Early in the nineteenth century Caviglia succeeded in penetrating into the centre of the Great Pyramid, and he was followed in the spring of 1818 by the redoubtable Belzoni, whose account of the manner in which he forced an entrance into the Second Pyramid is as vivacious as the rest of his narrative. Belzoni’s earlier efforts only resulted in the discovery of one of the passages by which former explorers had vainly attempted to force their way into the pyramid; but his disappointment only quickened his desire, and as he says in his own inimitable way: “Hope returned to cherish my pyramidical brains.” His workmen were speedily set to work again at a new spot. “As to expectation that the entrance might be found, they had none; and I often heard them utter, in a low voice, the word ‘_magnoon_,’ in plain English, _madman_. I pointed out to the Arabs the spot where they had to dig, and such was my measurement, that I was right within two feet, in a straight direction, as to the entrance; and I have the pleasure of reckoning this day as fortunate.” Even after the passage was discovered, the removal of the blocks of stone which obstructed it required several days of hard labour; but at last, thirty days after the work began, the explorer found himself standing in the sarcophagus chamber of Khafra. Besides the empty sarcophagus, Belzoni found the evidence that he had not been the first who had penetrated into the secret of the pyramid, for in addition to many graffiti on the walls of the chamber, which were written in charcoal and rubbed off at the slightest touch, there was an Arabic inscription which ran: “The Master Mohammed Ahmed, lapicide, has opened them; and the Master Othman attended this opening: and the King Ali Mohammed, from the beginning to the closing up.”