It certainly was
very odd; so odd that now I believe it is not a mere freak of nature but
a gigantic monument fashioned, like the well-known Egyptian Sphinx, by a
forgotten people out of a pile of rock that lent itself to their
design, perhaps as an emblem of warning and defiance to any enemies who
approached the harbour. Unfortunately we were never able to ascertain
whether or not this was the case, inasmuch as the rock was difficult of
access both from the land and the waterside, and we had other things
to attend to. Myself, considering the matter by the light of what we
afterwards saw, I believe that it was fashioned by man, but whether or
not this is so, there it stands, and sullenly stares from age to age out
across the changing sea--there it stood two thousand years and more
ago, when Amenartas, the Egyptian princess, and the wife of Leo's remote
ancestor Kallikrates, gazed upon its devilish face--and there I have no
doubt it will still stand when as many centuries as are numbered between
her day and our own are added to the year that bore us to oblivion.
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