These little mounds
gradually grew in size, because the rich people built higher
mounds than the poor and there was a good deal of competition
to see who could make the highest hill of stones. The
record was made by King Khufu, whom the Greeks called
Cheops and who lived thirty centuries before our era. His
mound, which the Greeks called a pyramid (because the
Egyptian word for high was pir-em-us) was over five hundred
feet high.
It covered more than thirteen acres of desert which is three
times as much space as that occupied by the church of St.
Peter, the largest edifice of the Christian world.
During twenty years, over a hundred thousand men were
busy carrying the necessary stones from the other side of the
river--ferrying them across the Nile (how they ever managed
to do this, we do not understand), dragging them in many instances
a long distance across the desert and finally hoisting
them into their correct position. But so well did the King's
architects and engineers perform their task that the narrow
passage-way which leads to the royal tomb in the heart of the
stone monster has never yet been pushed out of shape by the
weight of those thousands of tons of stone which press upon
it from all sides.
THE STORY OF EGYPT
THE RISE AND FALL OF EGYPT
THE river Nile was a kind friend but occasionally it was
a hard taskmaster.
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