.
The habitation of the Apis, the lords of the necropolis, is little more than two hundred yards away.

We are told that the place is now lighted up and that we may betake ourselves thither.
The descent is by a narrow, rapidly sloping passage, dug in the soil, between banks of sand and broken stones.

We are now completely sheltered from the bitter wind which blows across the desert, and from the dark doorway that opens before us comes a breath of air as from an oven.

It is always dry and hot in the underground funeral places of Egypt, which make indeed admirable stoves for mummies.

The threshold once crossed we are plunged first of all in darkness and, preceded by a lantern, make our way, by devious turnings, over large flagstones, passing obelisks, fallen blocks of stone and other gigantic debris, in a heat that continually increases.
At last the principal artery of the hypogeum appears, a thoroughfare more than five hundred yards long, cut in the rock, where the Bedouins have prepared for us the customary feeble light.
It is a place of fearful aspect.