The Pillar of Fire; or, Israel in Bondage

by J. H. Ingraham

I had leisure now to contemplate the scene before me. The personation of majesty, the sphinx, fills the breadth of the approach between the massive pillars of the colonnade. Between his fore-paws, which extend fifty feet, while the body is nearly three times this measure, stands a beautiful temple faced with oriental alabaster. His head is crowned with a helmet slightly convex, upon which, like a crest, is affixed the sacred uræus or serpent, shining with gold. The cape or neck-band of the helmet is of scales, colored blue, red, green, and orange, intermingled with gilding. A great and full beard descends over his breast, immediately under which, and between his feet, is the summit of the temple where sacrifices are daily offered to the god. Above his towering brow soars the mighty pyramid before which this colossus keeps guard.

"The majesty of this image, O prince," said the high-priest, as, leaning at every step upon his slender acacia rod, he walked by my side, "impresses you."

"It is the most majestic of all the gods of Egypt," I answered.

"Yes. Its age is nearly coeval with the pyramid."

"On the pyramidion base of the left obelisk in front of the temple of Osiris, have I not seen reposing four small sphinxes copied from this?"

"Thou hast seen them. That obelisk is many ages old; yet long before it, was this sphinx-god, as silent, majestic, and immovable in eternal repose as you behold him now."

At the termination of the avenue of direct approach, we descended an inclined plane to a platform of marble, on which is an image of Osiris in stone, and were brought nearly opposite the lower part of its face. Then another flight of steps, cased with polished porphyry, brought us on a level with the top of the temple. In the centre of this level platform stands a statue of Horus, cast in bronze. Thence descending another flight of thirty broad steps, we stood in the space between the enormous feet of the sphinx, and directly before the beautiful temple.

Our gradual approach in this descent, during which the sphinx was kept constantly in view, rising above us as we descended, heightened the impressions first made upon me by its colossal size; and I beheld, with new emotions of sublimity, its posture of repose and calm majesty of aspect.

A priest, in the full costume of his sacred office, stood at the door, and preceded by him we entered. As it was the hour of oblation, he held a censer in his hand, and approaching an altar before a granite tablet at the end of the temple, he invoked the mysterious god. The temple has no roof, but is exquisitely decorated and painted with sacred symbols. On each side stands a tablet of limestone. The tablet over the altar is inscribed with the name of the designer of the sphinx, Menes, the first mortal king after the general overflow of the mountains, and also with the destruction of the gigantic gods by the uprising of unknown oceans upon the globe. The tablet holds his shield, and on it is pictured the escape of the son of the ancient gods, in a ship, which is resting upon a mountain peak. In this tradition, mother, we find repeated our Phœnician history of the flood, before the days of the first kings. Without doubt all nations retain a similar tradition. Upon the same tablet is also a representation of a later king offering incense and libations to the god to whom the sphinx is consecrated. The tablets on the side also represent kings offering prayer to the god. The floor is beautifully tesselated with variegated stones; and on all sides are ivory or silver tables, covered with beautifully shaped vases, containing offerings of worshippers. There are, besides, ten shrines before the altar, upon each of which rests a golden crown, gifts of kings of other lands. Without question this temple of the sphinx is the richest in Egypt in gifts, as well as most honored by its Pharaohs. Is it not the vestibule to the grand pyramidal temple which is the tomb of the first mortal king?

But, my dear mother, I must not linger at the feet of the sphinx. Leaving the temple, we ascended one of two broad stair-cases, and mounting to a succession of terraces, adorned with statues of gods, the vast bulk of the sphinx being on our right, we reached a noble stone platform behind the image, upon which stands an ancient figure, in coarse marble, worn by age, of Chephres the Great. He stamps a sea-dragon under his feet, and upon his capped head is the beak of a galley, with the head and wings of a dove. In this symbol, dear mother, behold again the representation of the deluge, and the dove that guided the ship which held Chephren, or Chephres, and his father, the god Noachis, or Noah.