And near the Pyramids more wondrous and more awful than all else in
the land of Egypt, there sits the lonely Sphinx.
Comely the
creature is, but the comeliness is not of this world. The once
worshipped beast is a deformity and a monster to this generation;
and yet you can see that those lips, so thick and heavy, were
fashioned according to some ancient mould of beauty - some mould of
beauty now forgotten - forgotten because that Greece drew forth
Cytherea from the flashing foam of the Aegean, and in her image
created new forms of beauty, and made it a law among men that the
short and proudly wreathed lip should stand for the sign and the
main condition of loveliness through all generations to come. Yet
still there lives on the race of those who were beautiful in the
fashion of the elder world, and Christian girls of Coptic blood
will look on you with the sad, serious gaze, and kiss you your
charitable hand with the big pouting lips of the very Sphinx.
Laugh and mock if you will at the worship of stone idols, but mark
ye this, ye breakers of images, that in one regard the stone idol
bears awful semblance of Deity - unchangefulness in the midst of
change; the same seeming will, and intent for ever, and ever
inexorable! Upon ancient dynasties of Ethiopian and Egyptian
kings; upon Greek, and Roman; upon Arab and Ottoman conquerors;
upon Napoleon dreaming of an Eastern Empire; upon battle and
pestilence; upon the ceaseless misery of the Egyptian race; upon
keen-eyed travellers - Herodotus yesterday, and Warburton to-day:
upon all and more, this unworldly Sphinx has watched, and watched
like a Providence with the same earnest eyes, and the same sad,
tranquil mien. And we, we shall die, and Islam will wither away,
and the Englishman, leaning far over to hold his loved India, will
plant a firm foot on the banks of the Nile, and sit in the seats of
the Faithful, and still that sleepless rock will lie watching, and
watching the works of the new, busy race with those same sad,
earnest eyes, and the same tranquil mien everlasting. You dare not
mock at the Sphinx.
CHAPTER XXI - CAIRO TO SUEZ
The "dromedary" of Egypt and Syria is not the two-humped animal
described by that name in books of natural history, but is, in
fact, of the same family as the camel, to which it stands in about
the same relation as a racer to a cart-horse. The fleetness and
endurance of this creature are extraordinary. It is not usual to
force him into a gallop, and I fancy from his make that it would be
quite impossible for him to maintain that pace for any length of
time; but the animal is on so large a scale, that the jog-trot at
which he is generally ridden implies a progress of perhaps ten or
twelve miles an hour, and this pace, it is said, he can keep up
incessantly, without food, or water, or rest, for three whole days
and nights.
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