of the day on which he discovered this tomb, he says, 'I may call it one of the best, perhaps, of my life; it led me to the fortunate spot which has paid me for all the trouble I took in my researches.'
On his return to Cairo, he was much annoyed to hear that the credit of the discoveries he had made had been usurped by others, who had been announced, by name, in the English journals, as the means of bringing to light the principal temples which he had so long been employed in excavating. Accordingly he resolved, in future, to keep his operations as secret as possible; and with this view, went alone, to inspect the second great pyramid of Ghizeh, 'that enormous mass which, for so many ages, has baffled the conjectures of ancient and modern writers;' and which, whether one solid mass, or possessing any cavity in the interior, no one had yet been able to ascertain. Notwithstanding, however, the difficulty of the attempt, and the uncertainty of success, he resolved on making an effort to discover an entrance to the tomb; a project for the undertaking of which, £20,000 had been considered by Mr. Drouetti necessary, while Belzoni determined to begin it with the small sum of £200, all he, at that moment, possessed. Having procured the requisite number of workmen, he commenced his operations, and after a month's labor, to his inexpressible delight, found a passage, and penetrated into the centre of the pyramid. So unsuccessful, however, were his attempts at first, that those who came to see him at work, ridiculed the idea of his proceeding further, and the Count de Forbin, says Belzoni, 'requested, in a kind of sarcastic manner, when I had succeeded in opening the pyramid, (which, no doubt, he supposed I never would,) that I would send him a plan of it.' Accordingly Belzoni sent it to the count, who taking advantage of the opportunity, on his arrival in Paris, caused it to be published in the newspapers, that he himself had penetrated into the pyramid, and produced the plan as an evidence.
Having sent some account of his proceedings to England, Belzoni made a third journey to Thebes, whence, after taking models in wax of the principal tombs, he set out on a voyage to the Red Sea, principally with the intention of visiting Sarkiet Minor, said to be the site of ancient Berenice. Accordingly, on the 16th of September, 1818, accompanied by Mr. Beechey, he embarked at Gornou, and sailing down the Nile, was witness to one of the most calamitous inundations ever known; the river having risen three feet and a half higher than usual, and swept away several villages and some hundred of their inhabitants. On leaving the Nile, he proceeded across the desert to the Red Sea, the coast of which he found to have been accurately described by Bruce; and, at Cape el Golahen, he discovered the ruins of a town, which, from his own observations, and those of the geographer, D'Anville, he concluded to be the site of ancient Berenice, of which city he had found no traces at Sarkiet Minor. Returning to Gornou, he was met by Mr. Salt and Mr. Banks, the latter of whom, having been authorized to take possession of the obelisk found by Belzoni in the island of Philoe, engaged him to remove it down the Nile to Alexandria, preparatory to its embarkation for England. On reaching the spot where it lay, he, after some opposition on the part of Mr. Drouetti, who claimed the obelisk as his own, commenced his operations for putting it on board, which he effected after a delay of three days, caused by its slipping from the machine into the water. Having
