The great pyramid passages and chambers

PLATE XXXIII. Descending Passage represents the course of “this present evil world” (Gal. 1: 4), it is of importance that it should be carefully examined and measured. Although I have not attempted to do much measuring, believing it will be better to wait till John arrives, I have taken a large number of flashlight photographs inside the Pyramid, getting Hadji Ali Gabri to assist me, and to pose in some of them.

Sunday, 6th June, 11 p.m. I am now sitting in my newly erected tent, about a hundred feet from the north side of the Great Pyramid. It is situated right on the edge of the Pyramid plateau, overlooking the large Mena House Hotel, and the tramway car terminus. From the two doors of my tent, I can see right across the flat Delta of lower Egypt, and eight miles to the east the domes and minarets of Cairo. Behind the city, and therefore on the other side of the broad, sluggish Nile, the long range of the white Mokattam Hills stretches away southward. It is commonly understood that the limestone blocks, from which the beautiful casing-stones of the Great Pyramid are formed, were quarried from these hills.

246 My large trunk (kindly lent to me by Brother Stewart of Glasgow) was brought from Cairo on the back of a camel. My tent promises to be fairly comfortable, and the air on the Gizeh cliff is a great deal sweeter and cooler than that in Cairo, where I lodged during Erecting tent in front of the north side of the the first week in the Bristol Great Pyramid of Gizeh.

Hotel. In addition, living here

should be cheaper that in Cairo, and I shall now be nearer the scene of my labours, !" so that both time and expense will be saved. I have not been much troubled by mosquitoes, as the breeze which is constantly blowing here seems to drive them away. Every day there are plenty of clouds in the sky, sometimes obscuring the sun, but there has been no rain since my arrival. I hear that there is no wet season in Egypt, and that rain falls seldom, though a couple of months ago, I understand, it came down

in torrents.

247 At present it is a beautiful moonlight night, and I have only lately returned from a stroll to the Great Pyramid. I went down the Descending Passage as far as its junction with the First Ascending Passage, and then, turning and looking up toward the Entrance, saw the North Star with no other star near it. I sat on a limestone block which lies on the floor of the Descending Passage under the Granite Plug, a few feet above Petrie’s granite block. I had no light with me, and was alone in the darkness. I had not been seated long, when I was rather startled to hear a deep organ-like sound, growing louder and louder, and afterward a small bell-like sound. I wondered what it was and listened intently. The explanation soon came. It was nothing more than a number of bats flying past me; I could feel the wind from their wings. The beating of

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