the metallic sound of this stone in 1824, and conjectured that it might have been used to deceive the Roman visitors; but the nature of the sound, which did not agree with the accounts given by ancient authors, seemed to present an insuperable objection. In a subsequent visit to Thebes, in 1830, on again examining the statue and its inscriptions, I found that one Ballilla had compared it to the striking of brass; and feeling convinced that this authority was more decisive than the vague accounts of those writers who had never heard it, I determined on posting some peasants below, and ascending myself to the lap of the statue, with a view of hearing from them the impression made by the sound. Having struck the sonorous block with a small hammer, I enquired what they heard, and their answer, 'Ente betídrob e'nahás,' 'You are striking brass,' convinced me that the sound was the same that deceived the Romans, and led Strabo to observe that it appeared to him as the effect of a slight blow."

Thus insignificant and puerile, in all probability, was this Egyptian miracle, which has been the subject of so much learned discussion both in ancient and modern times. It would not be difficult to find its parallel among the follies of medieval superstition. The result indeed of all modern researches into early history seems to be of this twofold character: we find evidences of civilization having existed at a very remote and almost primeval period, among numerous early races. Architecture, sculpture, letters, painting, mechanical arts, the manufacture of beautiful fictile ware, the science of agriculture, the taste of landscape gardening, the minuter provisions for domestic convenience and luxury, were all known and practised by the ancients. Gunpowder was used in Asia many ceuturies before its discovery by the English monk. Printing from wooden blocks was practised there for long generations prior to the ingenious European inventor of the printing press. The compass and magnetic needle

guided the Chinese barque long ere its secret was known to the immortal Genoese, and gave him courage to tempt the unknown waste of waters, beyond which lay the New World. But even that unknown continent was not in reality a new world to Europe, but had been visited, as is now established beyond doubt, centuries before the era of Columbus, or the European discovery of the magnetic needle, by the hardy norse vikings who colonized Iceland and Greenland, and left evidences of their occupation of the North American continent, which is celebrated in their earliest sagas under the name of Vinland. In all this we see abundant lessons teaching us to view the acquisitions of modern science and learning with humility. Yet we must also learn to estimate the lore of earlier ages with discriminating wisdom, as well as with veneration. The foolish sceptic has only been too ready to fall down and worship the wisdom of the ancients, while despising the oldest and only sure record of early wisdom which is furnished in the books of the Old Testament scriptures. We discern in the disclosures of the Egyptian priesthood's puerile knavery, as furnished by the vocal Memnon, and in the degrading character of Eastern mythology, as manifested in the sculptures of Nimroud, or of Elephanta and Ellora, abundant evidence that man has ever been the same. God made him in his own image, and endowed him with the noble gifts of reason and intellect, the fruits of which are never entirely effaced in his most barbarian state. But man sold his primeval birthright, won for himself the sad knowledge of good and evil, and inherited too often only the latter.

CHAPTER III.

THE PYRAMIDS.

Of merchants from Golcond or Astracan,
Or some great caravan, from well to well,
Winding as darkness on the desert fell,
In their long march, such as the prophet bids,
To Mecca from the land of pyramids.

ROGERS.

WE have already referred, in passing to those rude yet most remarkable monuments of human power, and of human labour, the pyramids of Egypt. Their seeming imperishable vastness and solidity of structure, their lofty proportions, compared to which man and his common works become so mean and insignificant, and the mystery which has seemed to enwrap their uninscribed walls, have all combined to confer on them a remarkable and endur ing interest. Many ingenious and very diverse theories have been suggested to account for the vast expenditure of time, labour, wealth, and even human life, on the erection of what is after all a pigmy mountain of stone. Mr. Wilford, in a communication to the Asiatic Researches, informs us that, on his describing the great Egyptian pyramid to several very learned Brahmins, they declared it at once to have been a temple; and one of them asked if it had not a communication with the river Nile. When he answered that such a passage was mentioned as having existed, and that a well was at this day to be seen, they unanimously agreed that it was a place appropriated to the worship of Padma Devi, and that the supposed tomb

was a trough which, on certain festivals, her priests used to fill with the sacred water and lotus-flowers.

Dr. Russel observes of the pyramids :-"The most probable opinion respecting the object of these vast edifices is that which combines the double use of the sepulchre and the temple,—nothing being more common in all nations than to bury distinguished men in places consecrated by the rites of divine worship. If Cheops, Suphis, or whoever else was the founder of the great pyramid, intended it only for his tomb, what occasion was there, says Dr. Shaw, for such a narrow sloping entrance into it, or for the well, as it is called, at the bottom, or for the lower chamber with a large niche or hole in the eastern wall of it, or for the long narrow cavities in the sides of the large upper room, which likewise is incrusted all over with the finest marble, or for the antechambers and the lofty gallery, with benches on each side, that introduce us into it? As the whole of the Egyptian theology was clothed in mysterious emblems or figures." Hence Dr. Shaw assumes that the numerous turnings and passages, the concealed chambers and approaches, and all the manifestly designed secrecy of the internal arrangements of the pyramids, prove that their builders had some nobler purpose in view than the mere provision of the central catacomb hewn out of the solid rock, wherein to deposit the bodies of the dead.

Such may suffice as a specimen of the arguments usually drawn from an examination of the pyramids. Their numbers, however, seem to justify the idea of their mere sepulchral character, though it is probable that no Egyptian catacomb was entirely divested of somewhat of the significance of a temple. The undecaying characteristics peculiar to the Egyptian dead implied a continued care for them by the living, and the curious Egpytian document referred to in a former chapter as discovered by Sir George F. Grey, and deciphered by Dr. Young, shows

that the ancient Egyptians maintained priestly services for their dead, curiously corresponding to the chantry services and masses of the Romish Church. The pyra mids which have attracted the largest attention are those of Ghizeh, and this fully as much from the readiness of access, as from their magnificent proportions. The number of such structures scattered over Egypt is very great; but by far the most remarkable are those at Djizeh, Sakhara, and Dashour. "The first of these places, which is situated about ten miles from the western bank of the Nile, and nearly in the latitude of Grand Cairo, is distinguished by possessing the three principal edifices described by Herodotus, and which are still regarded as the finest monuments of this class in any part of the world. It is noticed by every author who, from personal observation, has described these wonderful works of art, that the sense of sight is much deceived in the first attempt to appreciate their distance and magnitude. Though removed several leagues from the spectator, they appear to be quite at hand; and it is not until he has travelled some miles in a direct line towards them that he becomes sensible both of their vast bulk and also of the pure atmosphere through which they are viewed. They are situated on a platform of rock about a hundred and fifty feet above the level of the surrounding desert,a circumstance which at once contributes to their being well seen, and also to the discrepancy that still prevails among the most intelligent travellers as to their actual height."

The following may suffice as a summary of all but the most recent observations on the principal group of pyramids, to which we shall afterwards refer:-" The largest stands on an elevation free all round, on which account the accumulation of sand in contact with it is less than might have been apprehended. It has, however, suffered much from human violence, immense heaps of broken