are conducted through narrow gutters into every part of the garden for the purpose of irrigation. There are also several fountains which play with pretty effect in the little thickets and summer-houses.

Near the eastern extremity of the garden is a large pavilion or Kiosk, which is yet unfinished. I was told that it is designed for the women of the pacha, to be used as a bath. It is built around a square, open court, is one story high, and about 135 feet wide by 228 long on each side. The exterior is of brick, plastered and whitewashed, presenting nothing remarkable. The interior is one continuous gallery, opening on the court, more than 900 feet in circuit. It is paved with marble, and ornamented by a vast number of slender marble and alabaster columns. There is a small room in each of the angles, which does not interrupt the continuity of the gallery. The whole area thus enclosed and paved with marble forms a reservoir three or four feet deep, with a showy marble fountain in the centre, spouting water into this immense bath through the mouths of a number of badly-sculptured crocodiles. There are four smaller fountains situated on the gallery, spouting water into the reservoir at the four angles. The whole exhibits an example of magnificent design and sumptuous materials spoiled by clumsy workmanship. Little girls and boys were employed in polishing the columns. The sculptors, who were also at work, seemed not much more competent. The fresco painting of the ceilings is positively grotesque.

The walks near the palace are curiously paved with small white and black pebbles, so arranged as to form a variety of figures. The palace itself is a poor building, of no great extent. We only looked into one or two rooms, which were painted in the bad taste that prevails in the other public edifices I have seen here, and furnished, as usual, with divans, lustres, &c.

78

VISIT TO THE PYRAMIDS.

CHAPTER VII.

Visit to the Pyramids.-The Route.-Desert Reclaimed.-Plantations and other Improvements of Ibrahim Pacha.-Improbable Hypothesis.-Encroachments of the Desert: their Extent, and probable Results.-Old Cairo.-Trade.-Granaries of Joseph.-Aqueducts.-Ghizeh.-Island of Rhoda.-Nilometer.-Gardens.-Ride across the Plain.-Fellahs.-Importunity for Employment.-View of the Pyramids.-Reception.-Situation.-Dimensions.-Love of Fame.-Interior.-Entrance.-Passages. -King's Chamber.-Sarcophagus.-Bad Air.-Laborious Progress.-Imagination.-Ascent of the Pyramid of Cheops.-Escort.-Smaller Pyramids.-Necropolis. - Mausolea. -Mummy Pits.-Human Remains. Other Sepulchral Monuments.-Inscriptions.-Extent of this Cemetery. -Question about the Object of the Pyramids.-Not Temples or Treasuries, but Tombs.-Reverence for the Dead.-Site of Memphis.-Large Stones.-The Sphinx.-Labours of Cavaglia.

On the 7th of January I made a visit to the Pyramids of Ghizeh, in company with Mr. and Mrs. C. and Mr. June. They are about twelve miles from Cairo, in a western direction, and upon the opposite side of the Nile. We set off very early in the morning, and did not return till some time after dark, at the close of a day of great labour and fatigue, as well as of very peculiar interest. It was my first excursion on that side of the city.

The road to Old Cairo, the upper port of Grand Cairo, passes through a tract of country highly cultivated in gardens and plantations of fruit and ornamental trees. Large fields are covered with olive-trees, lately planted, like all I have seen in Egypt. I had inferred, from their scarceness, that the rich plains of the Nile might be unfavourable to their production. They, however, flourish here luxuriantly, and the present rulers of this country have recently planted large tracts of land in young olive-trees, which are just beginning to bear fruit. The old plantations were lost by want of culture, and the disorders that have so long afflicted

ENCROACHMENTS OF THE DESERT.

79

this country, and the peasantry have too little interest in the soil, and too little confidence in the future, to engage in any species of agriculture which does not promise a speedy return. These olive plantations, and all the other improvements of this neighbourhood, belong to Ibrahim Pacha.

The whole region between Old and Grand Cairo, now so fruitful, was a few years ago a sandy desert. Ibrahim, who has built a new palace here, has caused the sandhills to be levelled, and the machines necessary for irrigating the thirsty soil to be erected. The whole is now a fruitful garden, equalling in fertility the alluvial soil in its neighbourhood. It is a striking instance of the fertilizing power of irrigation in a hot climate. Large tracts on the border of the Desert seem to be susceptible of similar improvement, and it is not improbable that under a regular government the arable land of Egypt may be greatly increased in quantity. There is probably little foundation for the apprehensions expressed by many travellers, that the sands of the Desert are destined to cover the Valley of the Nile. I have seen no sufficient evidence that the region susceptible of tillage is much less extensive at present than at any former period. Portions of the Desert bordering upon the alluvial plain, which seem to have been tilled in former times, are now abandoned to the sands, but more capital and skill employed in irrigation would probably reclaim all such lands. Some fields, also, immediately upon the bank of the river, which have been fallow for years, are covered with sand, and have the aspect of hopeless sterility, while the lands adjoining, when properly cultivated, produce abundantly. It seems probable that the Nile now overflows a region nearly or quite as extensive as at any former period. The banks are, indeed, gradually raised by deposites of earth brought down by the inundation, but so also, we may presume, is the bed of the river; and I am not aware that any satisfactory reason exists for believing that material changes

80

OLD CAIRO-GRANARIES OF JOSEPH.

have occurred in their relative elevations. It is known that the land descends from the bank of the river towards the Desert, a circumstance very favourable to bringing an increased extent of that now barren waste under the fertilizing influence of irrigation. If the steril lands adjacent to the alluvial plain are annually becoming higher by encroachments from the Desert, so also is the valley itself by deposites from the overflowing of the river; and the relative. height of the bed of the river, its banks, and the adjacent border of the Desert, may probably remain from age to age without any material change. This is what we should expect, without well-authenticated facts to establish the opposite hypothesis. Nature seldom tends to sterility, and the revival of industry and civilization in Egypt would probably reassert the dominion of agriculture over the whole extent formerly cultivated, and perhaps enrich it with new conquests from the Desert.

The plantations and various improvements of Ibrahim Pacha reach to the borders of Old Cairo, a long, narrow town upon the eastern bank of the Nile, standing in the midst of the rubbish of the ancient and far more extensive city of the same name. It was the capital of Egypt for a time, before the building of Grand Cairo. It is now one of the two ports of that metropolis. Boulak, two or three miles below, is the other. Here a vast number of boats receive their cargoes of merchandise; and immense quantities of wheat, peas, oats, and other agricultural products of Upper Egypt, are brought here for the supply of the capital or for the use of the government. The public storehouses are of great extent. They are usually ascribed to Saladin, and called, after him, the Granaries of Joseph; and are large enclosures of brick without roofs, where grain and other products are deposited in the open air. In this exposed situation they remain at all seasons of the year, without receiving any damage from the very slight rains which fall

in this climate.

GHIZEH THE NILOMETER.

81

Clouds of sand and dust, however, are constantly settling upon them, and these mountains of wheat must all be subjected anew to the process of winnowing before they are converted into flour.

Old Cairo occupies the site of Babylon of Egypt, built by the Persians, and long an important town. The canal which joined the Nile to the Red Sea commenced at this point. A lofty aqueduct, which carries water to the citadel in Grand Cairo, is supplied from the river by means of machinery worked by buffaloes.

We crossed the river to Ghizeh, which is a considerable village immediately opposite to Old Cairo. The ferry passes close to the upper end of the beautiful island of Rhoda, upon which is the Nilometer, a very primitive contrivance, now in a dilapidated state. "It consists of a square well or chamber, in the centre of which is a graduated pillar, for the purpose of ascertaining the daily rise of the Nile."* This island belongs to Ibrahim Pacha, and is occupied by two extensive gardens, one laid out in the French, the other in English style. They contain a great variety of plants, native and exotic, and are managed with great care and skill by European gardeners.

From Ghizeh to the Pyramids is eight or nine miles. The whole route lies through the alluvial plain, now covered with wheat and lucerne. We were mounted on donkeys, and rode along the narrow, zigzag paths which the Fellahs leave between their fields, to mark the divisions, and for convenient access. We were scarcely a mile from the river when our cavalcade was discovered by the Fellahs, who were labouring in the fields, on the right and left of our route, to the distance of several miles. They left their work and ran towards us from all directions, and we soon had an escort of twenty or thirty swarthy, half-naked barbarians, who came to offer their services as porters, guides, light* Wilkinson's Thebes, p. 311.