One of the most appreciative of travellers thus describes the impression made upon him by this hoary sculpture:-- "After all that we have seen of colossal statues, there was something stupendous in the sight of that enormous head--its vast projecting wig, its great ears, its open eyes, the red colour still visible on its cheek; the immense proportion of the whole lower part of its face. Yet what must it have been when on its head there was the royal helmet of Egypt; on its chin the royal beard; when the stone pavement by which men approached the pyramids ran up between its paws; when immediately under its breast an altar stood, from which the smoke went up into the gigantic nostrils of that nose, now vanished from the face, never to be conceived again! All this is known with certainty from the remains that actually exist deep under the sand on which you stand, as you look up from a distance into the broken but still expressive features. And for what purpose was this sphinx of sphinxes called into being, as much greater than all other sphinxes as the pyramids are greater than all other temples or tombs? If, as is likely, he lay couched at the entrance, now deep in sand, of the vast approach to the second, that is, the central pyramid, so as to form an essential part of this immense group; still more, if, as seems possible, there was once intended to be a brother sphinx on the northern side as on the southern side of the approach, its situation and significance were worthy of its grandeur. And if further the sphinx was the giant representative of royalty, then it fitly guards the greatest of royal sepulchres, and with its half human, half animal form, is the best welcome and the best farewell to the history and religion of Egypt."--Stanley's _Sinai and Palestine_, p. lviii. Standing amid the sand of the silent desert, gazing upon the placid features so sadly mutilated by the devastations of ages, the colossal figure seemed to awake from sleep, and speak thus to the writer:--