lf buried in the sand, was uncovered and measured by
Caviglia. It is about 150 feet long, and 63 feet high. The body is made
out of a single stone; but the paws, which are thrown out about fifty
feet in front, are constructed of masonry. The Sphinx of Sais, formed of
a block of red granite, twenty-two feet long, is now in the Egyptian
Museum in the Louvre. There has been much speculation among the learned,
concerning the signification of these figures. Winckelmann observes that
they have the head of a female, and the body of a male, which has led to
the conjecture that they are intended as emblems of the generative
powers of nature, which the old mythologies are accustomed to indicate
by the mystical union of the two sexes in one individual; they were
doubtless of a sacred character, as they guarded the entrance of
temples, and often formed long avenues leading up to them.

THE LABYRINTH OF EGYPT

A labyrinth, with the ancients, was a building containing a great number
of chambers and galleries, running into one another in such a manner as
to make it very difficult to find the way through the edifice. The most
famous was the Egyptian labyrinth, situated in Central Egypt, above Lake
Moeris, not far from Crocodilopolis, in the country now called _Fejoom_.
Herodotus, who visited and examined this edifice with great attention,
affirms that it far surpassed everything he had conceived of it. It is
very uncertain when, by whom, and for what purpose it was built, though
in all probability it was for a royal sepulchre. The building, half
above and half below the ground, was one of the finest in the world, and
is said to have contained 3,000 apartments. The arrangements of the work
and the distribution of the parts were remarkable. It was divided into
sixteen principal regions, each containing a number of spacious
buildings, which taken together, might be defined an assemblage of
palaces. There were also as many temples as there were gods in Egypt,
the number of which was prodigious, besides various other sacred
edifices, and four lofty pyramids at the angles of the walls. The
entrance was by vast halls, followed by saloons, which conducted to
grand porticos, the ascent to which was by a flight of ninety steps. The
interior was decorated with columns of porphyry and colossal statues of
Egyptian gods. The whole was surrounded by a wall, but the passages were
so intricate that no stranger could find the way without a guide