Christ. Three hundred thousand men are said to have been employed twenty years upon its construction.

7. When the king's mummy was ready, it was put inside, and the entrance was carefully walled up and concealed. It remained thus closed for many centuries, until, in the year 820 of our era, one of the Caliphs of Cairo ordered a search for the opening, and it was finally discovered at quite a distance up from the ground. Nothing of importance was found there, and the Caliph was greatly disappointed, as he had expected a vast treasure which had been said to lie concealed there.

CXXIX. A VISIT TO THE GREAT PYRAMID.

PART II.

dig'-ni-fied, noble; würdevoll.

bound'-less, unlimited; grenzenlos.

del'-ta, the tract of land between two mouths of a river; Delta. tel'-e-scope, an instrument employed in viewing distant objects; Fernrohr.

1. As it now stands, the great pyramid consists of a series of solid steps from two to four feet high. It is seven hundred and forty-six feet long, and four hundred and eighty feet in height. It covers an area of over five hundred thousand square feet, or nearly thirteen acres. With the stones in this pyramid you could build a wall four feet high and two feet thick and something more than two thousand miles long; or you could build a wall twelve feet high and four feet thick all the way from Cincinnati to St. Louis; and if you piled it up around the city of New York, you would encircle that metropolis with a wall twenty feet thick and forty feet high. And all this stone was hewn from the quarries and moved and piled up before the days of gunpowder and steam.

2. To make the ascent, you yield yourself to the hands

of the two Arabs appointed to accompany you. They stand above and lift you up by the arms, at the same time indicating where you are to place your feet. The men I had were strong, healthy fellows, rather dignified in their bearing, and they spoke English, French, and Italian sufficiently well to be understood. They handled me without any difficulty. Now and then we halted to take breath and a swallow of water, and a glance at the country around and below us. In about fifteen minutes we were at the top, and the Arabs indulged in a hurrah as we got there.

3. Originally the summit was a point, or very nearly so; it is now a platform about thirty feet square, some of the blocks resting higher than others, and you can sit and look about you very comfortably. On the west is the boundless desert, north is the rich delta of the Nile, east is Cairo, beyond the river and backed by ranges of hills, and south there is the valley of the Nile opening between the double lines of desert on either side.

4. After a short stay on the summit, we proposed to descend. My two Arabs stepped ahead and took my hands as I jumped from step to step. I found it much easier than the ascent, as I had my weight to assist me. But to go inside is quite as wearisome work as to climb to the top, and many think it is worse. From the opening you descend about sixty feet through an inclined passage-way three feet five inches high and three feet eleven inches wide. Then you have an ascent at the same angle for nearly three hundred feet, some parts of the passage being quite low, and others expanding into a high gallery. At the end of this passage is the burial vault known as the King's Chamber, and containing nothing but an empty coffin of red granite.

5. The sides and roof of the chamber are also of polished granite; the room measures thirty-four feet by seventeen, and the height is little over nineteen feet. Below it is another apartment called the Queen's Chamber, somewhat smaller

than the upper one. The passage by which we enter the pyramid continues three hundred and twenty feet downward, and so straight is it that when you are at the lower end you can see the sky as if looking through the tube of a huge telescope. At the end of it there is a small chamber, and in this a well has been dug thirty-six feet deep, without finding any signs of water.

6. The heat in the interior of the pyramid is great, the air is close, and the dust almost stifling. Then there are the smoke of the candles and the noise made by the Arabs. So, like most travelers, we were satisfied with a brief examination of the chambers and passages, and felt relieved when we were again on the outside of the Great Pyramid.

Selected.

CXXX. THE CHIPPING OR GROUND SQUIRREL.

vi-vac'-i-ty, liveliness; Lebhaftigkeit.

skim, to pass lightly; huschen.

sub-ter-ra'-ne-an, being under ground; unterirdisch.

ex-cres'-cence, an outgrowth; Auswuchs.

chuck'-le, to laugh inwardly; to laugh in a half-suppressed

manner; kichern.

dor'-mant, sleeping; schlafend.

con-ject'-ure, to guess; vermuten.

ef-fect'-u-al, producing an intended effect; successful; wirksam;
erfolgreich.

rec-re-a'-tion, refreshment of the strength; Erholung.
rem-i-nis'-cence, recollection; Erinnerung.

in lieu of, instead of; anstatt.

ju ́-ve-nile, a youth; a boy; Junge.

ce-ler'-i-ty, swiftness; Geschwindigkeit.

1. The Chipping Squirrel is one of the most interesting of our quadrupeds. It is found in the most parts of the United States, and, being beautifully marked in its coloring, is known to everybody. It is full of vivacity, plays with the utmost grace and agility among the broken rocks or up

rooted stumps of trees about the farm or wood pasture; its clucking resembles the chip, chip, chip of a young chicken, and, although not musical, excites agreeable thoughts as it comes on the air.

2. We fancy we see one of these sprightly chipping squirrels as he runs before us with the speed of a bird, skimming along a log or fence, his jaws distended by the nuts he has gathered in the woods; he makes no pause till he reaches the entrance of his subterranean retreat and store-house. Now he stands upright, and his chattering cry is heard, but at the first step we make towards him, he disappears.

3. The chipping squirrel makes his burrow generally near the roots of trees, in the centre of a decayed stump, along fences or old walls, or in some bank, near the woods whence he obtains the greater portion of his food.

4. Some of these retreats have two or three openings at a little distance from each other. It rarely happens that this animal is caught by digging out its burrow. When hard pressed and closely pursued, it will betake itself to a tree, the trunk of which it ascends for a little distance with considerable rapidity, occasionally concealing itself behind a large branch, but generally stopping within twelve or fifteen feet of the ground, where it often clings with its body so closely pressed to the trunk that it is difficult to detect it; and it remains so immovable that it appears like a piece of bark or some excrescence, till the enemy has retired from the vicinity, when it once more descends, and by its renewed clucking seems to chuckle over its escape.

5. We had marked one of its burrows in autumn, which we conceived well adapted to our purpose, which was to dig it out. It was in the woods, on a sandy piece of ground, and the earth was strewed with leaves to the depth of eight inches, which we believed would prevent the frost from penetrating to any considerable depth. We had the place

opened in January, when the ground was covered with snow about five inches deep. The entrance of the burrow had been closed from within. We followed the course of the

small winding gallery with considerable difficulty.

6. The hole descended at first almost perpendicularly for about three feet. It then continued with one or two windings, rising a little near the surface until it had advanced about eight feet, when we came to a large nest made of oak leaves and dried grasses. Here lay, snugly covered, three chipping squirrels. Another was subsequently dug from one of the small lateral galleries, to which it had evidently retreated to avoid us. They were not dormant, and seemed ready to bite when taken in the hand; but they were not very active, and appeared somewhat sluggish and benumbed, which we conjectured was owing to their being exposed to sudden cold from our having opened their burrow.

7. There was about a gill of wheat and buckwheat in the nest; but in the galleries we afterwards dug out we obtained about a quart of the beaked hazelnuts, nearly a peck of acorns, some grains of Indian corn, about two quarts of buckwheat, and a very small quantity of grass seeds.

8. There is a simple, rustic, but effectual mode of hunting the ground squirrel, to which we are tempted to devote a paragraph.

9. Man has his hours of recreation, and so has the schoolboy; while the former is fond of the chase, and keeps his horses, dogs and guns, the latter when released from school gets up a little hunt agreeable to his own taste and limited resources. The boys have not yet been allowed to carry firearms, and have been obliged to adhere to the command of a careful mother- "Don't meddle with that gun, Billy, it may go off and kill you." But the chipmuck can be hunted without a gun, and Saturday, the glorious weekly return of their freedom and independence from the puzzling spellingbook, is selected for the important event.