28

POMPEY'S PIllar.

concerning it; but it may be worth remarking, that monuments which, from the frequent mention made of them, seem hackneyed and common-place in books, by no means appear so when actually beheld. You for the time forget the dissertations of the antiquarian, the measurements of the mathematician, the spruce trim copy of the artist, and yield up your mind to the romantic enthusiasm inspired by grand historical associations. It is doubtless important that we should not attribute to one man the great public works bequeathed to mankind by another, whether those works were designed for use or ornament; but there is a pleasure altogether independent of antiquarian erudition derived from the contemplation of the monuments of past ages, vague, shadowy, composed of many mingled sentiments and feelings, but sweet to the mind, and perhaps the only adequate compensation which the traveller can ever receive for his toils and privations. While gazing on this vast lonely column, the names of Leo Africanus, Pietro della Valle, Pococke, Shaw, Bruce, Volney, and Denon, all men of immortal reputation, who had once mused on the spot where I then stood, came crowding upon my memory. I thought, too, of what Alexandria was when that pillar was erected; of the temples, the theatres, the gardens, which once delighted the eye from that barren eminence, but all now vanished like a dream. From a neighbouring mound, which, during the campaign of Egypt, was carried by our countrymen at the point of the bayonet, we enjoyed a

CLEOPATRA'S NEEDLES.

29

splendid prospect over the vast surface of the Mareotic Lake, with its rushy diminutive isles, the new plantations and vineyards on its shores, and the immense canal stretching along its southern extremity, and carrying the eye across the desert towards the Nile; to the north were the sea, the port, the city, surrounded by a thousand mounds of rubbish; to the west, was the site of the Hippodrome.

XII. From Pompey's Pillar, near which we descended into the vaulted passages of an extensive ancient edifice, the lower part of which seems still to exist beneath the sand, we proceeded over innumerable heaps of ruins, to Cleopatra's Needles, those two beautiful obelisks of rose granite, which are supposed to have adorned the entrance to the palace of the Ægyptio-Macedonian kings. Of these, the one towards the east is still standing; the other has been overthrown, probably by an earthquake, and lies partly buried in the sand.* The English are said to have once entertained the design of carrying away this obelisk to England, but to have been deterred by a calculation of the cost. Upon this kind of spoliation it should be remarked, that, where such remnants

This was my first idea; but I afterwards learned that it had been thrown down by Chiandi, an Italian engineer, in the service of the Pasha. The pedestal having been blown up with gunpowder, the fragments were used in building a fort close at hand. In the same manner the obelisk itself was to have been disposed of; but this fine monument of antiquity was saved, for the time, by the interference of the English consul, the obelisk being the property of Great Britain.

30

CLEOPATRA'S NEEDLES.

of ancient art are safe in the countries where they are found, it is something worse than vandalism to remove them; but where, as in Egypt, the most extraordinary monuments of antiquity are daily liable to be converted into materials for building cotton mills or other factories, as we see in the case of the temple of Dendera, the False Pyramid, and the superb portico of Ashmounein, it seems excusable to endeavour, by conveying them to some more civilised land, to rescue such relics from destruction. The hieroglyphics on the eastern face of the upright obelisk are nearly obliterated by the action of the prevailing wind. Denon, who, though fanciful and not unprejudiced, was yet an acute observer, seems certainly to have been mistaken in attributing the idea of fixing obelisks on pedestals to the Europeans; for, whether these obelisks were so placed, or sprung directly out of the pavement, like the Doric columns of Girgenti, we undoubtedly find similar monuments in the Island of Phila, erected upon very lofty pedestals; and I was assured at Alexandria, by gentlemen who had seen the bases of Cleopatra's Needles bared by excavation, that they also rested upon pedestals.

Friday, Nov. 16.

XIII. A large party having been formed for the purpose, we this day visited the celebrated catacombs of Alexandria. We were attended by a janissary, a kawass from the palace, and a number of donkey boys; all such excursions being performed on asses,

and each animal having its separate attendant. It was one of those beautiful winter days which seem to be almost peculiar to Egypt, when the sun's heat is so tempered by the sea breezes that it is rather refreshing than oppressive. The landscape, though divested of all those charms arising in other lands from mountains, running streams, and luxuriant vegetation, was clothed in beauties peculiar to itself, which, whether intrinsically of a picturesque character or not, affected the imagination no less powerfully than the alpine snows and mountain cataracts which I had exchanged for these burning sands. Words can represent but indistinctly the characteristic peculiarities of such a scene. We were treading on the verge of the boundless desert of Libya, that mysterious portion of our globe, the nature and exact extent of which are hitherto unknown, over whose skirts a scanty number of hardy adventurers have passed hastily with fear and trembling, while the simoom, the whirlwind, the sand-storm, and the fierce inhospitable Bedouin hovered around their path. A secret reference to ideas of this kind imparted to the rocky and barren wilderness an aspect of savage grandeur not properly, perhaps, belonging to it; though the drifted sand heaps, of all forms and dimensions, with the traces of the whirlwind still fresh upon them, the gaping mouths of innumerable sepulchres profaned and rifled of their dead, the rocks fretted to honey-comb by the everlasting action of the waves, the deep, deep blue sea, the

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MILITARY SLAVES.

stainless sky, the silence, the solitude, the utter desolation which on all sides met the eye, necessarily produced an impressive effect upon the mind. From time to time, as we looked towards the desert, we discovered a single Bedouin, or a laden camel, moving, afar in the distance, across the plain, which only appeared to render us the more sensible of the sterility and forlorn condition of that unblessed land.

XIV. Having for some time ridden along, contemplating with a novel kind of satisfaction the dreary but striking features of the landscape, we arrived at the fort erected by the Pasha in the midst of the ancient Necropolis. Here we saw a number of black military slaves, in the new uniform, drawn up in platoons upon the sand, going regularly through their exercises, under the direction of a Turkish officer. On our descending towards the entrance into the fort, a considerable number of Arab soldiers advanced to prevent our passage; and as I happened to be riding in front of our party, they all crowded round my beast, not rudely or saucily, but with evident good nature, smiling, and seeming to say very civil things in Arabic. They were mostly young men, whose scanty moustachios betrayed the shortness of their service, while the awkward physiognomy and lumbering gait of the peasant still remained beneath the affected primness of look and coxcombical precision of the common soldier. It was in vain that