DESCRIPTIONS OF EGYPT. 
151 
forther progress. At the intervals of the palm 
trees which cover the banks of the river, he is 
struck with the regularity of the immense rocky- 
masses which emerge, in detached spaces, from the 
sandy plains of Libya, and is astonished to perceive 
that they exhibit the vestiges of human art. As 
he observes the solitary desert stretching beyond 
the Plain of the Pyramids, he seems to stand upon 
the confines of nature, and to contemplate the ruins 
of a former world, which the waters have spoiled. 
The enormous size of these ancient monuments, 
and the solidity of their structure, promise an 
eternal duration, an existence coeval with the ever- 
lasting mountains. They are visible at a great dis- 
tance, and, as the traveller advances, seem to retire 
into the recesses of the desert. Their stupendous 
height, prodigious surface, and enormous solidity, 
strike the spectator with reverence and awe, as they 
recal the memory of distant ages. The situation 
of the principal pyramids is at the entrance of the 
Plain of Mummies, where the sepulchres of the 
ancient Egyptians, hewn out of the solid rock, are 
closed with stones of a large size, and covered with 
sand. The pyramids are distinguished by the names 
of the villages in their immediate vicinity, as Giza, 
Sakkara, and Dashur, and they extend, at inter* 
vals, along the sand-hills which skirt the banks of 
the Nile, from Giza to Medum, over a space of 
twenty-six G. miles. The rocky base on which 
