194 PYRAMIDS OF DJIZA. 
tapers in our hands, which were liable to be 
extinguished at every instant, in the efforts 
made to advance. As we continued to struggle 
in this manner, one after another, fearful of being 
at last jammed between the stones, or suffo- 
cated by heat and want of air, a number of 
bats, alarmed by our intrusion, endeavoured to 
make their escape. This we would gladly have 
permitted, but it was not easily effected. Flying 
against our hands and faces, they presently 
extinguished some of our tapers, and were with 
difficulty suffered to pass by us. After all our 
trouble, we observed little worth notice at the 
end of any of these cavities. In one, which the 
author examined, he found, at the extremity of 
the channel, a small square apartment, barely 
large enough to allow of his sitting upright; the 
floor of which was covered with loose stones, 
promiscuously heaped, as by persons who had 
succeeded in clearing the passage leading thi- 
ther. All these trifling channels and chambers 
are perhaps nothing more than so many vacant 
spaces, necessary in carrying on the work dur- 
ing the construction of this vast pile, which the 
workmen neglected to fill as the building pro- 
ceeded ; like the cavities behind the metopes in 
the Parthenon at Athens, which, although usually 
