BREAKFAST AMONG THE SANDHILLS.

255

excavators.

of Arabs toiling beneath the scorching sun over the waste. Running nearly east and west, between the cultivated country and the sands, were several canals of water, with high banks of earth; but nothing meriting the name of a hill was anywhere visible. The pyramid has been opened on the northern side, where a deep ravine, extending from top to bottom, like a torrent-bed, has been produced by the slovenly An adit and chambers are said to have been discovered; but the bricks, descending in heaps, and crumbling in their fall, have once more choked up the entrance, and rendered a second excavation necessary. I have nowhere seen larger bricks than those used in the construction of this pyramid; which are seventeen inches in length, eight in breadth, and four and a half in thickness; but, being merely sun-dried, they easily crumble away, and the pyramid, already almost reduced to a shapeless keap, will, in a short time, appear only as an immense barrow.

DLXII. On descending to the plain we walked round the pyramid, close to the northern face of which are the remains of an Arab village, erected with the spoils of the Egyptians; but this also has long fallen to decay, the sands of the desert now creeping over the walls, while all around there is the silence of death. Returning by the way we had come, and breakfasting among the sand-hills on the banks of the canal, we were about to depart, when we observed an Arab reconnoitring our movements from the top of the pyramid. He had probably

256

PYRAMID OF ILLAHOON.

intended to offer his services as as a guide, but arrived too late. Our road now lay along the edge of the desert, sometimes passing over a series of lofty mounds, or a raised causeway, running parallel with the great arm of the Bahr Youssouff, which branches forth from the main canal a little to the east of Illahoon. This great artificial river, probably the work of Moris, having been long neglected, is rapidly filling up. It was now in a great measure dry; but, when filled, during the inundation, with water, must present the appearance of a noble river, rather than of a canal, since, in some parts, it cannot fall short of four or five hundred yards in breadth. The road between Medinet and Benisooëf appears to be well frequented. All the morning we were constantly passing or meeting with small parties of peasants, some driving camels or asses laden with wood towards the Fayoom, others proceeding with the produce of their lands towards the Nile. In many places the banks of the canals are shaded by fine tall willows, which we found the peasants busily employed in cutting; but what use they make of them I could not learn.

DLXIII. The pyramid of Illahoon was already in sight ere we quitted that of Hawara; but, owing to the sinuosities of the way, which seemed sometimes to approach, sometimes to recede from the desired point, it was nearly twelve o'clock before we arrived opposite to where it stands. Here we dismounted from our camels, which exhibited signs of

great fatigue, and leaving them to browse on the coarse prickly plants growing upon the skirts of the desert, walked towards the pyramid, across the burning sand, between huge fragments of rock, many of which bore evident marks of the chisel, and through low hollows, where the sun's rays, concentrated and reflected from the earth, were literally scorching. Of more intense heat than this I can form no conception, the rocks and sands appearing to be kindled by the sun, so that we seemed to be walking over the hot cinders of a volcano. Every object around being clothed with insufferable splendour by the dazzling light, descending like a flood upon the desert, it was therefore necessary to move along with half-closed eyes; and from a long journey over a desert of this kind, with no other covering for the head than the Turkish cap which I then wore, opthalmia, if not blindness, would inevitably ensue. On drawing near the pyramid, we immediately observed a striking peculiarity in its appearance: between the dark unburned bricks, with which it seemed to be constructed, we could perceive, on every side, immense blocks of stone projecting through the casing. This circumstance leading me to reflect more maturely on the subject, I was convinced by the observations I afterwards made, that the majority, if not the whole of the pyramids, are merely small natural hills, faced with masonry. To a certain extent, we know this to be the case with that of Cheops, in which the living rock is visible in the interior. At Sakkarah, likewise, the same ad

258

PYRAMIDS OF ASYCHIS.

vantage has been taken of a large rocky nucleus furnished by nature; so that, in the erection of these vast temples of Venus, the Egyptians would appear to have done nothing more than build round a number of those conical hillocks of stone, which are so numerous in this part of the Libyan desert, adding to their bulk and height, and fashioning them so as to represent on all sides the mystic Delta, in whose honour they were constructed. We may thus also account for the seemingly fortuitous manner in which the pyramids are scattered over the face of the waste, and for their remarkable proximity to each other in the case of those of Ghizeh. Herodotus relates that Asychis*, desirous of surpassing his predecessors, not by the grandeur or magnificence of his public works, but by the difficulties which he knew how to overcome, erected a pyramid of bricks made with mud drawn up by poles from the bottom of the lake; and that he commemorated his silly achievement on a stone in the face of the pyramid. If the lake intended in this passage was that of Moris, or the Bahr Youssouff,-which seems to have been not unfrequently confounded with the lake, then the pyramid of Asychis may be that of Illahoon, or of

Ὑπερβαλέσθαι δὲ βουλόμενον τοῦτον τὸν βασιλέα τοὺς πρότερον ἑωυτοῦ βασιλέας γενομένους Αἰγύπτου, μνημόσυνον πυραμίδα λιπέσθαι, ἐκ πλίνθων ποιήσαντα· ἐν τῇ γράμματα ἐν λίθῳ ἐγκεκολαμμένα τάδε λέγοντά ἐστι, ΜΗ ΜΕ ΚΑΤΟΝΟΣΘΗΙΣ ΠΡΟΣ ΤΑΣ ΛΙΘΙΝΑΣ ΠΥΡΑΜΙΔΑΣ, ΠΡΟΕΧΩ ΓΑΡ ΑΥΤΕΩΝ ΤΟΣΟΥΤΟΝ, ΟΣΟΝ Ο ΖΕΥΣ ΤΩΝ ΑΛΛΩΝ ΘΕΩΝ. ΚΟΝΤΩΙ ΓΑΡ ΥΠΟΤΥΠ ΤΟΝΤΕΣ ΕΣ ΛΙΜΝΗΝ, Ο, ΤΙ ΠΡΟΣΧΟΙΤΟ ΤΟΥ ΠΗΛΟΥ ΤΩΙ ΚΟΝΤΩΙ, ΤΟΥΤΟ ΣΥΛΛΕΓΟΝΤΕΣ, ΠΛΙΝΘΟΥΣ ΕΙΡΥΣΑΝ, ΚΑΙ ΜΕ ΤΡΟΠΩ ΤΟΙΟΥΤΩΙ ΕΞΕΠΟΙΗΣΑΝ. τοῦτον μὲν τοσαῦτα ἀποδέξασθαι. —l. ii. c. 136.

MEXICAN PYRAMIDS.

259

Hawara; though the inscription nowhere appears. By compelling the people to labour, however, in works of this kind, to the neglect of agriculture and commerce, Asychis reduced his subjects to great poverty and misery; so that, in order to raise money for their subsistence, they were, in many cases, compelled to pawn the dead bodies of their parents. Like the Haram el Kedab, this pyramid springs up almost perpendicularly from a conical base, and having attained a certain elevation, slopes rapidly to a point. Originally, therefore, it was not possible to ascend to its summit; but by the industry of the Arabs a path has been formed on its southern face, leading in a zigzag direction to the top. Denon considers this the most dilapidated of all the pyramids of Egypt; but it is perhaps less ruinous than that of Hawara ; and in the desert near Dashour and Sakkarah there are several structures of this kind already reduced to the shape and appearance of barrows. * No attempt seems to have been made to open a passage into the interior, though it no doubt contains chambers, like the other pyramids; but on the sand, all around its base, we observed the tracks of numerous wheeled carriages, which we found, upon examination, had

* Like those ancient structures in Mexico described by Captain Lyons. "We walked afterwards to see the remains of what the Padre informed me were once Pyramids, and to which the name of Cue' is still applied, although they are now nothing more than five or six mounds of earth, of thirty or forty feet in height. They lie westward of the town, near each other, and on the plain around them I found several pieces of obsidian arrow-heads, which must have been brought from a great distance by the warriors who once peopled the banks of the river." Journal of a Residence, &c. in Mexico. Vol. i. pp. 54, 55.