THE EGYPTIAN SUDAN open the pyramids previous to 1897, but none had succeeded. Some people had set to work by making holes at the corners and in their sides, but in both cases they merely succeeded in laying bare the cores of the buildings, and their efforts only resulted in the destruction of the pyramids. Others, led astray, no doubt, by the "false doors " at the ends of the chapels, were convinced that the sepulchral chambers lay behind these, and broke away the pyramid casings behind them in the hope of entering them. It is only fair to say that such attempts were usually made by travellers, who, knowing nothing about the construction of the pyramids, thought it would be easy to effect an entrance into them. The natives in the neighbourhood, who during the last few generations have stripped the stone casings from the pyramids of Tankasi, Kurru, and Zuma, knew better than to waste their time and trouble in digging through the cores, and contented themselves with carrying away stones when they wanted them. It seemed to me only too certain that the dead were not buried in chambers inside the pyramids, and no one who had examined the tombs of all periods in Egypt could do otherwise than believe that the dead lay in receptacles under ground. In order, however, to make quite certain about the matter, the stones were removed from one corner of pyramid P, and a clean boring several feet long was made ; nothing came out of the hole except stone, sand, and lime roughly mixed together, and the hole was therefore filled up, and the stones replaced in the casing work.

When this experimental work was over, a party of from thirty to forty men was set to work to find the opening of the pit or shaft which, we assumed, existed and would lead to the place or chamber wherein the deceased was laid. We dug a trench some two feet deep round all four sides of the pyramid, and laid bare the platform on which it rested, but found no trace of any pit or opening.

Still assuming that such a pit did exist, the trench was deepened on the east side, and finally about half way along it the picks struck a stone so hard that we could not break it in the ordinary way. When the surface of the stone was cleared it appeared to be a huge slab of ironstone, about ten feet long, six feet wide, and ten inches thick. The fact that it was set in a bed of lime proved that its position was not the work of nature, and its presence suggested 170