Of all this harmonious conception but a few fragments remain. The necropolis is almost as empty and deserted as the desert which it adjoins. The silence is only broken by the cry of the jackal, by the footsteps of a few casual visitors hurrying along its deserted avenues, and by the harsh voices of the Bedouins who have taken possession of the Pyramid of Cheops, and, in their own fashion, do its honours to the curious visitor. But despoiled though they be of their ornaments and of their proper surroundings, the pyramids are yet among those monuments of the world which are sure to impress all who possess sensibility or powers of reflection. In a remarkable passage in the _Description générale de Memphis et des Pyramides_, Jomard has well defined the effect which they produce upon the traveller and the impressions which they leave behind: "The general effect produced by the pyramids is very curious. Their summits, when seen from a distance, look like those of high mountains standing out against the sky. As we approach them this effect diminishes; but when we arrive within a very short distance of their sides a totally different impression succeeds; we begin to be amazed, to be oppressed, almost to be stupefied by their size. When quite close to them their summits and angles can no longer be seen. The wonder which they cause is not like that caused by a great work of art. It is the sense of their simple grandeur of form and of the disproportion between the individual power and stature of man and these colossal creations of his hands. The eye can hardly embrace them, nor the imagination grasp their mass. We then begin to form some idea of the prodigious quantity of dressed stone which goes to make up their height. We see hundreds of stones each containing two hundred cubic feet and weighing some thirty tons, and thousands of others which are but little less. We touch them with our hands and endeavour to realize the power which must have been required to quarry, dress, carry, and fix such a number of colossal blocks, how many men must have been employed on the work, what machines they used, and how many years it must have taken; and the less we are able to understand all these things, the greater is our admiration for the patience and power which overcame such obstacles."[231] [231] _Description de l'Égypte, Antiquités_, vol. v. p. 597. § 3. _The Tomb under the Middle Empire._