nrise--we must
hurry up.

When at last we get clear of the sand we find ourselves on a piece of
ground cut up by cracks wide enough to put a foot in. There is just
sufficient light to keep us from twisting our ankles if we walk along
with our eyes glued to the ground, and so we get along somehow, till
suddenly we stop--sunrise is here!

A considerable distance in front of us and above our level we see three
mighty seated figures and the remains of a fourth in a flat recess
chiselled out of the side of a great rounded cliff. That first touch of
dawn has tinged them with rosy pink, and they sit with their faces to
the sunrise, which they must have seen somewhere about one million times
already. Night succeeding day, day succeeding night, light following
darkness, darkness following light, thus has time flickered before them
throughout their stupendous age. As we creep nearer and climb higher
they seem to rise and rise in size. Silently we seat ourselves on a
stone, forgetting the shivering wind, and we stare and gaze spellbound
at the triumphant eager expression on those mighty features, which, as
the dawn spreads, softens to a deep complacence. Then the pink changes
to a splendour of living gold, which sweeps over like a curtain, and the
full majesty of them strikes us almost like a blow.

Their expression has in it something akin to that of all mighty
time-resisting images set up by man; it is found in the face of the
Sphinx and on that of the Buddhas of the East. It is an expression of
soul-crushing superiority, so without doubt of its own unassailable
dignity that it can afford to be benign. We must make up a word and call
it "supremity"--it is the only one that fits it.

Under the knee of each mighty figure is the plump outline of a little
wife, small it looks from here, but draw nearer still, stand right under
that colossus on the right and you will find that she is twice the
height of a man.

As they tower above us, seeming to grow greater every instant as the
light filters into the crevices, we get some idea of the monster size of
these noble statues, and discover that each foot is nearly as long as a
man! From the broken face of the sloping cliff they have been hewn, not
built and pieced together and brought here from elsewhere, but born full
size, springing to life from out the living rock. They all represent the
king with whom we are already familiar, Rameses II., who caused this
great temple to be made t