail himself of them so 

 much as he might have done. I remained long at Cairo, and had an 

 opportunity of visiting the pyramids often, and of measuring every 

 part over and over again, as well of the outside as of the interior of 

 the largest, which is the only one of those of Giza into which a 

 passage is found. Mine were not hasty visits, such as are generally 

 paid to those noble monuments of antiquity. The inercliants 

 established in that country make a party of five or six persons to 

 accompany a traveller ; they set out early in the morning from Cairo 

 or Giza, and return at night ; they stay at the pyramids perhaps 

 from three to four hours ; suppose the visit repeated, the time is 

 scarcely sufficient to take a general view, much less to take the 

 dimensions with any kind of accuracy. 



Besides many visits of this sort, I hired a boat to convey me there 

 during the inundation, and staid to examine and measure them for 

 eight days together. There is little here depending on the abilities, 

 knowledge, or penetration of a traveller. To measure straight lines 

 with exactness requires only leisure and labour ; I grudged neither ; 

 and I so far succeeded to my own satisfaction as to think that my 

 time and pains were not thrown away. 



' ;■ LETTER FROM PROFESSOR WHITE TO MR. DAVISON. 



SiRj Oxford, August 15. 1779. 



1 HUMBLY beg your pardon for not having acknowledged the receipt 

 of your very obliging letter of June 21st. Since that time I have 

 done myself the pleasure of calling twice at your lodgings in town ; 

 but had not the good fortune to find you at home. I still flatter 

 myself with hopes that you will find leisure to draw up some account 



