apartments hewn out of the solid rock, supposed to have been designed for lodgings for the Egyptian priests. We enter into them by square openings, much of the same size with the narrow passages of the first pyramid; and many of the chambers have a communication with others behind them, which are dark and full of rubbish.

The third pyramid stands about a furlong from the second, on an advantageous rising of the rock, which makes it seem equal to the former at a distance, though the pile be much less and lower. Each side. of its basis is about three hundred feet, and its height is much the same. Herodotus, Diodorus Siculus, and some other ancient writers, affirm, that the greater part of this pyramid was built (or cased at least) with black or Ethiopic marble: but whatever it may formerly have been, it is strange that several of the moderns should describe it in the same manner; for the whole appears to be built of a clear whitish stone, somewhat better and brighter than that of either of the former pyramids. All round it one may see the remains of the granite it was adorned with, which has been pulled down, and most of it carried away, but some few pieces of it still continue in their places. This pyramid is said to have been built by Mycerinus, whose name was engraved on the North side of it, according to Diodorus, but no such inscription is to be seen at present.

Having been thus particular in the description of these three greatest pyramids of Memphis, or of Gize, as they are now called, it would be needless to say much of those that are to be seen in other parts of Egypt, most of them (as I have already intimated) being

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much inferior to these in magnitude, except one that stands near the mummies, whose dimensions and structure are pretty near the same with those of the first and largest pyramid above described. It may be proper, however, to observe, that they are not all of the same form, some of them being quadrilaterál, others round and pointed at top like a sugar-loaf; some rising with a greater, and others with a lesser inclination.

Who were the builders of these wonderful structures, has been a subject of much dispute. Some pretend they were erected by the patriarch Joseph for granaries, to lay up the corn of the seven plentiful years against the ensuing famine, and, to support this imagination, derive the name Pyramid from Pyros, a Greek word signifying wheat; whereas it is generally supposed to come from Pyr, which in the same language signifies fire, because a mathematical pyramid terminates in a point like flame. But the opinion, that these pyramids were built for granaries, is entirely groundless and absurd; for besides that their figure is the most improper of any for that purpose, the few rooms or cavities within them (the greatest part of them being nothing but solid piles of stone) do utterly overthrow such a conjecture.

Others suppose these fabrics to have been erected by the Israelites, during their heavy bondage under the tyranny of the Pharaoh's; and this is supported by the authority of Josephus, who says, that when time had extinguished the memory of the benefits of Joseph, and the kingdom was transferred to another family, the Israelites were treated with

great rigour, and wasted by various labours. They were ordered to cut canals to receive the waters of the Nile; to raise walls and cast up banks, to hinder the inundation of that river from drowning their towns and villages; and, amongst other oppressions, they were employed in building the vast pyramids in question. But the scriptures do not seem to fa vour this opinion, for according to them the slavish employments of the Israelites was the making of bricks, whereas all these pyramids are of stone. This, however, cannot be called a positive confutation of the hypothesis under consideration; for though the Israelites, a little before their departure out of Egypt, might be employed in making bricks, it by no means follows, that they were never employed any other works. And when is it more likely that the Egyptian kings should undertake these prodigious structures, than when they had so many hundred thousand slaves in their dominions, whom they seemed under a necessity of keeping continually in action, to prevent their breaking out into rebellion?

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According to Herodotus, the first or greatest of the three pyramids above described was built by Cheops, whom Diodorus names Chemmis; for that they are one and the same person may easily be made appear. Both those historians agree that the second was erected by Chephron, brother and successor to the former prince: and the third is said to have been raised by Mycerinus, the son of Cheops, as we have already mentioned. Some of the Greeks indeed pretend that this last was built by a courtezan named Rhodopis or Rhodope: but this is very improbable, considering her condition and the vastness of

the expence; and besides, Herodotus has shown that she did not live till a long time after these pyramids were in being. After all, the above-cited authors ingenuously confess, that there is little agreement either among the natives of Egypt, or ancient historians, with respect to the founders of any of the pyramids we are speaking of; and the Arab writers are under the same uncertainty, some attributing them to Nimrod, others to queen Daluka, and others concluding that they must have been built before the flood, or else the memory of the founders would have been better preserved.

Since it is uncertain who were the founders of the pyramids, it would be in vain to endeavour to determine the time when they were erected; especially as nothing can be more precarious than the Egyptian chronology. However, if we do not allow them to be so ancient as the time of the Israelites being in Egypt, (which yet appears to me a very probable conjecture) we must grant them to be about three thousand years old; since Herodotus who lived two thousand two hundred years ago, was able to find so little satisfaction in his enquiries concerning them; and Diodorus, who lived before the birth of our Saviour, supposes the great pyramid to have been built. at least a thousand years before his time.

The next thing disputed is the end for which these pyramids were erected; but most travellers, and authors who have wrote upon this subject, are of opinion that they were intended for sepulchral monuments. Diodorus tells us expressly, that Chemmis and Chephron designed to have had their bodies deposited in the pyramids they built, though it was ordered otherwise for a reason above-mentioned;

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and Strabo judges all those near Memphis to have been royal sepulchres. To this the writings of the Arabs are consonant; but if none of these authors were extant, the tomb which remains to this day in the first pyramid is sufficient to put the matter beyond all controversy.

Why the Egyptian kings should put themselves to the vast expence of building these pyramids, is an enquiry of a higher nature. Aristotle makes them to have been the works of tyranny; and Pliny conjectures that they built them partly for ostentation of their power and grandeur*, and partly out of state-policy, to divert the people from mutinies and insurrections by keeping them in employment. It is very probable they might in some measure be influenced by these motives, but there is another reason to be given for these great undertakings, arising from the theology of the Egyptians, who not only believed the resurrection, but that as long as the body endured, so long the soul continued with it; which last was also the opinion of the Stoics. Hence it was, that the Egyptians took that excessive care to embalm

"Pliny (says M. Rollin )gives, in a few words, a just idea of "these pyramids, when he calls them a foolish and useless ostenta❝tion of the wealth of the Egyptian kings, “ Regum pecuniæ otio"sa ac stulta ostentatio:" and adds, that by a just punishment their 66 memory is buried in oblivion, historians not agreeing among "themselves about the names of those who first raised these vain &s monuments. "Inter cos non constat a quibus factæ sint, just"issimo casu obliteratis tantæ vanitatis auctoribus." In a word, "according to the judicious remark of Diodorus, the industry of "the architects of these pyramids is no less valuable and praise "worthy, than the design of the Egyptian kings contemptible "and ridiculous." Rollin's Ancient History, Vol. I. Ch. 2. Sect. 2.