The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1878-12-28

He is carved out of the natural rock.
If we endeavor to picture to ourselves
the appearance of the plateau of the
pyramids before any tombs were placed
upon it, we can have little difficulty in
the task. Many similar platforms eX-
list all along the Nile in lower Egypt.
There is broad eXpanse of black allu-
vial soil, dotted with occasional palms,
and green here and there with corn or
clover. Beyond the reach of the mum
dation rises a wall of stone, thirty,
forty, perhaps fifty feet above the lower
level. The top is flat and covered with
loose sand, which blows over on the
fields below at every storm. Behind is
yet another ridge of higher rocks, and
a third step may be still further. On
the intermediate level the pyramids are
placed. But if we follow the track of
the first Pharaoh who came up from
Memphis to find a suitable place for his
tomb, threading his way by the side of
the Nile, through the network of canals,
toward a hollow in the long line of low
cliffs, the first object which would meet
his eye, standing up by itself out of the
sand drift, half way on the slope be-
tween the lower and the higher plat
forms, would be great mass or column
of rock some sixty CT seventy feet in
height, and backed by low ridge run
ming out a couple of hundred feet to-
ward the face of the hill Such isolated
rocks are common in Egypt. One of
them stands to the pyramid of Dashoor
Just as the sphinx stands to the pyra-
mid of Chephren. A similar rock
probably forms the core of the mysteri-
Gus tomb of Sneferoo, at Maydoon.
The rock may have already appeared to
bear the semblance of human face,
but it could not be overlooked. The
first rays of the morning sun would
strike it, and the sphinx, it is all hut
certain, must have been rough-hcwn by
the earliest occupiers of the tOmbs of
the ancient empire. 1t has more than
once been suggested that two sphinXes
sat by the pyramids, like the two Mem
mons in the plain of Thebes, and that
only one remains. But it is imDrOba-
BILE that two rocks to be carved were on
the same slope. If a second sphinx
ever existed, he may have been wholly
built up, circumstance which would
help to account for his total disappear
ance. In Charlotte Bronte's preface to
her sister shovel, "Wuthering Heights"
she speaks of her creation of the char
acter of Heathield in words which,
with slight change, describe the maker
of the sphinx. His work was "hewn
in a wild workshop, with simple tools
out Of simple materials" He found
the block of sandstone in the solitary
desert, and, gazing thereon he saw
how from the crsg might be elected a
head, savage, swart, sinister; a form
nodded with at least one element of
grandeur-power. He wrought with a
rude chisel and from no model but the
vision of his meditaUions. With time
and labor the crag took human shape,
and there it stands, colossal, dark and
frowning, half statue, half rock; in the
former sense, terrible and goblin-like;
in the latter, almost beautiful" But
the concluding lines of Currer Bell S
wonderful picture do not apply to the
sphinx; though its coloring is of 'mel-
low gray" no mOCrland moss clothes
it; no "Aeath with blooming bells and
balmy fragrance grows faithfully close
to the giants foot" an Arab sits as
tride on the ear and offers to chop a
large piece out of the eyeball for you
for half franc, or a small piece for a
piastre. SATURDAY, ReUietU.