paces, another marble pillar, being round, called Pompey his pillar: this
pillar standeth vpon a great square stone, euery square is fifteene foote,
and the same stone is fifteene foote high, and the compasse of the pillar
is 37 foote, and the height of it is 101 feete, which is a wonder to thinke
how euer it was possible to set the said pillar vpon the said square stone.
The port of the said Citie is strongly fortified with two strong Castles,
and one other Castle within the citie, being all very well planted with
munition: [Sidenote: Cayro.] and there is to the Eastward of this Citie,
about three dayes iourney the citie of Grand Cayro, otherwise called
Memphis: it hath in it by report of the registers bookes which we did see,
to the number of 2400 Churches, and is wonderfully populous, and is one
dayes iourney about the wals, which was iourneyed by one of our Mariners
for triall thereof. Also neere to the saide citie there is a place called
the Pyramides, being as I may well terme it, one of the nine wonders of the
world: that is, seuen seuerall places of flint and marble stone, foure
square, the wals thereof are seuen yards thicke in those places that we did
see: the squarenes is in length about twentie score euery square, being
built as it were a pointed diamond, broad at the foote, and small or narrow
at the toppe: the heigth of them, to our judgement, doth surmount twise the
heighth of Paules steeple: within the said Pyramides, no man doth know what
there is, for that they haue no entrance but in the one of them, there is a
hole where the wall is broken, and so we went in there, hauing torch light
with vs, for that it hath no light to it, and within the same, is as it
were a great hall, in the which there is a costly tombe, which tombe they
say, was made for kinq Pharao in his life time, but he was not buried
there, being drowned in the red sea: also there are certaine vauts or
dungeons, which goe downe verie deepe vnder those Pyramides with faire
staires, but no man dare venter to goe downe into them, by reason that they
can cary no light with them, for the dampe of the earth doth put out the
light: the red sea is but three dayes iourney from this place, and