Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 1.djvu/493

 THE GREAT PYRAMIDS. 401 means of which Mariette wua able to dctcnniiic with certainty the chronology of Egypt as fur buck as the year 980 of the old era. The necropolcs of Saqqarah have also furnished Mariette and other explorers with objects of the highest interest, amongst others the " Table of Saqqarah," containing a list of kings, and the statue of a scribe with eye of rock crystal and characteristic expression, now deposited in the Louvre. One of the tombs, that of Ti, described by M. de Roug^ as the " marvel of Saqqarah," forms an exquisite idyl, with its series of charming scenes representing the landscapes, daily labours, and pleasures of rural life. One of the scenes bears a legend in these words, summing up the history of Ti : " When he toils man is full of sweetness, and such am I." * The Great Pyramids. The pyramids terminating northwards the long line of royal tombs are known as those of Gizeh, from the village of thJit name, which stands on the right bank of the Nile over against Old Cairo. In these stupendous monuments the whole of Egypt is symbolised. The three enormous piles overshadowing the verdant plain and winding stream are the embodiment of the mental image conjured up by the very name of Egypt. Their triangular outlines, towering above the Libyan plateau, are even visible over a vast distance throughout the Nile Valley and plains of the delta. For hours together the wayfarer journeying onwards beholds them standing out against the horizon, apparently neither enlarged nor diminished in dimensions. They seem still to accompany him, moving mysteriously along above villages, trees, and cultivated lands: A nearer view reveals them filling up all the 'prospect in one direction ; and the eye now follows with amazement the graded lines of the prodigious masses, showing in the light the profile of their rugged slopes, disposed in flights of fractured steps. They resemble mountains hewn into square blocks rather than structures raised by mortal hand, revealing as it were " the transition between the colossi of art and the giant works of nature." " All things fear time," says the Arab proverb ; " but time fears the pyramids," Doubtless these piles of stone have only the beauty of their geometrical lines, lacking all architectural display ; but they overawe by their very mass, and still more by their antiquity : by the memory of the generations of man that, like the everlasting stream of the Nile, have flowed silently onwards at their feet. For however old in themselves, these monuments of human slavery attest the existence of a still older antecedent culture, marked by the slow evolution of science and the industries from their crude beginnings in the Nile Valley. In these gigantic structures geometry has discovered measurements of supreme accuracy, for here all has been measured and planned in due proportion. The very perfection of these proportions has suggested to many observers the idea of a deep symbolical meaning, and has even given birth to a sort of " religion of the pyramids," which 26— AF.
 * " M^tnoire sur let m<inument8 det six premiirM djriuuliflfe."