reach the King's Chamber. The passage
being cased with polished granite, we found it very slippery. Indeed,
Hugh and I were continually sliding backwards, and found a special
difficulty in getting on.

[Illustration]

At last we reached the King's Chamber. This is the largest in the
pyramid. It is more than thirty feet long and about half as wide. The
roof is flat, made of seven immense blocks of red granite, with halves
of two other blocks. The walls are of the same red granite. In this room
we saw a large granite sarcophagus, but there was neither any
inscription on it nor any of the hieroglyphics which the old Egyptians
used in writing.

There are five other rooms above the King's Chamber. But the guides told
us that we could not get to them without ladders. As we could not find
out that there was much worth seeing in them, we left them unvisited.
Many travellers suppose that these rooms were only built to break the
great weight of the large upper part of the pyramid, and to prevent it
from pressing too heavily and crushing in the ceiling of the King's
Chamber.

Colonel Howard Vyse (who made a great many researches in Egypt, and has
written a very interesting book about them) says that the Great Pyramid
is now four hundred and fifty feet high, and that when it was entire it
must have been four hundred and eighty feet high. The blocks of stone
become smaller in size as they near the top. The lowest fifty rows
measure one hundred and thirty-eight feet three inches; the highest row,
only three feet six inches.

When we had come back again into the fresh air the guides asked if we
wished to go up the outside of the pyramid. Hugh wished it very
decidedly. I was advised not to attempt it, and told that the view would
not repay me for the exertion. So I consented to stay below. The others
went up, and returned in about twenty minutes. Hugh said that the steps
were steep, and made of irregular broken stones. All agreed that the
view was not so fine as might have been expected. Cairo; the Mokattan
Hills; the Nile, with its fresh green banks; the Pyramids of Aboosir,
Dashoor, and Sakkara, were the chief objects.

Hugh asked one of the guides in how short a time he could go to the top
of the pyramid and down again. He said he would show us, if we would
give him a present. We agreed. Within five minutes he was at the top,
and in three more he was by our side again below, claiming his reward.

The Great Pyramid is seven