390 
THE PYRAMIDS. 
up, nor that any pains were taken to conceal the approaches to the 
great chamber ; for if such were the case, nothing could be more 
absurd, than to line the passages, from the entrance to the ex- 
tremity, with a highly poHshed white marble, which would have 
served as a guide to any depredator, and would have precluded 
the possibility of his erring either to the right or left ; whereas, if 
the passage had been formed of the same materials as the rest of 
the building, nearly a moiety of it might have been destroyed be- 
fore its contents could have been discovered. If, on the contrary, 
the pyramid were intended to be open for the celebration of any 
of the sacred mysteries, the lining of polished marble to the 
passage, and the splendid coating of granite, which adorns the 
chambers, would be at once accounted for, and the sarcophagus 
might have been destined to contain the supposed body of Osiris 
during the annual lamentations for his loss. 
The usual account of Cheops having finished it for his own in- 
terment, seems hardly reconcileable with the account of Herodotus, 
of his being buried in an island surrounded by the Nile, which 
might be under, but could not be in the pyramid, from its being 
elevated one hundred feet above the level of the plain. The ridi- 
culous account of the Arab historians, of the body of a king having 
been discovered adorned with jewels, when Sultaun Almamoun 
opened the pyramid, is unworthy of consideration, for it appears 
that the passage was open in the time of Strabo and Pliny, who 
mention the oblique descent, and the well of eighty-six cubits. 
The conjecture of Pococke seems worthy of more attention, who 
believes that the whole point of the high land, which protrudes due 
east into the plain of the Nile, was intended to be covered with an 
