about 900 B.C., or 450 years before he visited that country; that one hundred thousand men were employed twenty years in building it; and that the body of Cheops was placed in a room beneath the bottom of the pyramid; that the chamber was surrounded by a vault, to which the waters of the Nile were conveyed by a subterranean tunnel. The second pyramid was built by Cephren, the brother and successor of Cheops; and the third owed its origin to Mycerinus, the son of Cheops.

Herodotus goes on to say, "that each face of it measures eight plethra (800 Greek feet), it being quadrangular; and the height being the same. It is made of polished stones, fitted together with the greatest nicety, none of the stones being less than thirty feet long. The pyramid was built in the following manner, in the form of steps, which some call crosso (battlements), and others bómides (little altars or platforms). When they had built it in this fashion, they raised the remaining stones by machines or contrivances of short pieces of wood. They raised them from the ground to the first tier of steps, and when the stone had ascended to this tier, it was placed on the first machine standing on the first row, and from this row it was dragged upon the second row on another machine. As many tiers of stones,” he continues, "as there were, so many machines also were there; but according to another account (for I think it right to give both accounts as they were given to me), they transferred the same machine, it being easily moved, from step to step, as they raised each stone. The highest parts were accordingly finished first, then the parts next to the highest, and last of all the parts near the ground, and the very

bottom. There is an inscription in Egyptian characters on the pyramid, stating how much was spent in furnishing the workmen with leeks, onions, &c.; and as I well recollect what the interpreter said who explained the characters to me; it was 1600 talents of silver."

We are further told by Herodotus, that when the Great Pyramid was designed, they began by making a causeway, along which to convey the stone. This causeway, he states, was three thousand Greek feet in length, sixty in breadth, and forty-eight in height, at its greatest elevation; it was made of highly-polished stone, covered with sculptures, and in his opinion was as wonderful a work as the pyramid itself. When we consider the length and height of this causeway, it is evident it must have been an inclined plane, rising from the level below towards that on which the pyramids stood, and forming the most magnificent approach ever made, to the most wonderful work of human labour ever devised. It also seems probable, as the causeway commenced on the west side of the canal, already alluded to, that the heavy blocks (if we adopt the supposition of their being brought from the east side of the Nile) were brought by water to the bottom of this inclined plane, and carried up it to the level above. There still remain fragments of these causeways in several places, particularly one leading to the third pyramid, eight hundred yards in length.

Egypt was one of the countries earliest civilized, and brought into a fixed social and political system. The first king mentioned as having reigned over the country is Menes, whose era is supposed, with tolerable correctness, to have been 2200 years B.C. From this time something like a chronological series has been

made out by Wilkinson, in his "General View of Egypt." The immediate successors of Menes are unknown, until we come to Suphis and his brother or brothers, to whom the Great Pyramid is attributed, and who are supposed to be the same as the Cheops and Cephren of Herodotus. Abraham visited Egypt about 1920 B.C., and we have the testimony of Scripture as to the high and flourishing state of the country at that period.

Egypt is in every point of view one of the most interesting regions in the world. Its remains of art are of the most curious and impressive character; for the most part they are unique works, carrying us back for their origin to the earliest annals of history. Its geography is intimately connected with both sacred and classic writings. It may be said that Egypt was the parent of Grecian wisdom, the inventress of science, the oracle of nations, and the fountain-head of philosophy, in whose schools we may be allowed to suppose Moses, Pythagoras, and Plato exhausted the earliest stores of human learning. Its ancient monuments, its remarkable physical features, its geographical position, its proverbial fertility, and its commercial importance, combine to render the land of Egypt, in the eyes of the scientific traveller, the statesman, and the philanthropist, one of the most attractive parts of the world, while it is scarcely too much to assert, that our whole knowledge of real history, however involved it may be in the difficulties of so remote an era, begins with the history of this portion of the land of Ham.

The name by which the country is known to the European, comes to us from the Greeks, who derive it from a certain king Ægyptus, the son of Belus. In