forged stela, in the jewellery of Queen Aah-hotep in the Boolak Museum, where it occurs in connection with the cartouche of King Ahmes, the grandfather of Thothmes III. From that time on it is of common occurrence, and both on obelisks and on scarabs King Thothmes is represented as a Sphinx.

One consideration must be taken into the account in estimating the antiquity of the Sphinx. He is carved out of the natural rock, and stands on no pedestal, but springs directly out of the ground. If we endeavour to picture to ourselves the appearance of the plateau of the Pyramids before any tombs were placed upon it we can have little difficulty in the task. Many similar platforms exist all along the Nile in Lower Egypt. There is a broad expanse of black alluvial soil, dotted with occasional palms, and green here and there with corn or clover. Beyond the reach of the inundation rises a wall of stone, thirty, forty, perhaps fifty feet above the lower level. The top is flat, and covered with loose sand, which blows over on the fields below at every storm. Behind is yet another ridge of higher rocks, and a third step may be still further. On the intermediate level the Pyramids are placed. But if we follow the track of the first Pharaoh who came up from Memphis to find a suitable place for his tomb, threading his way by the side of the Nile, through the network of canals, towards a hollow in the long line of low cliffs, the first object which would meet his eye, standing up by itself

out of the sand-drift, half-way on the slope between the lower and the higher platforms, would be a great mass or column of rock some sixty or seventy feet in height, and backed by a low ridge running for a couple of hundred feet towards the face of the hill. Such isolated rocks are common in Egypt. One of them stands to the Pyramid of Dashoor just as the Sphinx stands to the Pyramid of Chafra. The rock may have already appeared to bear the semblance of a human face. But it could not be overlooked. The first rays of the morning sun would strike it, and the Sphinx, it is very possible, may have been rough hewn by the earliest occupiers of the tombs of the ancient Empire.

A great deal of sentimental rubbish has been written about the Father of Horror, as I have heard the Arabs call him; but he is very impressive. It is impossible to think of him except as an individual, a person, not a block of stone. I remember at one of my visits a member of the party pulled out a notebook and read a passage from Charlotte Brontë's preface to her sister's novel, Wuthering Heights, where she speaks of her creation of the character of Heathfield in words which with slight change describe the maker of the Sphinx. His work was "hewn in a wild workshop, with simple tools out of simple materials." He found the block of sandstone in the solitary desert, and, "gazing thereon, he saw how from the crag might be elicited a head, savage, swart, sinister; a

form moulded with at least one element of grandeur -power. He wrought with a rude chisel and from no model but the vision of his meditations. With time and labour the crag took human shape; and there it stands, colossal, dark, and frowning, half statue, half rock; in the former sense, terrible and goblin-like, in the latter almost beautiful." But the concluding lines of Currer Bell's wonderful picture do not apply to the Sphinx; though its colouring is "of mellow gray," no moorland moss clothes it; no "heath, with blooming bells and balmy fragrance, grows faithfully close to the giant's foot"; an Arab sits astride on the ear and offers to chop a large piece out of the eyeball for you for half a franc, or a small piece for a piastre.

My sentiment received a rude shock another day. I remarked to an American friend that the Sphinx grew upon me. "Well," he replied, mockingly, "I'm glad it doesn't grow on me. It's too heavy."

THE LAST OF NICOPOLIS.

CHAPTER VII.

WL

BABYLON.

The Chains of Egypt-Nicopolis, the Roman Camp at RamlehTurkish demolitions-El Kab-Dakkeh--Kasr e' Shemma-The Churches-The Walls-Comparison with the Walls of London.

IN a country which has been compared for its length without breadth to a serpent, the government which holds the neck controls it all. When all the world except Egypt was sunk in barbarism, the throat of the Nile Valley was at the southern end; the savages of Ethiopia were nearer and more dangerous than the savages of Syria, or Greece, or

Italy. In days so far gone by that their exact date is a matter of conjecture, or at best of approximation only, to secure the peace of the country it was needful to garrison Nubia. In less remote times the other end of the vast length must be guarded and protected. Accordingly, we find that when the strong-minded lady who raised the great obelisk of Karnac to the memory of her father Thothmes sought to hold the whole valley in subjection, she made her fortress beyond the First Cataract. When Cambyses, or one of his Persian successors, sought to hold the Delta, he placed his garrison at Fostat between Memphis and its sources of supply. When the Cæsars ruled Egypt from beyond the Mediterranean, they fortified their camp on the highest ground within reach of Alexandria. The chains of Greece were said by the last Philip to be Corinth and Chalcis and Demetrias; but the chains of Egypt were Nicopolis and Babloon and Dakkeh; yet of the three only the oldest is left.

Babloon was replaced under the Romans by a building of great antiquarian interest, though comparatively so modern; and of the camp at Ramleh it may be said, as of a camp nearer home which bore the same name, that within a very few years it has disappeared. The walls had seen, in all probability, the defeat of Anthony's last army. Augustus himself had encamped on the spot; and here, just seventy-seven years ago, Sir Ralph Abercromby