As soon as we left our carriage we were approached by the sheik of the village and a dozen swarthy Arabs, who, with their usual vociferous volubility, tried to prove that we, each of us, needed three men to help us up the pyramid. One took hold of each hand, and the other pushed and lifted us on the highest stones of this rough staircase. Pausing frequently for breath, we consumed three-quarters of an hour in the ascent, but the summit reached, one speedily forgets the physical effort required in the grand, solemn, far-reaching prospect over green plain and sandy desert—the living and the dead. Far away on the horizon line of the desert appear the sharp outlines of ten or twelve pyramids. Near us is a pyramid almost as large as the one on which we stand, the smooth casing still remaining on the top, and making that portion of it inaccessible. Clearly defined is the line of verdure which marks the overflow of the river. From June to October this broad plain is inundated to the depth of from ten to fifteen feet. This remarkable rise of the Nile waters is occasioned by the tropical rains, and the melting of the snows on the high mountain ranges at the equator. The rise and the retreat are equally rapid. In May the volume of its waters is only one-twentieth of that in October. The eternal youth of Nature, “as fresh as on creation’s morn,” and the hoary past contrast here most vividly. Where are they who planned and reared these mighty monuments? Gone and forgotten as we too shall be. The Arabs sat by themselves and chattered in low tones when they saw we wanted to be alone, but now and then they would gather around us like children, asking in very good English all sorts of questions, some in regard to America, its extent, climate, the cost of getting there, and prices paid to a laboring man. The dark, slippery, suffocating, steep slope which leads to the King’s Chamber is a much more trying journey than that to the summit, and yet one can hardly understand the Pyramids without exploring this interior room, which contains nothing but an empty stone sarcophagus. Over this rifled coffin we repeated that portion of the fifteenth of 1st Corinthians, which relates to the resurrection, while the four Arabs held the candles in perfect silence, and looked into our faces with a kind of wondering awe.