The most ancient and imposing monuments erected to the dead we find in Egypt. They are the Pyramids. What most excites our wonder at first sight of these astonishing constructions is their extraordinary magnitude, which at once makes us reflect upon the duration of time, the variety, superabundance and persistence of human energies which is inseparable from the completion of such colossal buildings. From the point of view of form there is nothing in them to protract attention: in a few minutes we have surveyed and taken in the entire effect. With this simplicity and uniformity of their form in view their object has ever been a subject of controversy. It is true that even the ancients, as for example Herodotus and Strabo, adduced the aim, which they subserved; but for all that both in former and more recent times, travellers and writers have contributed much that is fabulous and unwarranted in their reflections. The Arabs endeavoured to effect entrance by force, hoping to discover treasure in the interior of the Pyramids; such assaults, however, beyond disturbing much, have failed in their object to reach the actual passages and chambers. Europeans of a later date, among whom we may mention in particular for distinction, Belzoni, a native of Rome, and Caviglia of Genoa, have at last succeeded in ascertaining more accurate information with respect to the interior of these fabrics. Belzoni discovered the royal sepulchre in the Pyramid of Chephren. The entrances to the Pyramids were closed in the securest way by square blocks of stone, and it appears that Egyptians endeavoured in their construction so to effect matters that the entrance, even when discovered, could only be followed up and opened with the greatest difficulty. This proves to us that the Pyramids remained closed and could not be again used. Within their interior explorers have found chambers, passages, which point by suggestion to the ways, which the soul undertakes after death in its course and transmigration, great halls, channels beneath the earth at one time descending, at another mounting up. The royal sepulchre of Belzoni runs on in this way hewn out of the rock for a mile. In the principal hall stood a sarcophagus of granite, sunk in the ground; but all that was discovered in it was the remains of animal bones of a mummy, probably that of an Apis. The whole, however, proved beyond a doubt that the object in view was that of being a dwelling for the dead. The Pyramids differ in age, form, and size. The most ancient appear to be stones piled on one another in a more or less pyramidal shape. The more recent ones are constructed with uniformity; some are somewhat flattened out at the summit, others run up entirely to a point. On others have been found deposits, an explanation of which may be gathered from the description Herodotus[60] gives us when referring to the Pyramid of Cheops of the manner in which the Egyptians carried