Encyclopaedia Britannica > Volume 8, DIA-England

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, t been sufficient to expel their doubts had any remained.1
xhe position, the distance from the fork of the Delta, the
vicinity of the pyramids and the plain of mummies, and,
in particular, the gigantic nature of the ruins themselves,
all unite to prove that the site fixed on by Pococke and
Bruce is the right one.
In those countries where absolute temporal power is
allied with and reinforced by spiritual dominion, and
where a superstition inflexible in its sway over the many
readily lends all its influence to give effect to the will of
one, believed to be the earthly representative or vicege¬
rent of the gods, we may expect to find works executed,
which in point of magnitude far surpass any thing to be
met with amongst nations otherwise more favourably cir¬
cumstanced in regard to liberty. When men live under
the double thraldom of a despotism which wields the
powers both of earth and heaven, and is identified with a
system of religious belief, which recognises in the head of
the state a lineal descendent of the gods, all their labour
and all their energies must necessarily be at the command
of a ruler who can thus give to his most arbitrary decrees
the authority of religion, and whose own will is his only
law; and hence it is in the power of a sovereign so cir¬
cumstanced to accomplish undertakings which baffle ordi¬
nary calculations, and transcend all ordinary means. When
Stesicrates proposed to Alexander to convert Mount Athos
into a statue of the victorious monarch, the left arm of
which should form the base of a city containing ten thou¬
sand inhabitants, while the right was to hold an urn
whence a river should discharge itself into the sea, he
assumed, on the part of the conqueror, an exercise of
power over human agents, the most reckless and unspar¬
ing of which there is any example out of Egypt. In the
latter country, the principle assumed by the Greek pro¬
jector appears to have been systematically reduced to
practice; the whole labour and energies of the nation
were made available for the execution of the designs of its
monarchs; and hence, in the unparalleled magnitude and
durability of the public works which were reared under
the Pharaohs, we have conclusive evidence of the com¬
plete and total subjugation of the people to their autho¬
rity. Such a prodigality of labour and expense is com¬
patible only with the supposition that it was lavished un¬
der the decrees of a merciless and inflexible despotism;
and the hands of slaves were no doubt employed in ela¬
borating the inextricable intricacies of the Labyrinth, or
realising the vast conception of the Pyramids. Herodo¬
tus, it is well known, ascribes the largest of the Pyramids,
that of Cheops, to a profligate and tyrannical prince, who
compelled the people at large to perform the work of slaves,
and, in the enormous structure which he reared, left an
eternal monument of the merciless energy to which it
owed its origin.
The number of pyramids scattered over Egypt is very
great; but by far the most remarkable are those at Djizeh,
Sakhara, and Daschour; and the first of these places, si¬
tuated on the western bank of the Nile, and nearly in the la¬
titude of Cairo, is distinguished above the others by pos¬
sessing the three principal pyramids mentioned by Hero¬
dotus, and which are still justly numbered amongst the
wonders of human art. The largest of these pyramids,
which goes by the name of Cheops (Kobts or Kopts?),
stands on an elevation upwards of a hundred and fifty feet
above the subjacent plain; and although it has suffered
much from human violence, immense heaps of broken
stones having fallen down each side, and formed a high
mound towards the middle of the base, yet the corners
remain pretty clear; and, as the accumulation of sand is,
owing to the elevation of the site, less than round the
other pyramids, the foundation is easily discoverable, par¬
ticularly at the north-west angle, though it is impossible
to see along the line of the base, on account of the heaps
of rubbish, or to make any accurate measurement thereof.
The entrance is on the north side, nearly in the centre, or
about an equal distance from each angle, and the passage
slopes downward at an angle of about twenty-six degrees,
for about a hundred feet from the entrance, when it opens
into an apartment seventeen feet long, fourteen feet wide,
and twelve feet high. From this apartment a similar pas¬
sage ascends, at nearly the same angle, to another cham¬
ber of larger dimensions, being upwards of thirty-seven
feet in length, seventeen feet in width, and about twenty
feet in height, which is lined all round with large slabs of
highly polished granite, whilst the ceiling consists of nine
immense flags stretching from wall to wall. In this cham¬
ber, which does not reach beyond the centre of the pyra¬
mid, stands a sarcophagus of red granite, highly polished,
but without sculptures or hieroglyphics; it is seven feet
six inches in length, three feet three inches in width, and
about as much in depth; but it has no lid, nor was any
thing found in it except a few fragments of the stone with
which the chamber is decorated. A third chamber, still
higher in the body of the pyramid than either of the two
just mentioned, was discovered by Mr Davison about sixty
years ago; and the same apartment was recently entered
and more fully explored by Mr Caviglia, who found its
sides coated with red granite highly polished, and ascer¬
tained that the unevenness of the floor was occasioned by
its having been formed of the individual blocks of syenite
which constitute the roof of the chamber below. Mr
Davison also discovered and descended into the well, as
it is called, of which Pliny has left a description. It con¬
sisted of three distinct shafts, the first of wfflich was twen¬
ty-two feet in depth, the second twenty-nine, and the third
ninety-nine, thus making the total descent one hundred and
fifty feet, or, including five feet between the first and second
shaft, one hundred and fifty-five. But the latest and most
complete survey of the secret chambers or caverns of the
Pyramid of Cheops is that made by Mr Caviglia, who, be¬
sides sounding the depths of the celebrated well disco¬
vered by Mr Davison with nearly similar results, cleared
out the principal passage into the pyramid, and having
advanced as far as two hundred feet, discovered a door
on the right hand, which opened into the bottom of the
well; after which, finding that the passage did not termi¬
nate at the door-way, he continued his advance to the dis¬
tance of twenty-three feet beyond it, when it took a ho¬
rizontal direction for about twenty-eight farther, and ulti¬
mately opened in a spacious chamber, sixty-six feet long
by twenty-seven broad, immediately under the central
point of the pyramid. Communicating with this spacious
apartment on the south side is a narrow passage, which
runs horizontally into the rock for upwards of fifty feet,
and then abruptly terminates; another at the end, which
commences with an arch, and runs about forty feet into
the solid rock of the Pyramid; and a third, which, how¬
ever, is so obscurely mentioned, that neither its direction
nor dimensions can be ascertained. It is much to be re¬
gretted that none of those who have occupied themselves
in exploring these interior passages and chambers, should
Egypt.
1 A plan of the ruins of Memphis, drawn by Jacotin, is given, along with a detailed account of them, in the Description de I'Egypte.
The wrist of the colossus which M. Coutelle caused to be removed, and to which reference is made in the text, shows that, accord-
to the ordinary proportions in such cases, it must have been about forty-eight feet in height.