ed fresh chambers. Alabaster was met
with not far from here in the Wady Gerraui. The Pharaohs of very early
times established a regular colony here, in the very middle of the
desert, to cut the material into small blocks for transport: a strongly
built dam, thrown across the valley, served to store up the winter and
spring rains, and formed a pond whence the workers could always supply
themselves with water. Kheops and his successors drew their alabaster
from Hatnubu, in the neighbourhood of Hermopolis, their granite from
Syene, their diorite and other hard rocks, the favourite material for
their sarcophagi, from the volcanic valleys which separate the Nile from
the Red Sea--especially from the Wady Hammamat. As these were the only
materials of which the quantity required could not be determined in
advance, and which had to be brought from a distance, every king was
accustomed to send the principal persons of his court to the quarries
of Upper Egypt, and the rapidity with which they brought back the stone
constituted a high claim on the favour of their master. If the building
was to be of brick, the bricks were made on the spot, in the plain
at the foot of the hills. If it was to be a limestone structure, the
neighbouring parts of the plateau furnished the rough material in
abundance. For the construction of chambers and for casing walls, the
rose granite of Elephantine and the limestone of Troiu were commonly
employed, but they were spared the labour of procuring these specially
for the occasion. The city of the White Wall had always at hand a supply
of them in its stores, and they might be drawn upon freely for public
buildings, and consequently for the royal tomb. The blocks chosen from
this reserve, and conveyed in boats close under the mountain-side, were
drawn up slightly inclined causeways by oxen to the place selected by
the architect.

The internal arrangements, the length of the passages and the height
of the pyramids, varied much: the least of them had a height of some
thirty-three feet merely. As it is difficult to determine the motives
which influenced the Pharaohs in building them of different sizes, some
writers have thought that the mass of each increased in proportion to
the time bestowed upon its construction--that is to say, to the length
of each reign. As soon as a prince mounted the throne, he would probably
begin by roughly sketching out a pyramid sufficiently capacious to
contain the essential ele