of the Pyramids, when we suddenly came in face of the most remarkable object on which my eye ever lighted.  Somehow or other I had not thought of the Sphinx till I saw her before me.  There she was in all her imposing magnitude, crouched on the margin of the Desert, looking over the fertile valley of the Nile, and her gaze fixed on the East as if in earnest expectation of the sun-rising.  And such a gaze!  The mystical light and deep shadows cast by the moon, gave to it an intensity which I cannot attempt to describe.  To me it seemed a look, earnest, searching, but unsatisfied.  For a long time I remained transfixed, endeavouring to read the meaning conveyed by this wonderful eye; but I was struck after a while by what seemed a contradiction in the expression of the eye and of the mouth.  There was a singular gentleness and hopefulness in the lines of the mouth, which appeared to be in contrast with the anxious eye.  Mr. Bowlby, who was a very sympathique inquirer into the significancy of this wonderful monument, agreed with me in thinking that the upper part of the face spoke of the intellect striving, and striving vainly, to solve the mystery—­(What mystery? the mystery, shall we say, of God’s universe or of man’s destiny?)—­while the lower indicated a moral conviction that all must be well, and that this truth would in good time be made manifest.

We could hardly tear ourselves away from this fascinating spectacle to draw nearer to the Great Pyramid, which stood beside us, its outline sharply traced in the clear atmosphere.  We walked round and round it, thinking of the strange men whose ambition to secure immortality for themselves had expressed itself in this giant creation.  The enormous blocks of granite brought from one knows not where, built up one knows not how; the form selected solely for the purpose of defying the assaults of time; the contrast between the conception embodied in these constructions and the talk of the frivolous race by whom we were surrounded, and who seemed capable of no thought beyond a desire for daily ’backshish,’—­all this seen and felt under the influence of the dim moonlight was very striking and impressive.  We spent some time in moving from place to place along the shadow cast by the Pyramid upon the sand, and observing the effect produced by bringing the moon sometimes to its apex and sometimes to other points on its outline.  I felt no disposition to exchange for sleep the state of dreamy half- consciousness in which I was wandering about; but at length I lay down on the shingly sands, with a block of granite for a pillow, and passed an hour or two, sometimes dozing, sometimes wakeful, till one of our attendants informed me that the sun would shortly rise, and that it was time to commence to ascend the Pyramid, if we intended to witness from its summit his first appearance.  We had intended to spend the night in the tombs, but it was so hot that we were only too glad to select