stifling sense of heat oppresses us, but from
this chamber – a vault of overlapping stones
which meet at the height of about forty feet
over our heads – we crawl upon our faces
through a passage some twelve inches high
and roughly paved, a group of pale men, each
with a taper in his hand, the nose of one upon
the heels of another, all rapidly becoming
purple and perspiring out of every pore. The
heat is frightful. Smothered voices from
behind protest against the dust kicked up in
front, and the reply comes back from the
front in stifled groans. We wriggle
desperately onwards through this worm-hole,
but no end appears. If there should be no
end, how can we get back to the light again?
At length the first head and the first right
arm that holds a taper is thrust out into an
open expanse; a minute more and one man
stands upright, giddy and faint, dripping with
perspiration. The rest follow, dusty-haired
and purple-featured. This chamber is
precisely like the one we just now quitted. We
ascertain this fact, and work our way back to
regain the fresh air of the desert, the expanse
of which we then see from the summit of the
same pyramid swelling away in stony waves.
A fox breaks from his hole under our feet,
and runs before us.

Again we are about to burrow. The chief
pyramid of the Sakkarah group rises from its
vast pedestal of rocky desert in five great
steps, that together reach a height of some
three hundred feet. We are impelled to
worm our way into its heart. The entrance,
at the bottom of a great hole, is about forty
paces from its northern front; we climb
down, one by one, each making an avalanche
of sand and rubbish, and enter, following an
Arab. Turning his back to the entrance,
each of us crawls in, feet first, while his
mouth and his eyes fill with dust; the Arab
takes each by the legs and pulls him then
along a narrow passage, under a block of
stone, the lintel of the ancient doorway. Here
we have space to sit as we are pulled in by
the Arab, and talk to one another with
abated breath, by taper-light. Now we
descend in file along steep winding passages
cut in the rock, our tapers throwing about
shadows that mysteriously come and go, and
seem more real than we ourselves appear
while treading thus upon the paths of a dead
world. Passages branch off, upwards,
downwards; we go on and down as if bound for
the bowels of the earth. Sometimes the
gallery expands in a vast crevice overhead;
sometimes it narrows to a hole; sometimes
we drop down as into a shallow well, and
travel on again. At length we come into an
open space, to which we see no boundary but
a thick wall of darkness, in which our tapers
cannot at first make a breach. As we become
accustomed to the gloom, our eyes discern
four walls of rocks rising around us, broken
by the black mouths of passages or alcoves,
but the roof we cannot see; for, high above
our heads, beyond the power of the tapers, is
a veil of darkness. We collect materials and
kindle a great fire, about which we sit in the
red light, upon great blocks of stone that
make confusion on the floor; and now we
see, a hundred feet above our heads, the roof
of the great cave, all scooped out of the rock;
the entire substance of the pyramid presses
above it. In the centre of the cave a grand
column of granite, fitted upon a hole, conceals
a mystery. So might a demon be confined;
and we, perhaps, are actors in some adventure
of the old days of enchantment. In a corner
we may find a goblet, which we break; and,
when we break it suddenly, the cave will
shake, the granite column fall in powder from
the hole it covers, and a resplendent fairy,
who had been imprisoned in that cave by a
malignant sorcerer, will rise and reward us
with a plate upon which food never fails, and
a bunch of everlasting grapes that distil at a
wish any wine in the world, from Burgundy
and Port down to the Greek resinous
abominations. We do not, however, seek in any
way like this to accomplish the adventure of
the cave; we leave the fire behind us flickering
and leaping to the lofty roof that is again
hung with the tapestry of darkness, and
struggle onward through another passage,
half choked with great blocks of stone. It
was a handsome gallery a long, long time ago,
and lined with painted alabaster; now it leads
us among dismal branching passages, which
stifle us with heat and dust, and the Egyptian
darkness that defies our tapers. We are glad
when we get out again into the bright light
of an Egyptian day.

Again we are creeping under ground into
the ibis mummy pits. A faint gleam of
light at the bottom of the descent shows
where the Arab is, who has sped on too
hastily before us. We have passed out of
the narrow passage through which we were
forced to crawl; the walls have retreated on
each side; the roof has abruptly ascended, but
we cannot stand up. We are upon a slope of
sand that gently slides us on, one after the
other, with our heads all downward. It is
impossible, without making the matter worse,
to attempt either to get up or turn. We look
a-head and see the stream of sand before us
pouring in a gentle cataract over the edge of
a square well, too broad to offer any hope
of help by reaching out towards its sides. We
glide on; but, as each head passes over the
brink of the well, the swarthy face of the
Arab is discovered looking up for it. The
Arab stands with his outstretched legs planted
upon two projections, close under the cataract
of sand and stone; and, catching us as we
come, plants us in safety. We are soon all
down and roaming along galleries into
chamber after chamber, into chambers by
the hundred, some of them huge caves, and
all the catacombs of ibises.

Rising now and shaking the Nile water
from our faces, we look out over the surface