DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.4592#0033
CLEOPATIJa's NEEDLES. 33
certainly inculcates great veneration for their dead,
and a very peculiar familiarity with death. This was-
the first scene of the kind I had witnessed, and to me
it had a very sombre appearance.
Pompey's Pillar is a single column of finely polished
■ red granite, seventy-three feet high, and a little over
nine feet in diameter. It stands on a pedestal of the
same material, which measures about fifteen feet on
each side. The pedestal stands on a sub-str.ucture of
mason work, which at present appears to be slowly
falling to pieces. The entire erection is surmounted
by a well-wrought Corinthian capital, of correspond-
ing proportions. All these parts reckoned together,
make the entire column a little over one hundred feet
in height. The shaft is beautiful and smooth, shining
in the sun-beams like burnished steel, except parts
which have been shamefully daubed up with English
names. Here it has firmly stood, braving the storms
that have beaten upon it for more than two thousand
years, and here it. yet stands. But should its sub-
structure not soon be repaired, it would not be surpri-
sing to hear that this beautiful work of antiquity had
fallen to rise no more. From the eminence where
this monument stands, a grand view is had of the Mah-
moudieh canal, the Lake Mareotes, and of the vast
Lybian desert stretching beyond.
From this place we rode over and by fragments of
ruins, back to the gate of the city through which we
had made our egress. Taking the direction of Cleo-
patra's Needles, we stopped for a moment at the cele-
brated wells, made in the time of Alexander, at the
very founding of the city. They are still in use and
certainly inculcates great veneration for their dead,
and a very peculiar familiarity with death. This was-
the first scene of the kind I had witnessed, and to me
it had a very sombre appearance.
Pompey's Pillar is a single column of finely polished
■ red granite, seventy-three feet high, and a little over
nine feet in diameter. It stands on a pedestal of the
same material, which measures about fifteen feet on
each side. The pedestal stands on a sub-str.ucture of
mason work, which at present appears to be slowly
falling to pieces. The entire erection is surmounted
by a well-wrought Corinthian capital, of correspond-
ing proportions. All these parts reckoned together,
make the entire column a little over one hundred feet
in height. The shaft is beautiful and smooth, shining
in the sun-beams like burnished steel, except parts
which have been shamefully daubed up with English
names. Here it has firmly stood, braving the storms
that have beaten upon it for more than two thousand
years, and here it. yet stands. But should its sub-
structure not soon be repaired, it would not be surpri-
sing to hear that this beautiful work of antiquity had
fallen to rise no more. From the eminence where
this monument stands, a grand view is had of the Mah-
moudieh canal, the Lake Mareotes, and of the vast
Lybian desert stretching beyond.
From this place we rode over and by fragments of
ruins, back to the gate of the city through which we
had made our egress. Taking the direction of Cleo-
patra's Needles, we stopped for a moment at the cele-
brated wells, made in the time of Alexander, at the
very founding of the city. They are still in use and