attempt to break into the third pyramid, that eight months were spent in the work of destruction. It would be difficult to determine if they succeeded in moving a single stone.

Then we are informed by one Arab that Caliph Abdal-la Mamoun, the opener of the great pyramid, was the son of Haroun-al Raschid, of the "Arabian Nights Entertainments," and the contemporary of Charlemagne.

That which appears probable is, that the Saracens began on the north side, as reported by tradition to have been that by which the Romans had once entered; but that, while the latter, and any other previous visitors, had been content with the descending passage to the subterranean chamber, the former were the first to penetrate by the gallery to the king's chamber. One of the Arab stories of the opening is thus related by Ibn Abd Al Hokm :

"After that Al-Mamon the caliph entered Egypt, and saw the pyramids. He desired to know what was written within, and therefore would have them opened. They told him it could not possibly be done. He replied, I will have it certainly done.' And that hole was opened for him, which stands open to this day, with fire and vinegar. Two smiths prepared and sharpened the iron and engines which they forced in; and there was a great expense in the opening of it. The thickness of the wall was found to be 20 cubits; and when they came to the end of the wall behind the place they had dug, there was a pot of green emeralds. In it were a thousand dinars very weighty; every dinar was an ounce of our ounces. They wondered at it, but knew not the meaning of it. Then Al-Mamon said, 'Cast up the accounts. How much has been spent in making the entrance?' They cast it up, and lo! it was

the same sum which they found; it neither exceeded, nor was

defective."

On the other hand, Macrizi declares that the Caliph Mamoun was only forty-nine days in Egypt altogether; a time utterly short of that required by the Arab stories. Denys, the old traveller of the twelfth century, would surely have mentioned some facts of the wonders of the interior, had they reached him at Cairo. He does narrate something; for, said he, "We looked in at an opening which was made in one of the edifices, and which is 50 cubits deep." His idea of a cubit may be seen from his giving the height of the pyramid 250 cubits, and the base 500. De Sacy is justified in saying that "he could not have neglected to make mention of a discovery so important, and which would have refuted completely the fable of the granaries of Joseph;" an opinion cherished at that period. He concludes that" the opening of the Great Pyramid is more ancient than the journey of Mamoun in Egypt."

Whoever forced an entrance failed to strike the right spot, though a way to the Descending Passage was obtained by the removal of obstructing stones. The present entrance is 47 feet above the base, and by the fifteenth or sixteenth step. One may ride up to it on the vast mass of rubbish in front. It is there the visitor is met by the sheik and his tribe, when a treaty is made as to charges for attendants. The standing tariff is about four shillings for each man, and two men are the minimum for a person, while a larger douceur is expected by the venerable chief.

When Sandys was there, in 1610, the difficulties of an entrance were greater than at present. It is now as it then was, "full of rubbidge." But we have no stories in this day of men going in, and coming up again some thirty miles off.

His experience at the entrance is thus detailed :-" In this our Janizaries discharged their harquebuses, lest some shuld haue skulkt within to haue done us mischiefe, and guarded the mouth whilst we entred, for feare of the wilde Arabs."

THE PASSAGES.

Although the entrance was supposed to have been made by a Mahometan Caliph, this singular passage occurs in Strabo: "On high, as it were, in the midst between the sides, there is a stone which may be removed, which being taken out there is a shelving entrance leading to the tomb." He is careful in another place to add, "This entrance was kept secret." When Greaves came to this shelving passage, in 1637, there was no ready access. "We hire Moors," wrote he, "to open the passage, and to remove the sand, before we can enter into the pyramid." The travellers are now too numerous, and their bakshish is too acceptable, to have the sand difficulty; though they have, like Bèlon, of Mans, in 1554, to enter it with candles, and go "after the manner of serpents."

It is no easy walking or groping, though one has not to contend, as Greaves had, "with many large and ugly bats, a foot long." The descent is pretty steep, and the way is both narrow and low. The width is 41 or 42 inches, and the height 47 inches. After proceeding downward for 63 feet, the groper changes his posture for the Ascending Passage, at a similar slope for 124 feet; but which is about the same size as the other, though Jomard has it 43 inches wide, and Caviglia, 42. At its summit there are two passages :-one, the horizontal, 109 feet long, 41 inches wide, 43 or 44 high, leads to the Queen's

Chamber; but the other, still ascending in the slope, is the celebrated Grand Gallery. A yellowish-looking marble lines the passages. The term Syringe, of Greek derivation, has been used by foreigners to express levels or narrow subterranean passages. The passage to the south from the Subterranean Chamber is 52 feet long, 2 broad, 2 high.

The angle of the passage has originated much discussion. While M. Jomard makes it 25° 55', Col. Howard Vyse and Perring have 26° 41'. Prof. Smyth calls it 26° 18'. As the angle of the inclination of the pyramid to the horizon is about 51° 50', Mr. Fergusson, the architectural authority, concluded that the angle of the passage was intended to have been about one half of this. The half of 51° 50' would be 25° 55'. He further says, "The angles are not the same in any two pyramids, though erected within a few years of one another, and, in the twenty that were measured by Col. Vyse, they vary from 22° 35' to 34°5'." While some observers of the Great Pyramid have jumped to the idea that the angle of the side was 40°, others ran it up to 60°. The double of Mr. Smyth's 26° 18' would give 52° 36'.

Why this particular angle of 26° or 26° 18′ should have been adopted for the passages has aroused much interest. The astronomical arguments of Mr. Piazzi Smyth and others will be considered in another part of this work. But that inclination is called by Sir Henry James "the angle of repose." Mr. Fergusson writes, "The angle of the passage was the limit of rest at which heavy bodies could be moved, while obtaining the necessary strength where they opened at the outside, and the necessary difficulty for protection inside, without trenching on impossibility." It was said that the blocking-stones of the passage,

hereafter to be described, could be easily slid along the floor at that angle. But, then, it has been shrewdly remarked that the descending passage, along which these portcullis stones were not required to slide, is at the same angle as the ascending

one.

Mr. Agnew, for reasons mentioned elsewhere, concludes that the intention of the builders was to have it 26° 33′ 54′′. "Other passages," he thinks, "with the same inclination, may probably exist, leading in a zigzag direction to upper rooms on the levels of the other inscribed squares of the figure.”

A remarkable incident in passage history is noted by the able French traveller, Maillet, French Consul, who spent sixteen years in Egypt, made forty visits thither, and was the earliest of the modern pyramid enthusiasts, being quoted with high respect by our traveller Pococke in 1743. M. Maillet speaks thus: "a discovery which I have made in the upper part of the passage of 118 feet, which leads there. It is that the stones which compose it are split across in all the length of the passage." He conjectures that an earthquake caused it.

Greaves made what he supposed a discovery. "On the east side of this room (Queen's Chamber)," said he, "in the middle of it, there seems to have been a passage leading to some other place. Whether this way the priests went into the hollow of the huge Sphinx, as Strabo and Pliny term it, or into any other private retirement, I cannot determine; and it may be, too, this served for no such purpose, but rather as a theca or nichio, as the Italians speak, wherein some idol might be placed."

The Descending Entrance-Passage proceeds in one straight course toward the Subterranean Chamber, and is, according to Mr. Perring, 320 feet 10 inches long; originally, when the