By the time we had returned, the sheik was on hand with his swarthy guides around him, and we prepared to enter the Pyramid. It was not intended to be entered. If it had been so designed – as it is the largest building in the world – it would have had a lofty gateway in keeping with its enormous proportions, like the temples of Upper Egypt. But it is not a temple, nor a place for assembly or for worship, nor even a lofty, vaulted place of burial, like the tombs of the Medici in Florence, or other royal mausoleums. Except the King's and Queen's chambers (which are called chambers by courtesy, not being large enough for ordinary bedrooms in a royal palace, but more like a hermit's rocky cell), the whole Pyramid is one mass of stone, as solid as the cliff of El Capitan in the Yo Semite valley. The only entrance is by the narrow passage already described; and even this was walled up so as to be concealed. If it were intended for a tomb, whoever built it sealed it up, that its secret might remain forever inviolate; and that the dead might slumber undisturbed until the Judgment day. It was only by accident that an entrance was discovered. About a thousand years ago a Mohammedan ruler, conceiving the idea that the Pyramid had been built as a storehouse for the treasures of the kings of Egypt, undertook to break into it, and worked for months to pierce the granite sides, but was about to give it up in despair, when the accidental falling of a stone led to the discovery of the passage by which one now gains access to the interior.
In getting into the Pyramid one must stoop to conquer. But this stooping is nothing to the bodily prostrations he has to undergo to get into some passages of the temples and underground tombs. Often one has not only to crouch, but to crawl. Near the Pyramid are some tombs, the mouths of which are so choked up with sand that one has actually to forego all use of hands and knees. I threw myself in despair on the ground, and told the guides to drag me in by the heels. As one lies prone on the earth, he cannot help feeling that this horizontal posture is rather ridiculous for one who is in the pursuit of knowledge. I could not but think to what a low estate I had fallen. Sometimes one feels indeed, as he is thus compelled to "lick the dust," as if the curse of the serpent were pronounced upon him, "On thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life."
We had trusted to the man in authority to protect us from the horde of Arabs; but nothing could keep back the irrepressible camp-followers, who flocked after us, and when we got into the King's chamber, we found we had twenty-four! With such a bodyguard, each carrying a lighted candle, we took up our forward march, or rather our forward stoop, for no man can stand upright in this low passage. Thus bending one after another, like a flock of sheep, we vanished from the moonlight. Dr. Grant led the way, and, full of the wonders of the construction of the Pyramid, he called to me, as he disappeared down its throat, to look back and see how that long tube – longer and larger than any telescope that ever was made – pointed towards the North Star. But stars and moon were soon eclipsed, and we were lost in the darkness of this labyrinth. The descent is easy, indeed it is too easy, for the sides of the passage are of polished limestone, smooth as glass, and the floor affords but a slight hold for the feet, so that as we bent forward, we found it difficult to keep our balance, and might have fallen from top to bottom if we had not had the strong arms of our guides to hold us up. With such a pair of crutches to lean upon, we slid down the smooth worn pavement till we came to a huge boulder, a granite portcullis, which blocked our way, around which a passage had been cut. Creeping around this, pulled and hauled by the Arabs, who lifted us over the dangerous places, we were shouldered on to another point of rock, and now began our ascent along a passage as slippery as that before. Here again we should have made poor progress alone, with our boots which slipped at every moment on the smooth stones, but for the Arabs, whose bare feet gave them a better hold, and who held us fast.
And now we are on a level and move along a very low passage, crouching almost on our hands and knees, till we raise our heads and stand in the Queen's Chamber – so called for no reason that we know but that it is smaller than the King's.
Returning from this, we find ourselves at the foot of the Grand Gallery, or, as it might be called, Grand Staircase (as in its lofty proportions it is not unlike one of the great staircases in the old palaces of Genoa and Venice), which ascends into the heart of the Pyramid. This is a magnificent hall, 157 feet long, 28 feet high, and 7 feet wide. But the ascent as before is over smooth and polished limestone, to climb which is like climbing a cone of ice. We could not have got on at all but for the nimble Arabs, whose bare feet enabled them to cling to the slippery stone like cats, and who, grasping us in their naked arms, dragged us forward by main force. The ladies shrank from this kind of assistance, as they were sometimes almost embraced by these swarthy creatures. But there was no help for it. This kind of bodily exercise, passive and active, soon brought on an excessive heat. We were almost stifled. Our faces grew red; I tore off my cravat to keep from choking. Still, like a true American, I was willing to endure anything if only I got ahead, and felt rewarded when we reached the top of the Grand Gallery, and instead of looking up, looked down.
From this height we creep along another passage till we reach the object of our climbing, in the lofty apartment called the King's Chamber. This is the heart of the Great Pyramid – the central point for which apparently it was built, and where, if anywhere, its secret is to be found. At one end lies the sarcophagus (if such it was; if the Pyramid was designed to be a tomb) in which the great Cheops was buried. It is now tenantless, except by such fancies as travellers choose to fill it withal. I know not what sudden freak of fancy took me just then, perhaps I thought, How would it seem to be a king even in his tomb? and instantly I threw myself down at full length within the sarcophagus, and lay extended, head thrown back, and hands folded on my breast, lying still, as great Cheops may have lain, when they laid him in his royal house of death. It was a soft bed of dust, which, as I sank in it, left upon my whole outward man a marked impression. It seemed very like ordinary dust, settled from the clouds raised by the Arabs in their daily entrances to show the chamber to visitors. But it was much more poetical to suppose that it was the mouldering dust of Cheops himself, in which case even the mass that clung to my hair might be considered as an anointing from the historic past. From this I was able to relieve myself, after I reached home that night, by a plentiful application of soap and water; but alas, my gray travelling suit bore the scars of battle, the "dust of conflict," much longer, and it was not till we left Suez that a waiter of the ship took the garment in hand, and by a vigorous beating exorcised the stains of Egypt, so that Pharaoh and his host – or his dust – were literally cast into the Red Sea.
And now we were all in the King's Chamber, our party of eight, with three times the number of Arabs. The latter were at first quite noisy, after their usual fashion, but Dr. Grant, who speaks Arabic, hushed them with a peremptory command, and they instantly subsided, and crouched down by the wall, and sat silent, watching our movements. One of the party had brought with him some magnesium wire, which he now lighted, and which threw a strong glare on the sides and on the ceiling of the room, which, whether or not intended for the sepulchre of kings, is of massive solidity – faced round with red granite, and crossed above with enormous blocks of the same rich dark stone. With his subject thus illuminated, Dr. Grant pointed out with great clearness those features of the King's Chamber which have given it a scientific interest. The sarcophagus, which is an oblong chest of red granite, in his opinion, as in that of Piazzi Smyth, is not a sarcophagus at all; indeed it looks quite as much like a huge bath-tub as a place of burial for one of the Pharaohs. He called my attention to the fact that it could not have been introduced into the Pyramid by any of the known passages. It must, therefore, have been built in it. It is also a singular fact that it has no cover, as a sarcophagus always has. No mummy was ever found in it so far as we have any historic record. Piazzi Smyth, in his book, which is full of curious scientific lore, argues that it was not intended for a tomb, but for a fixed standard of measures, such as was given to Moses by Divine command. It is certainly a remarkable coincidence, if nothing more, that it is of the exact size of the Ark of the Covenant. But without giving too much importance to real or supposed analogies and correspondences, we must acknowledge