There is a wonderful fascination about this pyramid. One is never weary of looking at it--of repeating to one’s self that it is indeed the oldest building on the face of the whole earth. The king who erected it came to the throne, according to Manetho, about eighty years after the death of Mena, the founder of the Egyptian monarchy. All we have of him is his pyramid; all we know of him is his name. And these belong, as it were, to the infancy of the human race. In dealing with Egyptian dates one is apt to think lightly of periods that count only by centuries; but it is a habit of mind which leads to error and it should be combated. The present writer found it useful to be constantly comparing relative chronological eras; as, for instance, in realizing the immense antiquity of the Sakkârah pyramid, it is some help to remember that from the time when it was built by King Ouenephes to the time when King Khufu erected the great pyramid of Ghizeh, there probably lies a space of years equivalent to that which, in the history of England, extends from the date of the conquest to the accession of George II.[18] And yet Khufu himself--the Cheops of the Greek historians--is but a shadowy figure hovering upon the threshold of Egyptian history. And now the desert is left behind and we are nearing the palms that lead to Memphis. We have, of course, been dipping into Herodotus--every one takes Herodotus up the Nile--and our heads are full of the ancient glories of this famous city. We know that Mena turned the course of the river in order to build it on this very spot, and that all the most illustrious Pharaohs adorned it with temples, palaces, pylons and precious sculptures. We had read of the great Temple of Ptah that Rameses the Great enriched with colossi of himself; and of the sanctuary where Apis lived in state, taking his exercise in a pillared court-yard where every column was a statue; and of the artificial lake and the sacred groves and the obelisks and all the wonders of a city which, even in its later days, was one of the most populous in Egypt. Thinking over these things by the way, we agree that it is well to have left Memphis till the last. We shall appreciate it the better for having first seen that other city on the edge of the desert to which, for nearly six thousand years, all Memphis was quietly migrating, generation after generation. We know now how poor folk labored, and how great gentlemen amused themselves, in those early days when there were hundreds of country gentlemen like Ti, with town-houses at Memphis and villas by the Nile. From the Serapeum, too, buried and ruined as it is, one cannot but come away with a profound impression of the splendor and power of a religion which could command for its myths such faith, such homage, and such public works.