DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.11636#0150
122 TRAVELS IN UPPER
powder; but very fortunately they had no great
skill in the art of mining. The explosion only car-
ried away a portion of the mason-work so idly in-
tended to be a prop to the pedestal.
Paul Lucas relates, that in 1714, a mountebank
having got upon the capital with a facility which
astonished every body, declared it was hollow at
top *. We have some years ago indications more
positive on the subject. Some English sailors con-
trived to get upon the summit of the column, by
means of a paper-kite, which assisted them in fixing
a ladder of ropes : they found, as well as the man
mentioned by Paul Lucas, a great round hollow in
the middle of the capital, and moreover, a hole in
each of the corners. It is therefore certain, that
this chapiter served as a base to some statue, the
fragments of which seem to be irrecoverably lost.
Some friends of M. Roboli, who had been French
interpreter at Alexandria, have assured me that he
had discovered near the column, pieces of a statue
which, to judge from the fragments, must have
been of a prodigious magnitude : that he had them
conveyed to the house occupied by the French,
but that, notwithstanding the most diligent re-
searches, not being able to procure the other pieces
of it, he had ordered the first to be thrown into the
sea, close by that same house. They were shewn
* Journey of Paul Lucas, in 1714, vol. ii. p. 22.
to
powder; but very fortunately they had no great
skill in the art of mining. The explosion only car-
ried away a portion of the mason-work so idly in-
tended to be a prop to the pedestal.
Paul Lucas relates, that in 1714, a mountebank
having got upon the capital with a facility which
astonished every body, declared it was hollow at
top *. We have some years ago indications more
positive on the subject. Some English sailors con-
trived to get upon the summit of the column, by
means of a paper-kite, which assisted them in fixing
a ladder of ropes : they found, as well as the man
mentioned by Paul Lucas, a great round hollow in
the middle of the capital, and moreover, a hole in
each of the corners. It is therefore certain, that
this chapiter served as a base to some statue, the
fragments of which seem to be irrecoverably lost.
Some friends of M. Roboli, who had been French
interpreter at Alexandria, have assured me that he
had discovered near the column, pieces of a statue
which, to judge from the fragments, must have
been of a prodigious magnitude : that he had them
conveyed to the house occupied by the French,
but that, notwithstanding the most diligent re-
searches, not being able to procure the other pieces
of it, he had ordered the first to be thrown into the
sea, close by that same house. They were shewn
* Journey of Paul Lucas, in 1714, vol. ii. p. 22.
to