372 



EGYPT. 



Greek characters may be confirmed by Seif-ed-doulah-ben-Hamdan, 

 a geographer ; the inscriptions were probably written by Greeks who 

 visited these monuments, and recorded their names and the date of 

 their visit. On one of the pyramids Latin verses had been inscribed; 

 they were observed by Boldensleve who travelled in 1336 ; three of 

 them may be here subjoined. 



Vidi pyramidas sine te, dulcissime frater, 



Et tibi, quod potui, lacrymas hie maesta profudi, 



Et nostri memorem luctus hie sculpo querelam. 



The travellers who have at various times examined the pyramids 

 of Giza, differ in their opinion respecting the manner in which 

 their outward surfaces were finished. With regard to that of Cheops, 

 we are expressly told by the historian Xfyeitowfa roL cZvututo. durvig tt^utu, 

 the upper part was first finished, then the remainder. Niebuhr is 

 disposed to allow, that the third or that of Mycerinus might have 

 been partly cased with granite. Girard, one of the French Institute, 

 says that the covering of the second and third pyramids, of which 

 there is no doubt, leads us to conclude that the first was also covered ; 

 and in his Memoire on the Nilometer of Elephantine, he speaks in 

 the following manner of the examination of the lower part of the 

 great pyramid, made by some architects who accompanied the 

 expedition to Egypt. " Apres avoir retrouve sur la surface du rocher 

 qui sert de soubassement a la grande pyramide l'emplacement des 

 pierres angulaires du revetement de cet edifice, marque par une 

 espece de mortaise de deux decimetres de profondeur, pratiquee dans 

 le rocher, et destinee a recevoir chacune de ces pierres, ils ont 

 mesure immediatement avec la plus rigoureuse precision la ligne 

 terminee par les angles exterieurs de ces encastremens, et Font 

 trouvec de 716 pieds, six pouces." 



Mr. D. remarks that some of the original covering remains at the 

 top of the second great pyramid. Niebuhr climbed up to the 

 summit to examine it, and found the same calcareous substance 

 of which the rest of the building was composed. It is described also 

 by Grobert. " In the second pyramid," says Shaw, " which may hint 



