uctures which implies that the architect had conceived the whole
structure in his mind from the first. The lengths of the several parts
are proportioned one to another. In the "Great Pyramid," the main
chamber would not have needed the five relieving chambers above it
unless it was known that it would have to be pressed down by a
superincumbent mass, such as actually lies upon it. Moreover, how is it
possible to conceive that in the later years of a decrepid monarch, the
whole of an enormous pyramid could be coated over with huge blocks--and
the blocks are largest at the external surface--the work requiring to be
pushed each year with more vigour, as becoming each year greater and
more difficult? Again, what shall we say of the external finish? Each
pyramid was finally smoothed down to a uniform sloping surface. This
alone must have been a work of years. Did a pyramid builder leave it to
his successor to finish his pyramid? It is at least doubtful whether any
pyramid at all would ever have been finished had he done so.

We must hold, therefore, that Khufu did suddenly conceive a design
without a parallel--did require his architect to construct him a tomb,
which should put to shame all previous monuments, and should with
difficulty be surpassed, or even equalled. He must have possessed much
elevation of thought, and an intense ambition, together with inordinate
selfishness, an overweening pride, and entire callousness to the
sufferings of others, before he could have approved the plan which his
master-builder set before him. That plan, including the employment of
huge blocks of stone, their conveyance to the top of a hill a hundred
feet high, and their emplacement, in some cases, at a further elevation
of above 450 feet, involved, under the circumstances of the time, such
an amount of human suffering, that no king who had any regard for the
happiness of his subjects could have consented to it. Khufu must have
forced his subjects to labour for a long term of years--twenty,
according to Herodotus--at a servile work which was wholly unproductive,
and was carried on amid their sighs and groans for no object but his own
glorification, and the supposed safe custody of his remains. Shafra must
have done nearly the same. Hence an evil repute attached to the pyramid
builders, whose names were handed down to posterity as those of
evil-minded and impious kings, who neglected the service of the gods to
gratify their own vanity, and,