The great pyramid passages and chambers

PLATE CXXIX. ancient Egyptian sacred beetle, walking on the sand, and flying past us in front of our donkeys’ heads. It was especially interesting to see them alighting on their backs on the sand, and then scrambling to their feet. We have been round all the pyramids which we passed on our journey, and have also visited some of the large underground tombs. We have taken a good many photographs. It is now about 1 o'clock, and it is our intention to wait here for an hour or two till it is sufficiently cool to enable us to return over the long stretch of burning desert sand.

507 In one of the tombs which we visited, named the Apis Tombs, there are long underground passages cut it different directions, and containing twenty-four sacred bulls in stone sarcophagi. So immense are these sarcophagi that some of them are said to weigh over 60 tons, and yet they have each been carved out of one huge block of granite. Although the lids of these great stone chests are very large, and must weigh several tons each, they have all been prized enough to one side to enable a man to creep in and remove the contents. M. Mariette, the discoverer of this large underground tomb, was fortunate enough to find one of these sarcophagi unopened. It contained the embalmed remains of a bull as it was when buried there centuries ago.

508 While we were admiring the wonderful skill, and thinking of the great labour which must have been bestowed upon this intricate tomb and its immense coffins, I could not help reflecting that if the purpose of all this skill and labour was the burial of a couple of dozen bulls, then indeed the words of the Apostle here received their confirmation—* Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools’’—See Par. 150. Surely, the men who made those tombs were fools indeed, however clever they may have been at building with great masses of stone!

509 When we came to the first pyramid which lies south of the Gizeh group, we dismounted and had a look at the foundations of its temple uncovered about two years ago. Our attention was directed toa large number of shallow circular baths cut out of solid alabaster. We understand that the excavator had desired to remove these, but was prevented by the authorities of the Cairo Museum. Round the rim of each of them we counted 23 small cylindrical depressions, about three-quarters of an inch deep, conjectured to have been used for holding candles during some of the idolatrous services, In one place there are nine baths in a row; and the bather is supposed to have stepped from one to another, the water in them being graduated in temperature.

510 The pyramid to which this temple is attached is in a very ruinous condition.

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Abdul Salam Faid, and his donkey “ Telephone.”