STANDING at the base of the Great Pyramid, the stupendous character of the building began to dawn upon us. Its base covers some thirteen acres, and the building rises in tiers of some four feet high to an elevation of four hundred and sixty feet. It is formed of huge limestone blocks, beautifully squared and fitted together; indeed, its manner of construction remains an enigma to the engineers of even our own day.
The ascent has been frequently described, so we need not dwell upon it.
From the summit, lying some miles away across the desert to the south, one of the objects which attract attention is the Step Pyramid of Sakkarah. Thither we directed our way.
Starting in a steamer from just above the new bridge, we soon passed Rode Island, where, according to tradition, Moses was rescued by Pharaoh's daughter. We passed the Nilometer also, which measures the rising waters of the Nile. How much depends upon the record of this instrument may be gathered from the fact that, were the waters of the Nile to fail, Egypt, since it is practically rainless, would revert to a wilderness of sand. When at Cairo we were told that it had not rained there for eighteen months.
After a pleasant two hours, the steamer stopped at Beni-hassan.
Passing through fields, every square yard of which is cultivated with infinite pains, and watered by a labyrinth of runnels, and which produce, as they did well-nigh four thousand years ago, leeks and garlic and cucumbers, we ere long dive into the shadowy groves of palm which wave over the site where stood Memphis, once one of the mightiest cities of the world. Yes, here rose royal palaces and magnificent shrines; here from morning to night sounded the busy din of a city which attracted to its bazaars the merchantmen of the then known world, and which even as late as Richard Cœur de Lion's day, took a man half-a-day to traverse, as Abdel-Latif, the chronicler of that day testifies. But now, the deathlike silence is unbroken, save by the sighing of the wind in the palm-trees overhead, or the clatter of the hoofs of the donkey of some tourist, as he gallops by! And as we gaze upon the silent, deserted scene, we recall the words of the prophet addressed to disobedient Israel of old, " Egypt shall gather them up, Memphis shall bury them: the pleasant places for their silver, nettles shall possess them; thorns shall be in their tabernacles." (Hosea 9:6.)
And now mighty Memphis is buried in its turn beneath these heaps, its ruin is complete, and its glories have departed, leaving scarcely a b ace behind. And here one naturally enquires, “How is it that those four swellings on the earth appear to be the only relics of this mighty city of the past?” The answer is twofold: first, when newer cities, such as Cairo, sprang into being, it was far easier for the builders to secure and carry away the beautifully beveled stones with which the palaces and shrines of these ancient cities were constructed, than to be at the labor of quarrying them for themselves. Secondly, the greater portion of these ancient cities, like their modern counterparts, doubtless consisted of buildings formed of sun-dried brick, which in process of time dissolved into its elements, and was carted away and used by the fellaheen to enrich their fields. The Egyptians, owing to their religion, which taught that life was but a halting-place on the way to eternity, took little pains to build substantial houses for themselves in life, but elaborated their tombs, so that their ka or soul might cheerfully occupy itself in reading over its deeds done here below.
But is there nothing left to testily to the former grandeur of the place? There is, for here, prone in the dust, at no great distance apart, lie two colossal statues of Rameses II.; and as we mount upon one of them, and, taking our stand on its broad breast, look down upon the sculptured features, the original of which we gazed on yesterday in the museum, there comes into the mind, with a significance they never had before, Ezekiel's words, " Thus saith the Lord God; I will also destroy the idols, and I will cause their images to cease out of Noph; and there shall be no more a prince of the land of Egypt" (30:13).
We had seen how the images have ceased; we were shortly to see how the idols have been destroyed. Emerging from the palm-groves, we galloped over a rich plain towards our objective, the Step Pyramid of Sakkarah. Unlike the pyramids of Gizeh, this latter, as its name implies, is built in six successive layers, and is supposed to be the oldest monument in the world. However, it is not the pyramid itself, but its immediate surroundings which prove of such surpassing interest to the sight-seer. For here, close at hand, is the Tomb of Tih, with its galleries cut out of the rock, whose endless bas-reliefs display, in colors as fresh as if they had been laid on yesterday, the every-day life of Egypt well-nigh four thousand years ago.
Here is a man driving an ass with the exaggerated ears of the Egyptian breed of today; and he thus exhorts it: “People love those that go on quickly, but strike the lazy." Verily, asses and men have not much changed with time! Here is another plowing, who thus addresses his team: “A strong pull; trot on, O beasts "; and here another who is reaping the bearded grain. Here, again, is a fisherman, who has enclosed in his net the strange-looking fishes peculiar to the Nile, while, close by, a hunter hunts the antelope, and a band of men, armed with javelins, attack a hippopotamus. Here is another man going to market with a goose, holding it by its two wings crossed behind its back. The life-like way in which the goose thrusts out its neck, and beats the air wildly with its outspread webbed feet is very noticeable. Of a truth artists were true to nature in those days! And here, is a funeral procession going to the grave. But, strangely enough, though there is hardly an ordinary and trivial event of daily life which is not duly chronicled here in stone, we look in vain for a presentment of the means by which the neighboring pyramid was reared.
Leaving the tomb of Tih, we next visit the tomb of Apis, i.e., of the sacred bull. For thousands of years this tomb, and that of Tih, was covered by the desert sand, till Marriette Bey began the excavations which resulted in the discovery of these most interesting relics of a bygone age. When he entered the tomb he found the polished granite sarcophagi of twenty-four of the sacred bulls. These sarcophagi are monoliths, and weigh some sixty tons each, and have been transported hither from the quarries some hundreds of miles up the Nile. Originally they contained the mummies of the sacred boils, but all save one had been rifled at the time of their discovery. In the mortar of this one, which had apparently been overlooked, Marriette Bey noticed the impress of the fingers of the mason who had been employed to set the stone when Rameses II was king, and in the dust he saw the print marks of feet which had been left there three thousand five hundred years before. What wonder that the explorer, as he noted these things, “was overwhelmed, and burst into tears."
And now the last mummied bull has been removed, and the prophecy has been literally fulfilled, and Egypt's idols have been destroyed.
But the very worship of the bulls, quite irrespective of this striking fulfillment of prophecy, is interesting to the Bible student, shedding as it does a light upon Israel's failures, whether in the wilderness at the toot of Sinai, or at Dan and Bethel in the land. “Put away," said Joshua,” the gods which your fathers served in Egypt" (24:14). What manner of gods they were we learn from Exod. 32 “Up," says Israel, "make us gods, which shall go before us; for as for this Moses, the man that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we wot not what is become of him; " and accordingly a calf was made, and they said, " These be thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt."
Again, it was to Egypt that Jeroboam fled from Solomon's wrath (a Kings 11:40), where he doubtless became indoctrinated with this same bull-worship, and instituted it in Israel on his coming to the throne. “Behold thy gods, O Israel," he says, " which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt. And he set the one (i.e., a calf) in Bethel, and the other put he in Dan." (1 Kings 12:28, 29.)
Betaking ourselves once more to our steeds, we crossed through Memphis by a different route, and accompanied by a yelling crowd of Arab children, reached our steamer, and so proceeded hack to Cairo.
J. F.