three; that the angle at the summit is of sixty-six degrees, and the
perpendicular altitude of the pyramid four hundred and forty-fi ve
feet; and that it consists of two hundred and seven courses of hewn
stone, the largest of which is near five feet in height, and the
smallest upward of two.
Though the pyramids most forcibly strike the eye, and command
the attention, yet they are not the sole objects here, that
deserve the notice of the inquisitive and enlightened traveller. In
their neighbourhood were spacious temples, the ruins of one of
which are still easy to be traced before the eastern front of the
second pyramid, and of another before that of the third. Various
sepulchral chambers, too, have been cut in different parts of the
rock, and highly ornamented in basso relievo, an idea of which
may be formed from the views we have given. Beside these,
about six hundred paces to the east of the second pyramid, is a
monument remarkable for it’s singularity,
THE COLOSSAL SPHINX.
T h i s huge statue was sculptured out of the solid rock: it’s body,
about a hundred feet in length, is now buried in the sand, above
which the head rises at present twenty-seven feet. Though the
nose and upper lip have been destroyed by the arabs, the head is
strongly marked with the characteristics of the negro form. The
ears are remarkably large, the upper edge of them being on a line
with the middle of the forehead. The head is covered with a
hood, bound on above the eyebrows, spreading out very wide on