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178

THE PROSTRATE OBELISK.

obelisk, of Theban marble, as hard, well nigh, as porphyry, but of a deeper red, and speckled alike, called Pharaoh's needle, standing where once stood the palace of Alexandria, and another lying by, and like it, half buried in the rubbish." And again, from the following passage in the rare and curious old work of Frere Nicole Lestuen, published in 1517, we may conclude it was prostrate in his day, as he mentions but one standing :

"De la on est mene an grant lieu on estoit la sale marence et encore est une grat coulonne toute dune pierre de merueilleuse haulteur en memoire du faictaiat ung capital agu: et semble a une tour qui la usit de loing. Ceste coulonne est de couleur rouge et maintes lettres sont faictes a lentour: ríus haulte a merueille que nest icel le qui est a romme aupres de síanct pierre; laqlle estoit a upres de ceste icy en Alexandrie; et est apportee a romme."

Indeed we might have conjectured its remaining for a long time in a condition similar to the present, from the fact of the greater sharpness of the hieroglyphics on all sides; for there are excavations or tunnels made under it, in two places, to obtain building materials, that enabled me to decide upon this point; yet, when standing, it must have been exposed to the same injurious influences as its neighbour. The removal of one or other of these obelisks to England has been long contemplated, and the delay has never been satisfactorily accounted for; for they are ours by right of conquest and presentation.*

The moment we arrived at the obelisks, our attendant dragoman and the donkey boys commenced a most destructive attack upon each of their corners and angles, with great stones, hammering away to procure us specimens to take with us, and did not at all understand our desiring them to desist, and saying we did not wish them to be broken; at which they laughed most heartily.

* In an article published in the "Dublin University Magazine" for May, 1839, I proposed to have this prostrate obelisk conveyed to England, and with some sphinxes and other memorials of Egyptian conquest, erected as the Nelson testimonial in Trafalgar-square. For the particulars of that paper, and the letters I have received on the subject, see Appen

dix H.

THE PASSAGE OF THE RED SEA.

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I should imagine the height of Cleopatra's needle to be, if cleared, about eighty feet, the height of the obelisk at Rome. A traveller of 1819 very gravely informs us that there are no eyes in Cleopatra's needles !!!

It is interesting to notice, in connection with this obelisk, the fact put forward by Sir G. Wilkinson, and other antiquaries, that it was constructed in the reign of Thothmes III., the Pharaoh generally supposed to have been destroyed in the Red Sea. Professor M'Cullagh has demonstrated chronologically, and particularly from the catalogue of Eratosthenes, that this Pharaoh of the Exodus was "a king named Achescus Ocaras, who reigned only one year; preceded by a king named Apappus, who reigned a hundred years, and succeeded by queen Nitocris, who reigned six years."* Apappus, he states to have beena foreigner in Lower Egypt, of Theban origin, and therefore a "new king, who knew not Joseph." Moses was born in the twenty-first year of his reign, and was saved by the king's young daughter, a girl about ten years old." Moses having fled to the land of Midian, returned to Egypt on the death of Apappus, during the short reign of his successor, Ocaras, the Pharaoh of the Exodus. "On the night of the passover, the king lost his first-born, perhaps his only son," continues Mr. M'Cullagh, "and this may be the reason that he was succeeded by his sister Nitocris. The short reign of Ocaras (a single year) might be explained by supposing that he was drowned in the Red Sea; but as there is nothing in the sacred narrative which obliges us to admit that the king perished in this manner, we may adopt the account of Herodotus, that he was murdered by his subjects. We may imagine that some of his nobles remained with Pharaoh on the shore, and that when they saw the sea return and swallow up all that had gone in after the Israelites, they murdered the king, whose obstinacy had brought such calamities on his people, and then placed his sister Nitocris on the throne." Herodotus (Euterpe, s. C.) asserts that the Egyptians, having slain her brother, who was then sovereign, she was appointed his successor, and that afterwards to avenge his death, she destroyed by artifice a great number of the Egyptians, by inviting them to a festival in a large

* Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy, vol. I. p. 66. 1837.

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subterranean chamber, and then letting in the water of the Nile on them (probably in allusion to the drowning in the Red Sea.) She afterwards, to avoid the indignation of the Egyptians, suffocated herself in a chamber filled with ashes.

The Scriptures inform us, that on the Hebrews having passed through, "the waters returned, and covered the chariots and the horsemen and all the host of Pharaoh "that came into the sea after them; there remained not so much as one of them." (Exod. xiv. 28.) And again, in the song of triumph which the Israelites sung on the deliverance, we read that "Pharaoh's chariots and his host hath he cast into the sea; his chosen captains also are drowned in the Red Sea"-(Exod. xv. 4.); but no mention whatever, either in these or the parallel passages is made of the individual death of the Egyptian king; but of his overthrow, discomfiture, or overwhelmment, while the death or destruction of his army is distinctly stated.

In the immediate vicinity of Cleopatra's needles, the Jews have enclosed a large piece of ground, with a high wall, for a burialplace, and are erecting a handsome synagogue within it. If nothing else, toleration, at least, is commencing in Egypt, as heretofore none of that stricken race were allowed a place of public worship in any of the great cities.

We next proceeded to Pompey's pillar, and on our way passed by some groves of tall palms-the first collection of those truly eastern and magnificent trees we had yet seen. I know few objects of more striking beauty than a palm grove; the slender, leafless mail-clad stems, of these splendid monarchs of an African soil, shoot up without a single branch for sixty or eighty feet, when their waving plumes form most graceful arches overhead, in the twining tracery of their dark foliage. The great father of botany has well denominated this noble race "the princes and patricians of the vegetable kingdom."

Beyond these we passed one of the outer gates, with a deep fosse and drawbridge, where the Arabs and a few Bedawees hold a market for their flocks-from this, we had a good view of the pillar, standing upon a rising ground in the midst of an extensive plain, a continuation of the ruins of the ancient city, on which scarcely a single lichen finds sustenance; for it seems now the undisputed abode of the lizard, the kestril, and the grass-hopper. Without another object to catch the eye, or break the unvaried

ERRORS OF ANTIQUARIES.

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outline of the landscape, its appearance, when seen at a distance, thus accurately defined against the clear blue sky, has in it something impressively grand and noble; itself the monument of a city, and a people of by-gone days, it raises its tall form majestically from among the modern sepulchres and gilded tombs of yesterday. I can perfectly agree with Denon, that in the shaft of Pompey's pillar consists its beauty; being one solid piece of red granite, sixty-five feet in height, and still retaining its beautiful smooth polish. The capital which surmounts it, is a very rude attempt at the Corinthian order, the foliage very plain and meagre, and altogether it looks too short for its shaft. This alone ought, I think, to date its construction at a much earlier period than writers are willing to assign to it. I cannot help likening it to a draft, or rough model of the rich foliage and highly-wrought ornament of those Corinthian capitals I have seen in Greece, especially those of the temple of Jupiter Olympius, which must be acknowledged as the finest specimens in existence; but compared with them, this seems almost a different order of architecture. The base appears much too high, and out of proportion, even for a single column; it is fourteen feet in breadth, and stands upon a corresponding platform of mason-work, which was so much undermined, as to threaten its downfall some years ago, but it has since been repaired. The exact height of the top of the pillar from the ground, is now ascertained to be ninety feet.

It is interesting to trace back the exact condition of such monuments as this for a series of years, as described to us by the early travellers and historians. Such inquiries materially assist the efforts of the antiquary in arriving at any well grounded supposition as to their use and origin; and they also enable us to form a just opinion as to the merits and discoveries (so called) of subsequent chroniclers. It is known to most persons versed in Egyptian antiquities, that the base of Pompey's pillar stands upon a block of marble, of about four feet square, round which there is a band of solid masonry, equal in circumference to the size of the base. This masonry was formerly composed of fragments of obelisks and broken ornaments, containing hieroglyphics and inscriptions on their sides-collected, in all probability, from the ruins of the ancient city of Alexandria. Denon, the French savant, and a celebrated English traveller of the same period, adduce these fragments of the ancient city, and the hieroglyphics they contain, as a proof of

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NAUTICAL HIEROGLYPHICS.

the modernness of the column. With due deference to these learned authors, I do not think that this is a sufficient proof against its antiquity; for it appears that, in 1610, the whole mass was supported or balanced upon the centre square stone, and not surrounded by those hieroglyphic tablets.

"Without the walls," says Sandys, in allusion to the granite of Cleopatra's needle, " on the south-west side of the city, on a little hill, stands a column of the same, all of one stone, sixtyeight palms high, and thirty-six in compass-set upon a square cube, (and, which is to be wondered at,) not half so large as the foot of the pillar, called by the Arabians, Hemadesleor, which is the column of the Arabians."

From time to time, this surrounding masonry has been removed in search of treasure. It was restored after the date of Sandy's visit; it was in a dilapidated state when Pococke first saw it; who writes, "When I returned a second time to Alexandria, this part was repaired in such a manner, that the lower is made a seat for the people to sit on; and so it is (i. e. the central supporting stone,) no more to be seen in its ancient state." At the date of the British expedition to Egypt, it was again in a ruined state, and has been twice renewed since; so that the stones forming the support of the basement can offer no decided proof as to the date when this monument, called Pompey's Pillar, was erected.

A general mistake exists in supposing that there are no hieroglyphics upon the shaft of Pompey's pillar. I regret to say, that it is now nearly covered with them, and although the greater number are as unintelligible as those of Cleopatra's needles, yet the frequent repetition of the H. M. S. attest the scientific research of the Mids and Reefers touching at Alexandria. Young gentlemen of the royal navy, let me ask in sober earnestness, in what consists the honour and glory of having your names emblazoned upon every post and pillar, in characters such as those in which Morrison's pills or Warren's blacking is set forth upon a dead wall in the neighbourhood of London? In England I am sure you would not, even if you dared, deface with black paint, in letters a foot long, any of our national monuments. It is not your calling; leave it to the sign-painters, or some of the travelling bagmen of Leeds or Manchester. The long tried worth-the unflinching courage-the gallantry, and noble daring of those

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