weight; the giant graves of mighty rulers. They seemed examples of man's
creative power, and at the same time warnings of the vanity and
mutability of earthly greatness. For where was Chufu now,--the king who
had cemented that mountain of stone with the sweat of his subjects?
Where was the long-lived Chafra who had despised the gods, and, defiant
in the consciousness of his own strength, was said to have closed the
gates of the temples in order to make himself and his name immortal by
building a tomb of superhuman dimensions?

[Herodotus repeats, in good faith, that the builders of the great
Pyramids were despisers of the gods. The tombs of their faithful
subjects at the foot of these huge structures prove, however, that
they owe their bad repute to the hatred of the people, who could not
forget the era of their hardest bondage, and branded the memories of
their oppressors wherever an opportunity could be found. We might
use the word "tradition" instead of "the people," for this it is
which puts the feeling and tone of mind of the multitude into the
form of history.]

Their empty sarcophagi are perhaps tokens, that the judges of the dead
found them unworthy of rest in the grave, unworthy of the resurrection,
whereas the builder of the third and most beautiful pyramid, Menkera, who
contented himself with a smaller monument, and reopened the gates of the
temples, was allowed to rest in peace in his coffin of blue basalt.

There they lay in the quiet night, these mighty pyramids, shone on by the
bright stars, guarded by the watchman of the desert--the gigantic
sphinx,--and overlooking the barren rocks of the Libyan stony mountains.
At their feet, in beautifully-ornamented tombs, slept the mummies of
their faithful subjects, and opposite the monument of the pious Menkera