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MIDNIGHT IN THE HEART OF THE GREAT PYRAMID

Our last night in Cairo we spent in riding out to Ghizeh by moonlight, and exploring the interior of the Great Pyramid. We had already been there by day, and climbed to the top, but did not then go inside. There is no access but by a single narrow passage, four feet wide and high, which slopes at a descending angle, so that one must stoop very low while he slides down an inclined plane, as if he were descending into a mine by a very small shaft. There is not much pleasure in crouching and creeping along such a passage, with a crowd of Arab guides before and behind, lighting the darkness with their torches, and making the rocky cavern hideous with their yells. These creatures fasten on the traveller, pulling and pushing, smoking in his face, and raising such a dust that he cannot see, and is almost choked, and keeping up such a noise that he cannot hear, and can hardly think. One likes a little quiet and silence, a little chance for meditation, when he penetrates the sepulchre of kings, where a Pharaoh was laid down to rest four thousand years ago. So I left these interior researches, on our first visit to the Pyramid, to the younger members of our party, and contented myself with clambering up its sides, and looking off upon the desert and the valley of the Nile, with Cairo in the distance.

But on our trip up the Nile, I read the work of Piazzi Smyth, the Astronomer Royal of Scotland, "Our Inheritance in the Great Pyramid," and had my curiosity excited to see again a structure which was not only the oldest and greatest in the world, but in which he thought to have discovered the proofs of a divine revelation. Dr. Grant of Cairo, who had made a study of the subject, and had spent many nights in the heart of the Pyramid, taking accurate measurements, kindly offered to accompany us; and so we made up a party of those who had come down the Nile – an Episcopal clergyman from New England, a Colonel from the United States Army, a lady from Cambridge, Mass., and a German lady and her daughter who had been with us for more than two months, and my niece and myself. It was to be our last excursion together, as we were to part on the morrow, and should probably never all meet again.

At half-past eight o'clock we drove away from the Ezbekieh square in Cairo. It was one of those lovely nights found only in Egypt. The moon, approaching the full, cast a soft light on everything – on the Nile, as we crossed the long iron bridge, and on the palms, waving gently in the night wind. We rode along under the avenue of trees planted by old Mehemet Ali, keeping up an animated conversation, and getting a great deal of information about Egypt. It was two hours before we reached the Pyramid. Of course the Arabs, who had seen the carriages approaching along the road, and who like vultures, discern their prey from a great distance, were soon around us, offering their services. But Dr. Grant, whose experience had taught him whom to seek, sent for the head man, whom he knew, who had accompanied him in his explorations, and bade him seek out a sufficient number of trusty guides for our party, and keep off the rest.

While the sheik was seeking for his retainers, we strolled away to the Sphinx, which looked more strange and weird than ever in the moonlight. How many centuries has he sat there, crouching on the desert, and looking towards the rising sun. The body is that of a recumbent lion. The back only is seen, as the giant limbs, which are stretched out sixty feet in front, are wholly covered by the sand. But the mighty head still lifts its unchanged brow above the waste, looking towards the East, to see the sun rise, as it has every morning for four thousand years.

On our return to the Pyramid, Dr. Grant pointed out the "corner sockets" of the original structure, showing how much larger it was when first built, and as it stood in the time of the Pharaohs. It is well known that it has been mutilated by the successive rulers of Egypt, who have stripped off its outer layers of granite to build palaces and mosques in Cairo. This process of spoliation, continued for centuries, has reduced the size of the Pyramid two acres, so that now it covers but eleven acres of ground, whereas originally it covered thirteen. Outside of all this was a pavement of granite, extending forty feet from the base, which surrounded the whole.

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 that there are many points in the King's Chamber which make it a subject of curious study and of scientific interest; and which seem to show that it was constructed with reference to certain mathematical proportions, and had a design beyond that of being a mere place of burial.

After we had had this scientific discussion, we prepared for a discussion of a different kind – that of the lunch which we had brought with us. A night's ride sharpens the appetite. As the only place where we could sit was the sarcophagus itself, we took our places in it, sitting upon its granite sides. An Arab who knew what we should want, had brought a pitcher of water, which, as the heat was oppressive, was most grateful to our lips, and not less acceptable to remove the dust from our eyes and hands. Thus refreshed, we relished our oranges and cakes, and the tiny cups of Turkish coffee.

To add to the weirdness of the scene, the Arabs asked if we would like to see them perform one of their native dances? Having our assent, they formed in a circle, and began moving their bodies back and forth, keeping time with a strange chant, which was not very musical in sound, as the dance was not graceful in motion. It was quickly over, when, of course, the hat was passed instantly for a contribution.

The Colonel proposed the health of Cheops! Poor old Cheops! What would he have said to see such a party disturbing the place of his rest at such an hour as this? I looked at my watch; it was midnight – an hour when the dead are thought to stir uneasily in their graves. Might he not have risen in wrath out of his sarcophagus to see these frivolous moderns thus making merry in the place of his sepulture? But this midnight feast was not altogether gay, for some of us thought how we should be "far away on the morrow." For weeks and months we had been travelling together, but this excursion was to be our last. We were taking our parting feast – a fact which gave it a touch of sadness, as the place and the hour gave it a peculiar interest.

And now we prepared to descend. I lingered in the chamber to the last, waiting till all had gone – till even the last attendant had crawled out and was heard shouting afar off – that I might for a moment, at least, be alone in the silence and the darkness in the heart of the Pyramid; and then, crouching as before, followed slowly the lights that were becoming dimmer and dimmer along the low and narrow passage. Arrived at the top of the Grand Gallery, I waited with a couple of Arabs till all our party descended, and then lighting a magnesium wire, threw a sudden and brilliant light over the lofty walls.

It was one o'clock when we emerged from our tomb to the air and the moonlight, and found our carriages waiting for us. The moon was setting in the West as we rode back under the long avenue of trees, and across the sacred Nile. It was three o'clock when we reached our hotel, and bade each other good-night and good-bye. Early in the morning two of us were to leave for India on our way around the world, and others were to turn their faces towards the Holy Land and Italy. But however scattered over Europe and America, none of us will ever forget our Midnight in the Heart of the Great Pyramid.

In recalling this memory of Egypt, my object is not merely to furnish a poetical and romantic description, but to invite the attention of the most sober readers to what may well be a study and an instruction. This Pyramid was the greatest of the Seven Wonders of the World in the time of the Greeks, and it is the only one now standing on the earth. May it not be that it contains some wisdom of the ancients that is worthy the attention of the boastful moderns; some secret and sacred lore which the science of the present day may well study to reveal? It may be (as Piazzi Smyth argues in his learned book) that we who are now upon the earth have "an inheritance in the Great Pyramid;" that it was built not merely to swell the pride of the Pharaohs, and to be the wonder of the Egyptians; but for our instruction, on whom the ends of the world are come. Without giving our adhesion in advance to any theory, there are certain facts, clearly apparent, which give to this structure more than a monumental interest. For thousands of years it had been supposed to have been built for a royal tomb – for that and that only. So perhaps it was – and perhaps not. At any rate a very slight observation will show that it was built also for other purposes. For example:

Observe its geographical position. It stands at the apex of the Delta of the Nile, and Piazzi Smyth claims, in the centre of the habitable globe! He has a map in which its point is fixed in Africa, yet between Europe and Asia, and which shows that it stands in the exact centre of the land surface of the whole world. This, if it be an accident, is certainly a singular one.

Then it is exactly on the thirtieth parallel of latitude, and it stands four-square, its four sides facing exactly the four points of compass – North, South, East, and West. Now the chances are a million to one that this could not occur by accident. There is no need to argue such a matter. It was certainly done by design, and shows that the old Egyptians knew how to draw a meridian line, and to take the points of compass, as accurately as the astronomers of the present day.

Equally evident is it that they were able to measure the solar year as exactly as modern astronomers. Taking the sacred cubit as the unit of measure there are in each side of the Pyramid just 365¼ cubits, which gives not only the number of days in the year, but the six hours over!

That it was built for astronomical purposes, seems probable from its very structure. Professor Proctor argues that it was erected for purposes of astrology! Never was there such an observatory in the world. Its pinnacle is the loftiest ever placed in the air by human hands. It seems as if the Pyramid were built like the tower of Babel, that its top might "touch heaven." From that great height one has almost a perfect horizon, looking off upon the level valley of the Nile. It is said that it could not have been ascended because its sides were covered with polished stone. But may there not have been a secret passage to the top? It is hard to believe that such an elevation was not made use of by a people so much given to the study of the stars as were the ancient Egyptians. In some way we would believe that the priests and astrologers of Egypt were able to climb to that point, where they might sit all night long looking at the constellations through that clear and cloudless sky; watching Orion and the Pleiades, as they rose over the Mokattam hills on the other side of the Nile, and set behind the hills of the Libyan desert.

There is another very curious fact in the Pyramid, that the passage by which it is entered points directly to the North Star, and yet not to the North Star that now is, but to Alpha Draconis, which was the North Star four thousand years ago. This is one way in which the age of the Pyramid is determined, for it is found by the most exact calculations that 2170 years before Christ, a man placed at the bottom of that passage, as at the bottom of a well, and looking upward through that shaft, as if he were looking through the great telescope of Lord Rosse, would fix his eye exactly on the North Star – the pole around which was revolving the whole celestial sphere. As is well known, this central point of the heavens changes in the lapse of ages, but that star will come around to the same point in 25,800 years more, when, if the Pyramid be still standing, the observers of that remote period can again look upward and see Alpha Draconis on his throne, and mark how the stars "return again" to their places in the everlasting revolutions of the heavens.

As to the measurement of time, all who have visited astronomical observatories know the extreme and almost infinite pains taken to obtain an even temperature for clocks. The slightest increase of temperature may elongate the pendulum, and so affect the duration of a second, and this, though it be in a degree so infinitesimal as to be almost inappreciable, yet becomes important to the accuracy of computations, when a unit has to be multiplied by hundreds of millions, as it is in calculating the distances of the heavenly bodies. To obviate this difficulty, astronomical clocks are sometimes placed in apartments under ground, closed in with thick walls (where even the door is rarely opened, but the observations are made through a glass window), so that it cannot be affected by the variations of temperature of the outer world. But here, in the heart of this mountain of stone, the temperature is preserved at an absolute equilibrium, so that there is no expansion by heat and no contraction by cold. What are all the observatories of Greenwich, and Paris and Pulkowa, to such a rock-built citadel as the Great Pyramid?

But not only was the Pyramid designed to stand right in its position towards the earth and the heavenly bodies; but also, and perhaps chiefly (so argues Prof. Smyth) was it designed for metrological (not meteorological) purposes – to furnish an exact standard of weights and measures. The unit of lineal measure used in the Pyramid he finds to correspond not to the English foot, nor to the French metre, but to the Hebrew sacred cubit. This is certainly a curious coincidence, but may it not prove simply that the latter was derived from the former? Moses was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and may have brought from the Valley of the Nile weights and measures, as well as customs and laws.

But this cubit itself, wherever it came from, has some very remarkable correspondences. French and English mathematicians and astronomers have had great difficulty to fix upon an exact standard of lineal measure. Their method has been to take some length which had an exact relation to one of the unchangeable spaces or distances of the globe itself. Thus the English inch is one five hundred millionth part of the axis of the earth. But Prof. Smyth finds in the Great Pyramid a still better standard of measure. The cubit contains twenty-five of what he calls "Pyramid inches," and fifty of these are just equal to one ten-millionth part of the earth's axis of rotation! He finds in the Pyramid a greater wonder still in a measure for determining the distance of the earth from the sun, which is the unit for calculating the distances of the heavenly bodies! That which scientific expeditions have been sent into all parts of the earth within the last two years to determine by more accurate observations of the transit of Venus, is more exactly told in the Great Pyramid erected four thousand years ago!

It is a very fascinating study to follow this learned professor in his elaborate calculations. He seems to think the whole of the exact sciences contained in the Great Pyramid. The vacant chest of red granite in the King's Chamber, over which Egyptologists have puzzled so much, is to him as the very ark of the Lord. That which has been supposed to be a sarcophagus, with no other interest than as having once held a royal mummy, he holds not to be the tomb of Cheops, or of any of the kings of Egypt, but a sacred coffer intended to serve as a standard of weights and measures for all time to come. He thinks it accomplishes perfectly the arithmetical feat of squaring the circle! – the height being to the circumference of the base, as the radius is to the circumference of a circle.

But the Great Pyramid has, to Professor Smyth, more than a scientific – it has a religious interest. He is a Scotchman, and not only a man of science, but one who believes, with all the energy of his Scotch nature, in a Divine revelation; and as might be supposed, he connects this monument of scientific learning with One who is the source of all wisdom and knowledge. However great may have been the wisdom of the Egyptians, he does not believe that they had a knowledge of geodesy and astronomy greater than the most learned scientific men of our day. He has another explanation, that the Great Pyramid was built by the guidance of Him who led the Israelites out of Egypt, and who, as he shone upon their path in the desert, now shines by this lighthouse and signal tower upon the blindness and ignorance of the world. He believes that the Pyramid was constructed by Divine inspiration just as much as the Jewish Tabernacle; that as Moses was commanded to fashion everything according to the pattern showed to him in the Mount, so some ancient King of Egypt, working under Divine inspiration, builded better than he knew, and wrought into enduring stone, truths which he did not perhaps himself understand, but which were to be revealed in the last time, and to testify to a later generation the manifold wisdom of God. As to its age he places it somewhere between the time of Noah and the calling of Abraham. Dr. Grant even thinks it was built before the death of Noah! But mankind could hardly have multiplied in the earth in the lifetime of even the oldest of the patriarchs, so as to be capable of building such monuments. The theory is that it was not built by an Egyptian architect. There is a tradition mentioned in Herodotus of a shepherd who came from a distant country, from the East, who had much to do with the building of the Pyramid, and was regarded as a heavenly visitant and director. Prof. Smyth thinks it probable, that this visitor was Melchisedek! He even gives the Pyramid a prophetic character, and thinks that the different passages and chambers are designed to be symbolical of the different economies through which God educates the race. The entrance at first descends. That may represent the gradual decadence of mankind to the time of the Flood, or to the exodus of the Israelites. Then the passage begins to ascend, but slowly and painfully, which represents the Jewish Dispensation, when men were struggling towards the light. After a hundred and twenty-seven feet of this stooping and creeping upward, there is a sudden enlargement, and the low passage rises up into the Grand Gallery, just as the Mosaic economy, after groping through many centuries, at last bursts into the full glory of the Christian Dispensation.

Believing in its inspired character, he finds in every part of this wonderful structure signs and symbols. Taking it as an emblem of Christian truth, where is the chief corner-stone? Not at the base, but at the top – the apex! At the bottom, there are four stones which are equal – no one of which is above another – the chief corner-stone therefore must be the capstone!

It will be perceived that this is a very original and very sweeping theory; that it overturns all our ideas of the Great Pyramid; that it not only turns Cheops out of it, but turns Science and Revelation together into it. We may well hesitate before accepting it in its full extent, and yet we must acknowledge our indebtedness to Prof. Smyth. He has certainly given a new interest to this hoary monument of the past. Scientific men who reject his theory are still deeply interested in the facts which he brings to light, which they recognize as very extraordinary, and which show a degree of scientific knowledge which not only they did not believe to exist among the Egyptians, but which hardly exists in our day.

So much as this we may freely concede, that the Pyramid has a scientific value, if not a sacred character; that it is full of the wisdom of the Egyptians, if not of the inspiration of the Almighty; and that it is a storehouse of ancient knowledge, even if it be not the very Ark of the Covenant, in which the holiest mysteries are enshrined!

Leaving out what may be considered fanciful in the speculations of the Scotch astronomer, there is yet much in the facts he presents worthy the consideration of the man of science, as well as the devout attention of the student of the Bible, and which, if duly weighed, will at once enlarge our knowledge and strengthen our faith.

Such are the lessons that we derive from even our slight acquaintance with the Great Pyramid; and so, as we looked back that night, and saw it standing there in the moonlight, its cold gray summit, its "chief corner-stone," pointing upwards to the clear unclouded firmament, it seemed to point to something above the firmament – to turn our eyes and thoughts to Heaven and to God.