The Sphinx was cut or carved on Moses’ return from Meroë, and prior to his departure for Ethiopia, where he was elected King. He carefully closed the mouth, which was the door of the passage, that it should never be opened till the fulness of time arrived. But to prevent the monument from being broken into by strangers, he instructed the above-mentioned savages to make the large image, with a door in its mouth, that it might in the future serve as a key to solve the mystery of the Sphinx in connection with the Great Pyramid. CHAPTER VII. MISSION OF MOSES IN THE EAST. During his reign in Ethiopia, Moses erected the Sphinxes and other monuments, and left inscriptions and bas-reliefs as tokens of his presence in that country. From thence he went to Midian, where he did not remain idle, for there are mines there which he must have had worked. He was commissioned by the Almighty to deliver the Israelites and bring them out of Egypt, and, after teaching them how to govern themselves, to lead them to the Land of Promise. During the forty years that the Hebrews sojourned in the desert, Moses wrote inscriptions on the rocks—all resembling those he left in Thebes—in order to show to future generations the route by which he led his people. At the foot of Mount Hor there is a remarkable place, called by the Arabs Wady Mousa, or the Valley of Moses; and the whole of this wild region is celebrated for its beautiful architectural remains. Travellers of our time are told by the Arabs that a great prince dwelt there, and they show them a noble edifice as Pharaoh’s Castle, and another equally beautiful as the Palace of Pharaoh’s daughter. The following extract, taken from the account given by an American traveller, Mr. Stephens, describes these edifices:—[51] “At the entrance of the city there was not a creature to dispute our passage; its portals were wide open, and we passed along the stream down into the area, and still no man to oppose us. In front of the great temple, the pride and beauty of Petra, I saw a narrow opening in the rocks, exactly corresponding with my conception of the object for which I was seeking. A full stream of water was gushing through it, and filling up the whole mouth of the passage. “Mounted on the shoulders of one of my Bedouins, I got him to carry me through the swollen stream at the mouth of the opening, and set me down on a dry place a little above, whence I began to pick my way, occasionally taking to the shoulders of my follower, and continued to advance more than a mile. I was beyond all peradventure in the great entrance I was seeking. There could not be two such, and I should have gone on to the extreme end of the ravine.