Part Two

Inside the Great Pyramid (2)

I am happy to have it in my power to vindicate the character of a British officer in the campaign of 1801, who has been accused of being the first defacer of the sarcophagus in this pyramid; for it is stated by Tavernier, who visited Egypt 100 years before any English soldier set his foot here, that it was customary for travellers to break off pieces and carry them away. He adds, “the stone, &c. of which it is formed is very hard, and very neat when polished, which induces many to break off pieces to make seals of; but it requires a strong arm and good hammer to knock off a bit.” The individual above alluded to was a gallant officer of highlanders, who has been loaded with the epithets Goth, Vandal, sacrilegious destroyer, for having broke off a piece of this monument, and when I viewed the injury I felt equally ready to disapprove of his violation; but having met this passage in Tavernier, I think it right to do away a false impression.

There is a small chamber above the king’s, as it is called, to distinguish it from the room beneath, which is designated the queen’s. This small chamber, although discovered as early as 1764, by an Englishman of the name of Davidson, is but seldom spoken of by travellers, perhaps on account of its being impossible to get into it without a rope ladder. Belzoni informed me it was not above five feet high, and had for its floor the seven great stones which formed the roof of the king’s chamber, having only the depth of the stones between them. He had, to try if it was possible, entered the pyramid without a light, and felt his way through the passages to the sarcophagus in its centre, and back again, and fully succeeded.

As we returned from the queen’s chamber, we stopped at the celebrated mysterious well which has drawn forth so many conjectures from antiquaries; but has now considerably lost its interest, from having been completely explored. In the course of last year, Captain Caviglia attempted to dig to the bottom of it, and succeeded gradually in increasing its depth, until the want of air extinguished the candles, and it was said forced blood from the noses and eyes of the workmen, and compelled him to give up the undertaking in despair.

We next retraced our way to the end of the first passage, which inclines downwards towards the base of the pyramid, immediately under the three great granite stones which were forced down from the interior in the original construction, in order to block up the passage to the king and queen’s chambers at the angle formed by the ascending and descending passages, where the forced passage has been made to get round the blocks of granite.

Caviglia, from a motive of good nature, having workmen on the spot, began to clear away the stones and rubbish to make this part of the passage more easy to future visitors. A great accumulation of stones, dirt, and sand had formed in this angle, as the declivity of the passage propels every thing towards it, and the north wind continually blows into the entrance of the pyramid the sand from the desert, which gradually finds its way to this spot. The workmen continued to remove the rubbish, and by degrees discovered that they had entered a passage, which giving them fresh hopes, they continued clearing out about two hundred feet or more. I cannot speak with great exactness, for when at Cairo, Mr. Salt shewed me all the drawings and measurements of his interesting work on the pyramids, which he is (I believe) about to publish; and I should have been guilty o a great want of delicacy if I had asked for copies of them, or what is worse, of a breach of confidence, if I had attempted to recollect them. I only state what I saw, and the account of the discovery. This passage, which the workmen had broken in upon, Denon supposes, (for it was partly explored in his time, and he gives us a drawing of it), was first opened when the great granite blocks, which stopped the passage, were found.

After clearing out the passage to the distance I have mentioned, although for many days they carried away vast quantities of stones and rubbish, the work seemed to grow upon their hands, and a vast heap of rubbish accumulated on the outside of the pyramid. Though they wrought with great exertion and perseverance, they did not appear to advance, and there was no sensible diminution of the mass which arrested their progress. After many days hard work, the rubbish was discovered to fall from above, and to Caviglia’s astonishment and delight, proved in course of time to be the outlet and bottom of the mysterious well, which had baffled all preceding conjectures. What had been collected for so many centuries from various causes, amongst others, the custom of travellers throwing down stones, some of whom (if I recollect right) affirm they heard them fall into water, had rendered so much labour necessary. The well had now emptied itself of the rubbish downwards as fast as that below was cleared away. The line of the well (falsely so called) is about 150 feet from the gallery leading to the queen’s chamber into that beneath. Belzoni, Mr. Salt, all the Arabs and visitors, had been both up and down it, there being small holes cut for the feet and hands; but Belzoni, who is not so stout as myself, had great difficulty in squeezing himself through certain parts of it, and my spirit of perseverance and research was fast giving way to fatigue and heat; the whole of this passage being so low and choked up, that we were obliged to creep upon our hands and knees, and in many places crawl quite flat on the ground. The minute particles of dust irritated the eyes and lungs, and, added to the heat, brought on a painful difficulty of breathing. After Caviglia had ascertained the interesting fact respecting the well, he still continued to clear the passage, and further ascertained that it continued sloping downwards about thirty feet, became horizontal towards the centre of the pyramid, and led him at last into a chamber cut into the rock immediately at the base, and under the centre of the pyramid. This chamber is, I should think, about sixty feet long, twenty broad, and eight feet high (sixty-six feet long by twenty-seven broad. – Vide Quarterly Review, No. 88.). It is only half finished, if indeed any judgment can be formed of the design, as on the western end the rock has not been cut down so low as on the eastern, leaving a sort of platform, with two coarse hewn pillars, as if supporting the roof: two or three rough steps lead between them by a narrow passage to the farthest end, amidst the unfinished mass of uncleared rock. In the south-east angle they have dug deep. This excavation is irregular, and descends lower in some places than in others, and the whole is evidently left incomplete. In all probability, whenever the work was broken off by the death of the founder, or on the closing of the pyramid, the designers were in search of the level of the Nile. Herodotus, in speaking of them, mentions that a period of time was employed in forming “the vaults of the hill upon which the pyramids are erected.” It is possible he may here have alluded to the two chambers and passages lately discovered, and not to the small and inconsiderable caves in the face of the calcareous rock to the east and south of the sphinx.

We now returned along the horizontal passage with similar difficulty to that we had encountered on entering; but in the ascending passage our difficulties increased; for the Arabs in front of us loosened large stones, which in our descent had only bruised our back and legs, but now our faces and heads were exposed to them, and I avoided some awkward blows reserved for Belzoni, who was behind me, and liable every instant to some severe hurt. This part of my enterprise was very painful. The little glimmering of light which appeared through the entrance into the pyramid, by the distance contracted perspectively into a very small hole, made me almost despair of reaching it; and I was so exhausted that I threw the wax candle away, requiring both hands to assist me in my advance. We rested for some minutes at the angle of the two passages, and were much refreshed by some water brought us by the Arabs. After recovering a little from our fatigue, we ascended the remainder of the passage, and reached the outside of the pyramid, more completely worn out than can be described.

In taking leave of these stupendous works of human ingenuity and labour, the sentiments expressed at the caves of Ellora obtruded still more strongly on my mind. Religious enthusiasm shews human nature at once in its highest exaltation and lowest debasement. While our hearts swell with pride in reflecting that we belong to the same species of beings to whose sublime conceptions, profound science, invincible and persevering labour, these structures are indebted for their existence, how are we humiliated by feeling the degradation of reason betrayed in the grovelling superstition which formed the object of these everlasting piles, if they are to be considered as temples, or the still more fruitless purpose, if they are to be regarded as sepulchres; and we are compelled to acquiesce in the justness of that apostrophe of the poet, which pronounces Man to be,

“Sole judge of truth, in endless error hurl’d,
The glory, jest, and riddle of the world!”

I found I had satisfied my curiosity, at the expense of the greater part of my few remaining clothes, which my journey across India, and the frequency of sleeping in them, both in that country and in this, had previously rendered threadbare. On the large stones above the entrance of the pyramid, are the names of many persons who had visited this spot. Amongst others, I observed those of Major General Ludlow, G. Drummond, 8th Regiment, Castiglione, Clementi, Brivanali, 1586, Davidson, 1764. Just outside the king’s chamber, in the interior of the pyramid, is the name of J. Coke, 1624.

After putting on the clothes we had left on the outside, we returned towards the sphinx, passing by the triangular stones we had ordered the Arabs to uncover. They had dug down the sides of one of them two feet deep, which proved them to be hewn on their sides, as well as on the exterior part in view, and of a prismatic shape. Belzoni wished us to visit the work he had commenced on the third, pyramid, which, there is reason to believe, has never been opened.

I picked up, in the neighbourhood of the pyramids, several pieces of granite and calcareous stone, and found encrusted in the latter many shells, several of which, resembling those of muscles, though smaller, being an inch long, but considerably thicker in proportion than the shells of this fish in Europe, I broke out of the mass. All these various substances I intend to keep as memorials of this interesting day.

In one of the small excavations in the face of the calcareous rock, which fronts the east, about 400 yards south-east of the sphinx, we partook of some cold meat and Madeira, and after this necessary refreshment inspected the interior of the cave. Let not the reader fancy this was similar to those I have seen and described in India: it is inferior to the commonest excavated cistern for water, either at Ellora or Carli, not only in size but materials. Here the soft calcareous stone is hollowed out; but in India it is the compact, and I may almost say, adamantine granite. One side of this cave is covered by a group of, I think, seven figures, one of which is much smaller than the rest.

They have been all much defaced, through the fanatic zeal of the followers of Mahomet. It is melancholy to find this illiberal and absurd enthusiasm spread over so large a portion of the world. This cave having been once the residence of a sheik or holy Mahometan recluse, he would have thought it unfit for his habitation, had he not thus destroyed these monuments of idolatry. Two or three small chambers led to a room nearly filled with rubbish, in which, almost buried and out of an upright position, is a fine sarcophagus of red granite without a lid. In one of these small chambers, on a border cut in stone, is a well executed hippopotamus.

We at last mounted our asses, distributed some piastres amongst the Arabs, and returned towards Cairo, my mind being as much delighted as my body was fatigued with the excursion.

The vastness of these works, including the large stones in the portico eastward of the second pyramid, added to the immensity of the Egyptian obelisks, and the great size of Druidical stones, makes it probable that in an early and barbarous age, when the tasteful beauties of architecture and sculpture, and the symmetry of building afterwards exemplified in Greece, were imperfectly known, magnitude was the object aimed at, as the most imposing and noble species of record. Denon states that he has convinced himself, that the mode of building by the Egyptians was first to erect masses, on which they afterwards bestowed the labour of ages in the particulars of the decoration, beginning their work with shaping the architectural lines, proceeding next to the sculpture of the hieroglyphics, and concluding with the stucco and painting. The portico to the east of the second pyramid, in the size of its stones, will not yield to any other remains in Egypt; and from its great antiquity, and its being destitute of sculpture, (supposing this theory of Denon to be correct) it is possible that the ornamenting anew these immense masses, long after their first construction, may have been not only the addition of a subsequent age, but even a subsequent improvement growing out of the invention of the sciences.

I was informed that there were no hieroglyphics in any part of the, pyramids, but there are a few on the north face of the scarped rock round the area of the second, though I did not see them.

As we returned to Cairo, Mr. Salt showed me some fine red granite pillars which had belonged to a temple dedicated to Trajan.

This morning after breakfast he informed me, that he had within the last few days received a packet containing a long letter, and a variety of specimens of plants and of birds, from the Englishman of the name of Pearce, settled in Abyssinia, of whom he speaks in his travels in that country.

Abyssinia is represented to be in a most dreadful state of internal commotion. He sent for the native who had been the hearer of this communication, and on his entering the room, I should have fancied he had been a Bengalee, both from his dress and appearance. This is curious, when we consider that the other inhabitants of Africa, except those in the districts washed by the Mediterranean and those of the Cape of Good Hope, are negroes. It is not unlikely, therefore, that one may have been a colony from the other.

I have had a long conversation with Belzoni. He professes that his great anxiety is to become known to the various antiquaries of Europe, and to be taken by the hand by them. Although he is very far from being in even a state of mediocrity with respect to fortune, he is ambitious of fame, and of becoming celebrated for his discoveries. He said lie looked upon it as a fortunate circumstance I had passed through Egypt, and trusted I should be able to speak of him in England, so as to bring his merits before a nation to which he declares himself to be most devotedly attached. He had sent an account of the opening of the pyramid to Lord Aberdeen; but feared, from the possibility of his lordship’s being upon the continent, it might not obtain publicity.

I suggested to him, therefore, the propriety of drawing up an account of the opening of the second pyramid, and offered to take it for him to England, and attend to its publication. He expressed his gratitude for this, and assented to it, and he is now busily employed in making a drawing of the pyramid, its chambers, and several openings. He is to write the account of it in Italian, and Mr. Salt has undertaken to translate it into English; but as it is my intention to start to-morrow night, I fear he will hardly have time sufficient to complete it. I am truly happy thus to have an opportunity of being of use to so able and enterprizing a person.

A great nation like England should not miss the opportunity of making their own a man of such superior talents. He possesses, to an astonishing degree, the secret of conciliating the Arabs, and literally makes them do what he chooses. His commanding figure, amazing strength and height, which ever have in barbarous countries a great effect, as we learn from the travels of Bruce, aid him much in his enterprizes. Mr. Salt tells me, that in moving the head of the young Memnon which has been sent to the British Museum, and the bulk of which made the French despair of carrying it away, he had nothing to assist him but what he found upon the spot. He projects some most extraordinary researches, and every success is to be expected from his genius; but he intends, previously, to return once more to Thebes, and bring down the alabaster sarcophagus. He at the same time means to complete a work he has undertaken, which will be the first of the kind ever carried out of Egypt. It is the entire model of a suite of rooms lately discovered in the tombs of the kings of Thebes, all the walls of which being covered with beautiful carving, fac similes will be taken of them in moulds of wax, and the whole so exactly executed and put into their respective places, that no difference or deficiency will be found in the representation. This work has been commenced about two or three months, and he hopes in another year to accomplish all the models, which will give, when completed, a most correct and distinct idea of the grandeur and magnificence of the Egyptian sepulchres. His attachment to the British nation has been, he says, the principal spur to his endeavours. I am convinced, if Mr. Salt and himself are properly supported by the trustees of the British Museum out of their yearly parliamentary grants, that in the course of a few years every thing worth removing in these parts will have found its way to this great national repository. All that these gentlemen have done has been at their own charge, the former having expended 2000l. of his private fortune within the last two years in obtaining what will tend so much to the credit of our country. It behoves us now to attempt surpassing the French nation in their collection of valuable remains of antiquity. We have already, by the taking of Paris, given back to their proper owners the plunder of Europe; and it now only remains for us to enrich our own public collection, so as to uphold its superiority. By the present which Mr. Salt has made to the British Museum in the head of the young Memnon, which, I conceive, from the accounts I have heard, must be the finest thing in Europe, he has made the whole population of Great Britain his debtors. – Belzoni is married to an Englishwoman, who is at this time gone on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem.

In the course of the day I accompanied Mr. Salt to pay some visits to various European ladies. Whilst we were in the house of one of them, I was surprised by the entrance of a Levantine lady in her walking-dress, and who promised but little from her outward appearance, the whole of her person and face, except her eyes, being covered by a brown cloth cloak and hood. I was much astonished to find, on this outer garment being taken off, that there was beneath it a pink satin dress, and still more, when divested of this also, she appeared in a black velvet spencer, not unlike the Spanish bolero dress, richly embroidered in gold, with a silk petticoat, many jewels, and a shawl tied round across the thighs. This last is, I find, the general fashion here. The women throughout Egypt walk in the streets entirely covered, except their eyes: a small piece of cloth not broader than the finger coming from the back of the head down the forehead between the eyes, beneath which is added a cross piece the width of the face, which, hangs down the front of the person, and entirely excludes any hope of seeing the fair one’s countenance. The dress of the Turks is particularly splendid, as it is only in that, and in their pipes, arms, and horse furniture, that they can shew their wealth; their absurd custom of secluding their women preventing the enjoyments of private society.

This afternoon I rode through the city to the fort, accompanied by Mr. Salt’s janissary. In one of the narrow streets I met the Kaiya Bey, preceded by fifty or sixty Turkish soldiers in four ranks. I made way for them, and several, as they passed, with the greatest good humour, patted me or my horse, saying, “Bono, bono cavaliere,” without the least appearance of intentional insult.

The fort and well of Joseph, a celebrated governor during the Khalifat, have been often described. The hall of Joseph, which is open at the top, and apparently unfinished, is supported by some splendid Corinthian pillars: the carvings of the capitals have been stuffed with clay or plaster. Here I saw one of the elephants Lord Hastings had sent last year to the pacha, the other having gone as a present to the Grand Seignior. The elephant was much grown, not being three years old when it quitted Calcutta. Within the hail were eighteen light horse artillery guns, with their limbers and tumbrils complete, and in excellent order. Six of the carriages and tumbrils were painted yellow, the same number green, and the rest light blue. There were a few small howitzers amongst them.

On the works were some English twenty-four pounders, several French, one of which had the cap of Liberté inscribed with égalité, and many other guns with a lion supporting the Gospels; I conceive from the foundery at Venice.

The view was very extensive, and the pyramids distinctly seen. While here, I was driven under shelter by a shower of rain. Considerably more water fell than what we call heat drops in England; but the whole could hardly be considered as an exception to the perpetual drought of this region. I then proceeded to the palace of the pacha, lately finished by him. I paced three of his rooms, one of which was forty-five paces, another thirty-nine, and another twenty-five long, and of good proportions. The smaller rooms were fitted up with carpets, and sofas continued round the walls. They shewed me some cushions covered with Cashmire shawls, with gold borders.

I viewed the outside of the great mosque of Sultan Hassan, which has a very splendid gateway; and on returning through the city noticed several monks of the Propaganda. Of the many curious and interesting things well worth seeing in this city and its neighbourhood, I had only time to visit a few, and consequently did not examine the tombs of the Khaliphs, nor the obelisk on the site of the ancient Heliopolis.

Cairo is built at the foot of the Mokuttum mountain, on an inferior ridge of which is the ancient fort, evidently erected before the introduction of gunpowder, as it is commanded by the main ridge of hills. The present pacha has, however, raised a small fort upon the summit of the latter, which in part remedies this defect. The city is about two miles from the Nile. Its port, if it may be so called, on the river, is the village of Bolac, and beyond this again is a town they call old Cairo. It is possible, from this last circumstance, that the city was originally built upon the banks of the river, and has changed its site, probably with a view to better defence from a situation much preferable to the heated spot under the fort and Mokuttum, the reflection of which increases the warmth to a great degree. Although there are a vast number of ruined houses in Cairo, it is, I think, with the exception of Benares on the Ganges, the best-built city I have seen since I quitted Europe; for Calcutta, which surpasses all that I have ever witnessed, is ranged round the esplanade of Fort William, and consists of a number of insulated places so unconnected that it can hardly be called a city. Those parts of Calcutta inhabited by the natives are formed of huts of mats and thatch, intermixed with more solid buildings, as is generally the case in Indian cities.

I can form no decided opinion of the size of Cairo; but it is very large. As to its population, it is exceedingly numerous for its size, speaking comparatively with the cities of Europe, but not by any means equal to those of India. Calcutta, it is supposed, contains, with the villages and bazars in its immediate vicinity, one million two hundred thousand souls; and Benares, six hundred thousand. The population of Mahometan cities is not to be judged from the people seen in the streets; for it should be recollected that, from the almost general custom of secluding their women, nine-tenths of the females do not appear in public.

Cairo is surrounded by stone works of no strength, built by the mamelukes; and there are the remains of several redoubts formed by the French army, and a number of small martello towers erected on the enormous heaps of rubbish and dust, which have been carried out of the city; for the capital of Egypt is absolutely surrounded by its own dirt, and these mounds have accumulated to such a degree and height, that they are only inferior to the Mokuttum. There is an open place in Cairo, round which the best houses are built, which, at the period of my stay, was green with the approaching harvest, but during the time of the inundation of the Nile, having a communication with the Khaliz, it is inundated for several months in the year. One of the houses which overlook it was the residence of Buonaparte, while the French were in Egypt. The streets are not quite so narrow as those of Benares, for in the latter I have known it impossible for a palanquin to pass; but if the streets of Rosetta are similar to these, I am not surprised that our troops did not succeed in forcing that town. In Cairo the windows, consisting of trellised laths, which project from the houses, being, formed like the jalousies of the Spaniards, often meet so as almost to touch across the street, though it might be supposed this was perfectly inconsistent with the eastern system of the jealous seclusion of their women. These jalousies render the rooms dark, but in most of the houses I entered they were lighted by pieces of coloured glass let into the wood above the trellis.

The mosques of Cairo are extremely numerous, and from the multitude of minarets, it well deserves, as Thebes of old was called the city of 100 gates, to be designated the city of 100 spires. These minarets or towers are of beautiful workmanship, and possess, in their light and airy form, a great superiority over the steeples of our churches. The mosque of Sultan Hassan is a fine building, with a superb gateway and minaret; but greatly inferior to that of the Jumma Muzjid, at Delhi.

The more eastern sovereigns of the Mahometan faith appear to have been more attached to uniformity than those of Egypt, as the mosque I have spoken of at Delhi, that at Benares (built from a motive of persecution by Aurungzebe on the site of an ancient Hindoo temple), with the generality of those in India, have two minarets. The mausoleum at Agra and that at Arungabad have four, one at each corner of the platform on which the tomb is placed, I believe the mosque of St. Sophia at Constantinople, formerly a christian church, is stated by those who have visited that capital to have had two minarets added to it, rising from the top on each side of the dome. I have, however, always thought, let the minarets be ever so costly, or the workmanship ever so elaborate, that they greatly resemble overgrown chimneys.

The whole city is built in a very confused manner, so much so that it often requires a walk of ten minutes or a quarter of an hour to reach the house you see near you from your windows, – so imperfect is the communication. The houses are of stone, rather high than otherwise, with flat roofs; and in many instances the upper stories project over those below. Most of the bazars are covered in, so as to form agreeable walks; and the entrances to several have iron chains across them, to prevent the intrusion of animals or people on horseback. The police is strict and efficient, and the gates are shut at night. This is equally the custom at Pekin and Timbuctoo. In passing through the streets, I was well satisfied to see vast quantities of English manufactures exposed for sale.

I was present this evening when Mr. Salt received some letters from Alexandria, and Belzoni warned him against thus touching them incautiously, at the same time stating, that as the plague months were fast advancing, every body had, for the last week, to prevent infection, smoked all letters from that city. Mr. Salt informed me that the first year he was in Cairo he was shut up above two months, and continually put in mind of the horrors around him, by the bodies carried before his windows for interment, or the loud lamentations of the hired mourners. The latter I have myself several times heard since I have been here.

Cairo, 11th April, 1818.
A mistake about the dromedaries, which are to carry me to Menouf, has kept me a day longer than I intended, but they will be ready early to-morrow. Both Mr. Salt and Belzoni have been busily employed all the morning in preparing the account of the opening of the pyramid, which I am to take with me. The khamsien or south wind has begun to blow to-day, and is similar to the sirocco of the south of Europe. Every one complained of weariness and a feverish sensation. I found it something like the hot winds at Calcutta; and the period, during the time the khamsien blows, is reckoned very unhealthy.

Mr. Salt and I rode out this evening to the house of Signior Rossi, which I had entered with so much violence on the night of my arrival. This Italian gentleman is mentioned by Bruce. In the yard belonging to the house, being on the side, of the river, Mr. Salt had deposited some interesting articles brought from the neighbourhood of Thebes. The first he pointed out to me was the head of Orus. It is ten feet from the top of the mitre to the chin, having a band round the bottom part of it not unlike a turban. It is of red granite, and in very fine preservation. There is an arm 18 feet long of the same statue, with the fist clenched, of excellent proportions. Belzoni thinks he could convey the whole of the figure to England piecemeal, and that it might be placed in any public situation, as one of the greatest and most complete remains of antiquity ever carried out of Egypt. The celebrated French stone has also been removed to this place. It consists of a block of granite about four feet square, and has evidently been an altar. On the sides are figures with draperies, supporting the summit. I hope eventually to see the whole of these in the British Museum.

I have asked Mr. Salt to send, by the first ship from Suez to India, some plants of the date tree. We have the tree throughout that country in great quantities, but from some cause, with which I am unacquainted, the fruit never arrives at perfection. Perhaps, like the apples in the south of England, they may require fresh grafts, or a renewal of the plant. At any rate it is worth trying, as it would be a great addition to the food of the inhabitants: I have offered in return to write for slips of the mangoe trees, which I think would grow in this country.

from Journal of a Route across India, through Egypt to England, in the latter end of the year 1817, and the beginning of 1818
by Lieutenant-Colonel Fitzclarence, 1819