now denied by many authorities, who hold that what he saw must have been "graffiti," or vandal writings scrawled on the walls by visitors. No traces of real inscriptions are found in the surviving bits of casing, and the great bulk of it has unfortunately been carted away to be used in the old buildings of Caironotably in the grand mosque of Sultan Hassan.

The dimensions of the Great Pyramid mean little in the abstract and are furnished by innumerable guidebooks. The length of each side of the pyramid of Cheops is now seven hundred and fifty feet, and its present height is four hundred and fifty-one feet. The Second Pyramid, that of Khephrên, is now four hundred and forty-seven and a half feet and each side measures six hundred and ninety and a half feet. The difference, therefore, at the present time is very slight, and owing to the fact that the Second Pyramid stands on slightly higher ground, besides retaining its apex, it appears from a distance to be the larger of the two. The third notable pyramid, that of Mycerinus, is but two hundred and four feet in the perpendicular and its side is only three hundred and fifty-six and a half feet. It is not to be compared with the other two for magnitude and its interior arrangements are simple.

It is, I am convinced, the height of folly to explore the interior of any pyramid, even that of Cheops. The

descent of the first passage, over worn and slippery stone, and the ascent to the "King's Chamber," over a pavement that is like "glare ice" in a stifling heat of over 80 degrees, with vehement Arabs pushing and pulling, is bad enough, but worse still when it is realized that for most of the way one is forced to crouch because of the low roofing. Moreover, the Arabs are capable of being extremely annoying to unattended women and owing to the narrowness of the passages one is always practically unattended, save by the immediate Bedouin guides. Once the grand gallery is attained, the progress is much easier, but after all, there is little to see that will interest any but the investigator of scientific bent. Few who enter the pyramid have a word of praise for the experience, and the fatigue of it is so extreme that it generally deters one from superadding an ascent of the exterior, which is universally admitted to be well worth while. Omit, then, the exploration of the tomb within—and climb the outside in preference. The Bedouin will be offensive and unbearable anyway - but much less annoying in the open. Besides, there's the view, which is like unto no other in the world.

A glance at the plan of the pyramid of Cheops will serve to show more of its arrangement than a visit to its depths. A steeply descending passage leads down to a sepulchral chamber deep in the

native rock. That is not shown to visitors. Instead, one takes the ascending passage that leads up to the very centre of the pyramid, part of it spacious and lofty, but most of it abominably cramped and low. Up this incline it is supposed the body of Cheops was carried on the last day and laid to rest in the huge sarcophagus that still occupies a place in the "King's Chamber." Then the huge plug blocks of granite which had been prepared were let down to bar future entry, the narrower passages were (perhaps) filled with rubble, the workmen escaped by the roughly vertical shaft to the lower passage in the rock below, the entrance in the outer casing was smoothly closed -and theoretically the grave-robbers were forever foiled! Practically the tomb was rifled within a few hundred years-possibly even during the period of unrest that closed the Old Kingdom's career in the Ninth and Tenth dynasties. The labor and cost had been all in vain. Cheops and the rest had erected for themselves tombs that would endure for centuries, probably for all time, but their bodies were no more secure at the last than if they had been laid in the humblest grave.

Obviously mortuary services such as the Egyptian believed to be essential to the maintenance of his ka during the absence of the soul could not be conducted in the interior of the pyramid, and as a result a mor

tuary temple was in each case built outside. These were in turn surrounded by the lesser graves of courtiers and dependents. A few of the nobler sort built little pyramids, which have fallen into ruin and seem more like hillocks. The mortuary temples, however, have utterly perished, save only the so-called "Temple of the Sphinx," which men now believe to be a mortuary shrine of Khephrên. The connection of this structure with the Second Pyramid is clearly established by the remaining causeway, traces of which are visible in the sand, leading direct from the building to the pyramid. The Sphinx, also, is now held to be an image of Khephrên. It was no uncommon thing to carve the head of the king on a representation of a lion's body, and the great Sphinx differed from others mainly in that it was so enormous and was cut out of the native rock of the desert mountain. Its position close beside the granite valley temple of Khephrên and the discovery in that temple of the diorite images of that monarch appear to establish the identification beyond serious doubt. Moreover, recent investigations have revealed other mortuary temples in the same general relation to other pyramids, so that the uses of this better preserved and more remote one have come to be the better understood.

It seems to follow that Khephrên, rather than Cheops, is the man who left the greatest mark at Ghizeh.

His pyramid is smaller than that of his predecessor. It is not so old. It is seldom climbed - and almost never by tourists. It is not the one referred to in the catalogues of the world's tallest buildings. But it is more nearly complete than its greater fellow. It stands higher, and it looks quite as large. By reason of its association with the Sphinx and the attendant granite temple it assumes an archæological importance hardly to be overestimated. Add to this the fact that we have a splendid likeness, life-size, in the famous diorite statue of the king now housed in the Cairo museum, making him seem the most real of the monarchs of his time, and one is justified in saying that Khephrên is tardily but surely coming to his own.