Watching that prince beloved who fills the throne
Of Egypt’s plains, and calls the Nile his own.
That heavenly monarch who his foes defies,
Like Vulcan powerful, and like Pallas wise.’
“This remarkable statue is again as much under the dominion of the desert as it was half a century ago; and, consequently, it now meets the eye of the Egyptian traveller shrouded in sand to the same depth as before.
“Dr. Richardson relates that the wind and the Arabs had replaced the covering on this venerable piece of antiquity, and hence the lower parts were quite invisible. The breast, shoulders, and neck, which are those of a human being, remain uncovered, as also the back, which is that of a lion; the neck is very much eroded, and, to a person near, the head seems as if it were too heavy for its support. The head-dress has the appearance of an old-fashioned wig, projecting out about the ears like the hair of the Berberi Arabs;[[47]] the ears project considerably, the nose is broken, the whole face has been painted red, which is the colour assigned to the ancient inhabitants of Egypt, and to all the deities of the country except Osiris. The features are Nubian, or what, from ancient representations, may be called ancient Egyptian, which is quite different from the negro feature. The expression is particularly placid and benign; so much so, that the worshipper of the Sphinx might hold up his god as superior to all the other gods of wood and stone which the blinded nations worshipped.
“Pococke found the head and neck—all that were above ground—to be twenty-seven feet high; the breast was thirty-three feet wide; and the entire length about a hundred and thirty. Pliny estimated it at a hundred and thirteen feet long and sixty-three in height. According to Dr. Richardson, the stretch of the back is about a hundred and twenty feet, and the elevation of the head above the sand from thirty to thirty-five, a result which accords pretty nearly with the measurement of Coutelle. It is obvious, at the same time, that the discrepancy in these reports as to the elevation of the figure must be attributed to the varying depth of the sand, which appears to have accumulated greatly since the days of the Roman naturalist.
“There is no opening found in the body of the statue, whereby to ascertain whether it is hollow or not; but we learn from Dr. Pococke that there is an entrance both in the back and in the top of the head, the latter of which, he thinks, might serve for the arts of the priests in uttering oracles, while the former might be meant for descending to the apartments beneath.”
Colonel Howard-Vyse made ineffectual attempts to pierce the Sphinx; the result, in the back of the statue, he gives in these words:—
“The boring-rods were broken, owing to the carelessness of the Arabs, at the depth of twenty-seven feet in the back of the Sphinx. Various attempts were made to get them out, and on the 21st of July[[48]] gunpowder was used for that purpose; but, being unwilling to disfigure this venerable monument, the excavation was given up, and several feet of boring-rods were left in it. During the operation a very beautiful fossil of a reed was discovered, which is now in the British Museum.”