A thousand miles up the Nile, with upwards - NYU | Digital Library ...

CAIRO AM) THE GREAT PYRAMID. ic
which the Sphinx lies couchant. We wished to give our whole
attention, and all the short time at our disposal, to the Great
Pyramid only. To gain some impression of the outer aspect
and size of this enormous structure,—to steady our minds to
something like an understanding of its age,—was enough, and
more than enough, for so brief a visit.
For it is no easy task to realise, however imperfectly, the
duration of six or seven thousand years ; and the Great Pyramid,
which is supposed to have been some four thousand two hundred
and odd years old at the time of the birth of Christ, is now in
its seventh millennary. Standing there close against the
base of it ; touching it ; measuring her own height against one
of its lowest blocks ; looking up all the stages of that vast,
receding, rugged wall, which leads upward like an Alpine
buttress and seems almost to touch the sky, the Writer
suddenly became aware that these remote dates had never
presented themselves to her mind until this mopient as any-
thing but abstract numerals. Now, for the first time, they
resolved themselves into something concrete, definite, real.
They were no longer figures, but years with their changes of
season, their high and low Niles, their seed-times and harvests.
The consciousness of that moment will never, perhaps, quite
wear away. It was as if one had been snatched up for an
instant to some vast height overlooking the plains of Time,
and had seen the centuries mapped out beneath one's feet.
To appreciate the size of the Great Pyramid is less difficult
than to apprehend its age. No one who has walked the length
of one side, climbed to the top, and learned the dimensions
from Murray, can fail to form a tolerably clear idea of its mere
bulk. The measurements given by Sir Gardner Wilkinson are
as follows:—length of each side, 732 feet; perpendicular
height, 480 feet 9 inches; area 535,824 square feet.^ That
is to say, it stands 1 1 5 feet 9 inches higher than the cross on
the top of St. Paul's, and about 20 feet lower than Box Hill
in Surrey; and if transported bodily to London, it would a little
1 Since the first edition of this book was issued, the pubHcation of Mr,
W. M. Fhnders Petrie's standard work, entitled The Pyramids and Temples
of Gizeh, has for the first time placed a thoroughly accurate and scientific
description of the Great Pyramid at the disposal of students. Calculating