259 
meaning of the temple of the Sphinx, it might give us some light 
on the question. The figure of the Sphinx is supposed to have 
been dedicated to the setting sun, and though there does not seem 
to be any certain connection with the temple lost in hoar antiquity, 
yet it is not impossible that sun-worship was really intended by the 
constructors of both. As regards Stonehenge, it is clear that the 
disposition of the stones was* connected with the quarters of the 
heavens, — the circus being due north, and, as shown by Mr. Beck 
in a communication to the Times newspaper,* the stone called 
the Pointer marks exactly the place of the sun's rising on the 
morning of the longest day of the year. Mr. Beck says, “ As one 
who has now on several occasions been present and seen the sun 
thus come up over the ‘ Pointer,' and strike its first rays through 
the central entrance on to the so-called altar-stone of the ruin, I 
commend this obvious proof of solar, worship in its constructors to 
those recent theorists who see in Stonehenge only a memorial of a 
battle or a victory."f 
53. In fact, the above structure was regarded by those who 
adhered to Druidism, as late as the sixth century of our era, as 
“ the great sanctuary of their dominion and the massacre of the 
Britons by Ilengist is represented as taking place on a Baal feast 
in May.J The British Ceres Ked is associated with Stone- 
henge, in which she was supposed to be present as “the gentle 
goddess."^ She has been identified with Isis, and her recovered son 
lor, or the sun, with Horns. Now, Stonehenge was “ the precinct 
of lor,'’ || and the Sphinx was “the image of the God Ilarmadiou, 
the setting sun, the sun which shines in the abode of the dead," 
and so belonged to the times of the companions of Horns ,^[ Mr. 
Palgrave describes a similar structure in the interior of Arabia, and 
the customs of the aborigines of India illustrate those of our own 
land. We find the Khonds, the Druids of the East, worshipping 
in groves, prised formidine sacris, and indulging in human 
sacrifices (until 1836). Macpherson tells us that they use neither 
temples nor images in their worship. They cannot comprehend, 
and regard as absurd, the idea of building a house in honour of a 
deity, or in expectation that he will be peculiarly present in any 
place resembling a human habitation. Groves kept sacred from 
the axe, hoar rocks, the tops of hills, fountains, and the banks of 
streams, are in their eyes the fittest places for worship. On the 
Khassia hills, moreover, rude stone monuments exist in greater 
numbers than perhaps in any other portion of the globe of the same 
* June 22nd, 1872. t See Appendix (F). 
t Song of Cuhelyn, in Davies’s Mytholoqy ancl Rites of the Ancient Druids. 
% Ibid., p. 316. II Ibid., P . 81G. 
*[]' Lenormant, Lcs prem. Civ., vol. i. pp. 181, 179, 130. 
