THE GEEAT PYRAMIDS. 403 



foundations, raised to a height of over 500 feet, and adjusted with the greatest 

 care, was no less than 90,000,000 cubic feet, a quantity sufficient to build a wall 

 seven feet high and twenty inches thick across the whole of Western Europe from 

 Lisbon to Warsaw. The basilica of St. Peter's would disappear altogether, with its 

 colonnades and cupola, in the interior of this prodigious polyhedron in stone. 

 According to Herodotus, an inscription on the Great Pyramid estimated at 

 1,600 silver talents, or £400,000, the sum expended on the purchase of the garlic, 

 onions, and parsley required to supply the workmen with these articles of food ; 

 and for the implements, machinery, quarrying, transport of materials, and so 

 forth, who will estimate the enormous outlays that must have been incurred ! But, 

 above all, how many human lives must have been sacrificed on the works ! 

 According to a Greek tradition — which, however, according to Maspero, rests on 

 no historic evidence — the people held in horror these monmnents of their bondage 

 and oppression. They were even said to have avoided uttering the very names of 

 the kings in whose honour these mountains of stone had been raised. 



While exceeding all other structures in bulk, the pyramids are surpassed in height 

 by some of the minsters in the west of Europe. The Pyramid of Cheops, diminished 

 by some forty feet through the loss of its stone facing and the subsidence of its 

 foundations, has a present height of 456 feet ;* that of Khej)hren, or Khefra, about 

 six feet less ; while the third, of Mycerinus, or Menkera, falls below one-half of these 

 elevations. The other pyramids of the plateau, " mere embryos," so to say, can 

 scarcely be distinguished from the heaps of refuse scattered at the base of the two 

 larger piles. The last, proceeding northwards, is that of Abu-Roash. 



Notwithstanding the statements often made to the contrary, the two great 

 pyramids are easily scaled, even without the assistance of the Bedouins, who under- 

 take for bakshish to look after the safety of travellers. In any case the labour 

 expended on the ascent is amply compensated by the marvellous view commanded 

 from the summit. From this altitude the eye sweeps over a boundless and varied 

 prospect, where the red and yellow sands of the desert roll away in one direction 

 like ocean billows, while in another the verdant plains with their dark groups of 

 hamlets and silver lakelets left by the. last overflow of the Nile and its canals stretch 

 beyond the horizon. Travellers often ascend the Pyramid of Cheops before dawn 

 in order to contemplate the morning sun suddenly lighting up these limitless sjjaces. 



The great pyramids face the cardinal points so exactly that the Bedouins of the 

 district perfectly understand how to use these monuments not only in discriminat- 

 ing the seasons, but also in calculating the time of day. At the equinox the rising 

 sun seen in a line with the northern or southern face of the structure presents 

 exactly half of its disc to the view. At the time of the French exijedition, Cou- 

 telle, measuring the Pyramid of Cheops with the compass, calculated that its 

 orientation was perfect. But this was not confirmed by the subsequent and more 

 precise measurements of Nouet ; while the minute observations of Flinders Pétrie, 

 continued for a period of several months, have placed it beyond doubt that the two 

 parallel east and west sides, instead of pointing due north, are inclined 3' 40" to the 

 * Exact height from pediment to apex, according to Flinders Pelrie, 146-7 metres. 



