DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.6552#0239
200
APPENDIX.
eastern angle, and observed that the northern side was most
worn, by reason of the humidity of the wind from that quarter.
The entrance, he says, was equally distant from each corner
of the northern front; and he concludes that it had been origin-
ally closed up. After the Janissaries had fired off their guns into
the entrance, he entered with an Arab guide, whom he terms a
Moor, by " a most dreadful passage, and no less cumbersome,
not above a yard in breadth and four feet in height, each stone
containing that measure ; so that always stooping, and sometimes
creeping, by reason of the rubbish, we descended (not by stairs,
but as down the steep of a hill,) one hundred feet, where the
place, for a little circuit, enlarged, and the fearful descent con-
tinued, which, they say, none ever durst attempt any further,
save that a Basha of Cairo, curious to search into the secrets
thereof, caused divers condemned persons to undertake the per-
formance, well stored with lights and other provision; and that
some of them ascended again well nigh thirty miles off in the
deserts—a fable devised only to beget wonder; but others have
written that, at the bottom, there is a spacious pit eighty-six
cubits deep, filled, at the overflow, by concealed conduits in the
midst of a little island, and on that a tomb, containing the body
of Cheops, a king of Egypt, and the builder of this Pyramid,
which with the truth hath a greater affinity ; for, since, I have
been told by one, out of his own experience, that in the utter-
most depths there is a large square place, though without water,
into which he was led by another entry, opening to the south,8
known but unto few, that now open being shut by some order,
and entered at this place where we feared to descend. A turning
on the right hand leads into a little room, which, by reason of
the noisome vapour and uneasy passage, we refused to enter.
Clambering over the mouth of the aforesaid dungeon, we
ascended as upon the bow of an arch, the way no larger than
the former, about one hundred and twenty feet. Here we passed
through a long entry, which led directly forward, so low that it took
even from us that uneasy benefit of stooping, and which brought
us into a little room with a compact roof, more long than broad,
of polished marble, whose grave-like smell, half-full of rubbish,
forced our quick return. Climbing also over this entrance, we
8 The continuation of the entrance-passage appears to be confounded with the
well; and the unfinished passage from the subterraneous chamber to have given rise
to the idea of a southern entrance.
APPENDIX.
eastern angle, and observed that the northern side was most
worn, by reason of the humidity of the wind from that quarter.
The entrance, he says, was equally distant from each corner
of the northern front; and he concludes that it had been origin-
ally closed up. After the Janissaries had fired off their guns into
the entrance, he entered with an Arab guide, whom he terms a
Moor, by " a most dreadful passage, and no less cumbersome,
not above a yard in breadth and four feet in height, each stone
containing that measure ; so that always stooping, and sometimes
creeping, by reason of the rubbish, we descended (not by stairs,
but as down the steep of a hill,) one hundred feet, where the
place, for a little circuit, enlarged, and the fearful descent con-
tinued, which, they say, none ever durst attempt any further,
save that a Basha of Cairo, curious to search into the secrets
thereof, caused divers condemned persons to undertake the per-
formance, well stored with lights and other provision; and that
some of them ascended again well nigh thirty miles off in the
deserts—a fable devised only to beget wonder; but others have
written that, at the bottom, there is a spacious pit eighty-six
cubits deep, filled, at the overflow, by concealed conduits in the
midst of a little island, and on that a tomb, containing the body
of Cheops, a king of Egypt, and the builder of this Pyramid,
which with the truth hath a greater affinity ; for, since, I have
been told by one, out of his own experience, that in the utter-
most depths there is a large square place, though without water,
into which he was led by another entry, opening to the south,8
known but unto few, that now open being shut by some order,
and entered at this place where we feared to descend. A turning
on the right hand leads into a little room, which, by reason of
the noisome vapour and uneasy passage, we refused to enter.
Clambering over the mouth of the aforesaid dungeon, we
ascended as upon the bow of an arch, the way no larger than
the former, about one hundred and twenty feet. Here we passed
through a long entry, which led directly forward, so low that it took
even from us that uneasy benefit of stooping, and which brought
us into a little room with a compact roof, more long than broad,
of polished marble, whose grave-like smell, half-full of rubbish,
forced our quick return. Climbing also over this entrance, we
8 The continuation of the entrance-passage appears to be confounded with the
well; and the unfinished passage from the subterraneous chamber to have given rise
to the idea of a southern entrance.