EXCAVATIONS AT MERGE trench ran from east to west, gradually sloping down from the hill-side into the hill until it went in under the pyramid to the sepulchral chamber. Thus it was perfectly certain that there had never been any chamber in the pyramid, and that the body of the deceased for whom the tomb was made was laid in a little cave, hewn in the rock, which was reached by means of a sloping trench cut in the hill-side. The trench was filled up after the deceased was deposited in his last abode, and a chapel was built, close to the east side of the pyramid, immediately over its deepest part. The demolition of this pyramid proved that the masonry work of the pyramid was not sufficiently good to have permitted the making of a chamber inside it. We next attacked Pyramid No. 14 (Cailliaud O, Hoskins E, and Lepsius No. 7), the upper part of which was in a somewhat ruined condition ; the lower half was, however, in an excellent state of preservation, and was well built. The base of this pyramid is not a true square, for the north and south sides are thirty-one feet long, and tHe east and west sides twenty-eight feet long. This pyramid was built for a man, for on the remains of the chapel walls were figures of an officer or prince, who in one hand grasped a bow and arrows, and in the other held the end of a rope which was tied round the necks of a number of kneeling captives, who had their arms tied behind their backs in agonizing positions. The remains of the chapel were removed, and then we decided to drive a passage from the east to the west side of the p3'ramid. So soon as the middle stones were removed from the lower layers of the casing on the east side, the upper layers of stone began to bend in the middle and, where the weight was greatest, to crack.

It was manifestly impossible to make the passage through the pyramid without relieving the upper portion of it from the strain, and, as no proper timbers were available, we obtained permission to use the old railway sleepers which were lying by the side of the line about three miles off. When a number of these had arrived, we cut and prepared uprights, and then laying three sleepers on their edges, and naihng them together, we laid them on the uprights, which were placed one on each side of the passage, and, having driven them in with hammers, they carried the whole weight of the east side of the casing of the pyramid without 349