DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.14563#0026
6
EGYPT, PAST and PRESENT.
while their owners were chaffering, pipe in hand ; a caravan
of camels, laden with merchandise of various sorts, was
entering the gate ; the tall palm tree lifted its spreading top
toward the noonday sun, while groves of acacias lining the
roads, offered their cooling shade; on a neighboring mound
stood a solitary Arab, his gaunt figure and turbaned head in
bold relief against the sky; the diminutive donkey, urged
forward by his driver's prong, went nimbly by; a score
of wolfish dogs barked and howled at the approach of
Strangers ; but above their clamor were heard the myriad
voices of birds, whose freedom had never been invaded by
the sportsman, and whose song was in harmony with the
delicious air and the gorgeous drapery in which all nature
was enwrapped ;—to complete the picture, the minaret that
overlooks the bazaar, loomed in the distance, and immedi-
ately before us Pompey's Pillar reared its stupendous mass
of polished granite, in solitary grandeur — a monument of
buried empires, a sentinel over recent tombs.
This pillar is the one solitary monument of the old city
upon its southern front, and answers to the one standing
obelisk that is its solitary monument on the north. Of its
origin history is as silent as the mummy of Belzoni's tomb ;
but there is no doubt that " Pompej/s Pillar is really a
misnomer;" for the inscription " shows it to have been
erected by Publius, the praffect of Egypt, in honor of Dio-
cletian," * who subdued a revolt at Alexandria by capturing
the city, a. d. 29G. But whether it was then first hewn
from the quarry, or was transported from some decaying
temple up the Nile, the Greek lettering does not inform us.
If the latter, ■— which, considering the decline of art and
the pilfering propensities of the Komans, is probable —
then this n'ow lonely sentinel, an Egyptian column with a
* Wilkinson, who first deciphered it.
EGYPT, PAST and PRESENT.
while their owners were chaffering, pipe in hand ; a caravan
of camels, laden with merchandise of various sorts, was
entering the gate ; the tall palm tree lifted its spreading top
toward the noonday sun, while groves of acacias lining the
roads, offered their cooling shade; on a neighboring mound
stood a solitary Arab, his gaunt figure and turbaned head in
bold relief against the sky; the diminutive donkey, urged
forward by his driver's prong, went nimbly by; a score
of wolfish dogs barked and howled at the approach of
Strangers ; but above their clamor were heard the myriad
voices of birds, whose freedom had never been invaded by
the sportsman, and whose song was in harmony with the
delicious air and the gorgeous drapery in which all nature
was enwrapped ;—to complete the picture, the minaret that
overlooks the bazaar, loomed in the distance, and immedi-
ately before us Pompey's Pillar reared its stupendous mass
of polished granite, in solitary grandeur — a monument of
buried empires, a sentinel over recent tombs.
This pillar is the one solitary monument of the old city
upon its southern front, and answers to the one standing
obelisk that is its solitary monument on the north. Of its
origin history is as silent as the mummy of Belzoni's tomb ;
but there is no doubt that " Pompej/s Pillar is really a
misnomer;" for the inscription " shows it to have been
erected by Publius, the praffect of Egypt, in honor of Dio-
cletian," * who subdued a revolt at Alexandria by capturing
the city, a. d. 29G. But whether it was then first hewn
from the quarry, or was transported from some decaying
temple up the Nile, the Greek lettering does not inform us.
If the latter, ■— which, considering the decline of art and
the pilfering propensities of the Komans, is probable —
then this n'ow lonely sentinel, an Egyptian column with a
* Wilkinson, who first deciphered it.