e kings had then but one wife.
Sneferu's wife was a certain Mertitefs, who bore him a son, Nefer-mat,
and after his death became the wife of his successor. Women were
entombed with as much care, and almost with as much pomp, as men. Their
right to ascend the throne is said to have been asserted by one of the
kings who preceded Sneferu; and from time to time women actually
exercised in Egypt the royal authority.

FOOTNOTES:

[7] R. Stuart Poole, "Cities of Egypt," pp. 24, 25.

IV.

THE PYRAMID BUILDERS.

It is difficult for a European, or an American, who has not visited
Egypt, to realize the conception of a Great Pyramid. The pyramidal form
has gone entirely out of use as an architectural type of monumental
perfection; nay, even as an architectural embellishment. It maintained
an honourable position in architecture from its first discovery to the
time of the Maccabee kings (1 Mac. xiii. 28); but, never having been
adopted by either the Greeks or the Romans, it passed into desuetude in
the Old World with the conquest of the East by the West. In the New
World it was found existent by the early discoverers, and then held a
high place in the regards of the native race which had reached the
furthest towards civilization; but Spanish bigotry looked with horror on
everything that stood connected with an idolatrous religion, and the
pyramids of Mexico were first wantonly injured, and then allowed to fall
into such a state of decay, that their original form is by some
questioned. A visit to the plains of Teotihuacan will not convey to the
mind which is a blank on the subject the true conception of a great
pyramid. It requires a pilgrimage to Ghizeh or Saccarah, or a lively
and _well-instructed_ imagination, to enable a man to call up before his
mind's eye the true form and appearance and impressiveness of such a
structure.

Lord Houghton endeavoured to give expression to the feelings of one who
sees for the first time these wondrous, these incomprehensible creations
in the following lines:

After the fantasies of many a night,
After the deep desires of many a day,
Rejoicing as an ancient Eremite
Upon the desert's edge at last I lay:
Before me rose, in wonderful array,
Those works where man has rivalled Nature most,
Those Pyramids, that fear no more decay
Than waves inflict upon the rockiest coast,
Or winds on mountain-steeps, and like endurance b