enough about
them, each investigator and writer upon the subject having plenty of
argument to support his special convictions and theory; but so far as
the simple truth is concerned the history of Cheops is much better
standing as a blank than resting amid a confusion of very thin
speculations. There is no genius evinced in the design or execution of
the pyramids. Neither art, taste, nor religion are in any way subserved
by these unequaled follies. Nothing could be ruder: there is no
architectural excellence exhibited in them; they are merely enormous
piles of stone; that is absolutely all. Some pronounce them marvelous
evidences of ancient greatness and power. True; but if it were
desirable, we could build loftier and larger ones in our day. As they
are surely over four thousand yours old we admit that they are
venerable, and they enjoy a certain consideration on that account. In
the religious instinct which led the Buddhists to build, at such
enormous expense of time and money, those cave temples of Elephanta,
Ellora, and Carlee; in the idolatrous Hindoo temples of Madura, Tanjore,
and Trichinopoly, the shrines of Ceylon, the pagodas of China, and the
rich temples of Nikko, one detects an underlying and elevating
sentiment, a grand and reverential idea, in which there may be more of
truth and acceptable veneration than we can appreciate; but in the
pyramids we have no expression of devotion; only an embodiment of
personal vanity, which hesitated at nothing for its gratification, and
which has only proved a total failure.

The immensity of the desert landscape, and the absence of any object for
comparison, make these three pyramids seem smaller than they are, but
the actual height of the largest, that of Cheops, is nearly five hundred
feet, and it looks to be of that height when one is far away from its
base. The fixed object of the pyramids is still a subject of learned
discussion, as well as by whom they were built. The theory that they are
royal tombs is generally accepted; and yet have not the mummies of bulls
and other animals been found in them? All record relating to Cheops is
at least very questionable; thus history fades into fable, and is
clouded with doubt. Bunsen claims for Egypt nearly seven thousand years
of civilization and prosperity before the building of these monstrous
monuments. We do not often pause to consider how little real history
there is. Conjecture is not history. If contemporary record so o