PYRAMIDS OF DJIZA. 193 
have nearly the distance required for a shaft chai*. 
sunk below the bed of the river. • 
Some of the officers belonging to our party, Examina- 
tion of 
rior Chan- 
nels. 
while we were occupied in examining the well, some infe 
had discovered two or three low ducts, or chan- 
nels, bearing off from this passage to the east 
and west, (like those intersecting veins called 
by miners cross-courses,) and which they be- 
lieved to have been overlooked by former tra- 
vellers. Certainly there is no accurate notice 
of them in the descriptions given by Sandi/s, 
Greaves, Fiansleb, Pococke, Shaw, JSiebuhr, Maillet, 
Lucas, Norden, Savary, or any other author 
that we have consulted. Perhaps the French, 
engineers employed under Menou in the exami- 
nation of the Pyramids, by removing the stones 
which had closed the mouths of these channels, 
have laid them open. We undertook a most 
laborious and difficult task, in penetrating to 
the extremities of these ducts. The entrance 
being too low to admit a person upon his hands 
and knees, it was necessary to force a passage 
by lying flat upon our faces, gradually insi- 
nuating our bodies, by effiDrts with our arms 
and feet against the sides. The difficulty, too, 
was increased by the necessity of bearing lighted 
VOL. v. o 
