248 THE BONDS OF AFRICA 



because a few high-living mortals are mocking 

 her age. 



If you would see that spirit of great age 

 revealed in all the mystery of time and stone, 

 go out to the mystic Sphinx and ponder on the 

 years. That inscrutable watcher on the desert 

 sands was old when the world was young, and 

 had grown worn and rugged with the sands of 

 time when the Wise Men came to Bethlehem and 

 angels in the sky proclaimed the Nativity. 

 Tradition has it that the Infant Christ was laid 

 between the feet of the effigy by Mary and Joseph 

 when the holy Family fled to Egypt to escape 

 the wrath of Herod. Those mighty feet, which 

 might have guarded the King of Christendom, 

 have long since been hidden by the sands. 

 More than half the Sphinx is to-day buried beneath 

 the rising floor of the desert. But still the extra- 

 ordinary face stares out as though it could laugh 

 at time and eternity and the infinite, though the 

 hour-glass of centuries has covered some of its 

 fantastic grandeur. 



One feels as one gazes on the Sphinx and on 

 the great Pyramids of stone — fitting companions 

 for the colossal image — that these things are 

 older than creation, that the sardonic face must 

 have been there to gaze on the first grains of the 

 desert sand; that the first bird that flew into 

 the Garden of the World must have seen with 

 wonder the mighty top of the Pyramid of Cheops 

 and longed to fly round the pinnacle. 



It is almost impossible to believe that men and 

 women exist who cannot ponder on and marvel 

 at these grim giants of a monumental epoch, 

 and yet there are such; people who trip gaily 

 each year to violate the vigil of the Sphinx, who, 

 I verily believe, feel disappointed that the figure 



