Respecting the attempt near the shoulder, he says:—“The operations carried on at the Sphinx were suspended, and the hole made near the shoulder, about twenty-five and a half feet in depth, was plugged up.”

It was Moses who had the Sphinx cut out of the solid rock on which it stands. The features and the head-dress of the statue represent in colossal proportions the features and the head-dress of his beloved Ethiopian bride, who was “black but comely.”

The statue served as the royal entrance into the Great Pyramid, near which it is constructed. That this Pyramid has been entered from this direction is evident from the fact that a ramp-stone has been taken away from its place by some person who approached it by a subterranean passage.

“The original builders,[[49]] then, were not those who knocked out from within on the well side that now lost ramp-stone, and exposed the inlet to the well-mouth as it is presently seen, near the north-west corner of the Grand Gallery. Neither was Al Mamoun the party, for no one could have done it except by entering the well from the very bottommost depths of the subterranean region; and he, the son of Caliph Haroun Al Raschid, and all his crew, did not descend further down the entrance-passage than merely to the level of his own forced hole, which is not subterranean at all. Nor is the credit claimed for any of his Arab successors, who rather alluded to the well as an already existing feature in their earliest time, and one they did not understand; in large part, too, because they had only seen, and only knew of, the upper end of it in the north-west corner of the Grand Gallery floor; and there it was simply a deep hole, the beginning of darkness and the shadow of death.

“Who, then, did burst out that now missing ramp-stone? Who, indeed! For the whole band of Egyptological writers we have mentioned appear to be convinced that ages before Caliph Al Mamoun made his way by blundering and smashing,—long ages, too, before Mohammed was born, and rather at and about the period of Judah being carried captive to Babylon,—the Egyptians themselves had entered the Great Pyramid by cunning art and tolerable understanding of its mere methods of construction, and had closed it again when they left.”

Yes; this Sphinx was the grand royal entrance by which Moses and his consort entered into the interior of the Great Pyramid. He, being inspired by Heaven, had foreseen that in future ages the knowledge of this entrance would be forgotten; he therefore removed the ramp-stone and left the space it occupied open, so as to excite the curiosity of those who might visit the spot.

He also left the world a specimen of this entrance in a wooden statue, built far away, that this wooden construction might serve to unriddle the passage in the Sphinx, which leads into the Great Pyramid. The openings in the head and back of the Sphinx were to give light and air to the passage. The following is a description of the wooden statue, taken from Captain Meares’ voyages:—[[50]]

“After the English had been for some time in King George’s Sound, the Americans began to make use of sails of mats, in imitation of my ship. Not long after this the English were waited upon by Wicananish, a prince of greater wealth and power than any they had yet seen, who invited them to visit his kingdom, which lay at some distance to the southward, that a commercial intercourse might be established for the advantage of both parties.

“The invitation was accepted, and Wicananish himself met the ‘Felice’ at some distance from the shore with a small fleet of canoes, and, coming on board, piloted them into the harbour. They found the capital to be at least three times the size of Nootka. The country round was covered with impenetrable woods of great extent, in which were trees of enormous size.

“After the King and his chiefs had been entertained on board, the English were in return invited to a feast by Wicananish; and it is not easy to conceive a more interesting picture of savage life than witnessed on this occasion. On entering the house, we were absolutely astonished at the vast area it enclosed.