a long inclined chute, and dripped candle-grease all over us. This chute
was not more than twice as wide and high as a Saratoga trunk, and was
walled, roofed and floored with solid blocks of Egyptian granite as wide
as a wardrobe, twice as thick and three times as long. We kept on
climbing, through the oppressive gloom, till I thought we ought to be
nearing the top of the pyramid again, and then came to the "Queen's
Chamber," and shortly to the Chamber of the King. These large apartments
were tombs. The walls were built of monstrous masses of smoothed
granite, neatly joined together. Some of them were nearly as large
square as an ordinary parlor. A great stone sarcophagus like a bath-tub
stood in the centre of the King's Chamber. Around it were gathered a
picturesque group of Arab savages and soiled and tattered pilgrims, who
held their candles aloft in the gloom while they chattered, and the
winking blurs of light shed a dim glory down upon one of the
irrepressible memento-seekers who was pecking at the venerable
sarcophagus with his sacrilegious hammer.

We struggled out to the open air and the bright sunshine, and for the
space of thirty minutes received ragged Arabs by couples, dozens and
platoons, and paid them bucksheesh for services they swore and proved by
each other that they had rendered, but which we had not been aware of
before--and as each party was paid, they dropped into the rear of the
procession and in due time arrived again with a newly-invented delinquent
list for liquidation.

We lunched in the shade of the pyramid, and in the midst of this
encroaching and unwelcome company, and then Dan and Jack and I started
away for a walk. A howling swarm of beggars followed us--surrounded us
--almost headed us off. A sheik, in flowing white bournous and gaudy
head-gear, was with them. He wanted more bucksheesh. But we had