"The Arabs used to have the trick of taking away the lights, and leaving visitors in the black darkness, where they might easily become lunatics in a short time. They would stay away till they thought their victim was badly frightened, and then they shouted from the passage-way that they would only bring a light on condition of a heavy backsheesh. Many a person has been robbed in this way, and not a season passes without an outrage of this sort. Several times the government has been obliged to punish these rascals. They behave comparatively well for a short while after receiving punishment, but very soon they begin their outrages again.
SECTION OF THE GREAT PYRAMID.
"The passage by which we enter the pyramid continues at the same angle for more than three hundred feet, and it is so straight that you can see the sky from the farther end, as though looking through the tube of a telescope. It is said that the north star was visible through this passage-way two thousand years ago, but its position has changed so that it is now out of range.
THE SPHINX.
"From the pyramid we went to see the Sphinx, which is about a quarter of a mile away in a south-easterly direction. It had originally the head of a man, the breast of a woman, and the body of a lion. But only the head and part of the back are now visible, the rest being covered by sand. By some it is thought to be as old as the Great Pyramid, or even older, while others believe it was made in the eighteenth dynasty, or long after the pyramids were built. The whole figure was hewn from the solid rock, and there was formerly a temple between the paws and directly beneath the head of the Sphinx.
"We walked around it, and one of us climbed up as far as he could without too much danger of a fall. It is an enormous head, as you will understand when we tell you that the width of the face is 13 feet 8 inches, the ear is 4½ feet long, the nose 5½, and the mouth 7½. From the top of the head to the pavement below was 66 feet, and the length of the body is 140 feet. It is 30 feet from the top of the forehead to the bottom of the chin, and the front paws are 55 feet long. Don't these figures give you an idea of the grandeur of the Sphinx?