Chapter IV.
I now came in full sight of the building. Yes, it had been
made by hands, and hollowed partly out of a great rock. I
should have supposed it at the first glance to have been of the
earliest form of Egyptian architecture. It was fronted by huge
columns, tapering upward from massive plinths, and with
capitals that, as I came nearer, I perceived to be more
ornamental and more fantastically graceful that Egyptian
architecture allows. As the Corinthian capital mimics the leaf
of the acanthus, so the capitals of these columns imitated the
foliage of the vegetation neighbouring them, some aloe-like,
some fern-like. And now there came out of this building a
form- human;- was it human? It stood on the broad way and
looked around, beheld me and approached. It came within a few
yards of me, and at the sight and presence of it an
indescribable awe and tremor seized me, rooting my feet to the
ground. It reminded me of symbolical images of Genius or Demon
that are seen on Etruscan vases or limned on the walls of
Eastern sepulchres- images that borrow the outlines of man, and
are yet of another race. It was tall, not gigantic, but tall
as the tallest man below the height of giants.
Its chief covering seemed to me to be composed of large wings
folded over its breast and reaching to its knees; the rest of
its attire was composed of an under tunic and leggings of some
thin fibrous material. It wore on its head a kind of tiara
that shone with jewels, and carried in its right hand a slender
staff of bright metal like polished steel. But the face! it
was that which inspired my awe and my terror. It was the face
of man, but yet of a type of man distinct from our known extant
races. The nearest approach to it in outline and expression is
the face of the sculptured sphinx- so regular in its calm,
intellectual, mysterious beauty. Its colour was peculiar, more
13like that of the red man than any other variety of our species,
and yet different from it- a richer and a softer hue, with
large black eyes, deep and brilliant, and brows arched as a
semicircle. The face was beardless; but a nameless something
in the aspect, tranquil though the expression, and beauteous
though the features, roused that instinct of danger which the
sight of a tiger or serpent arouses. I felt that this manlike
image was endowed with forces inimical to man. As it drew
near, a cold shudder came over me. I fell on my knees and
covered my face with my hands.
