We approached the central pylon along a paved court, across which two hundred chariots could have driven in a line. This court was entirely surrounded by a double row of majestic columns, with the lotus-leaf capitals I have before described. The vastness of their proportions seemed to be increased by contrast with a group of priests, who looked like pigmies in size as they stood by their bases. The gigantic entablature, which united their summits, was covered with sacred symbols, richly colored, and crowned with statues of kings, hewn out of the dark-gray granite of Ethiopia. But some of these were mutilated by Time, which, indeed, had thrown its mantle of decay over the whole,--pillars, architecture, and sculpture; for this court is coeval with the sphinx crouched at its entrance, and but a little later than the two pyramids. In a few centuries, decay will have brought the mighty fabric to the earth; for, massive as it looks, it is built of brick, covered with pictured stucco; but the pyramids of stone, which have withstood the lapse of ages beyond history, will last as long as the everlasting hills of granite from which their enormous blocks were hewn. Passing beneath the great portal, we found ourselves in the sacred square of the temple of the Pyramids, and I could now perceive the mighty design. Connected by stupendous columnar wings, the pyramids rose in sublime grandeur on either hand. Their summits shone with the light of the setting sun, which, reflected from the polished casing of the pictured tiles yet remaining near the top, and that once covered the whole surface from base to apex, lent a splendor to them indescribable. On the opposite side of the quadrangle, formed by the temple in front and the bases of the pyramids on the two sides, is a dark grove of palms, intermingled with statues and altars; and beyond rise the dark hills of Libya--a fitting and solemn background to the scene. About the summits of the Queen's Pyramid, which is a little smaller than the other, though it appears to be of equal height, from the superior elevation of the platform of rock on which it stands, soared flocks of the white ibis, their snow-white wings flashing like pinions of silver as they wheeled in mid-air. At that immense height they looked no larger than sparrows. A statue of Horus, whose name I had also seen inscribed on the tablet of the temple of the Sphinx, rose a colossal monolith in the centre of the quadrangle, with one of Thoth upon his right, and another of Anubis on his left hand. These figures were symbolical of the funereal use of the pyramids between which they stood.