The new dominion. [volume] (Morgantown, W. Va.) 1876-1904, 1878-01-05
The land. of the Pharaohs.


Alexandria was, in ancient times, a
Greek colony Aqueducts, statues and
the debris of ruined buildings are TO be
seen all over the city; but in a country
where the Christian era and Julius
Caesar are things of yesterday, and Moses
himself only visiting stranger in the
height of Egyptian civilization, they
attract scarcely more attention than Mt.
Vernon or Assistant Secretary Hunter
in the State Department. Along the
Mediterranean shore for three miles are
the ruins of Roman seaside villas, where
the pretors of Rome and the officers of
legions, drowsed away their days in mil
itary exile. Caesars camp is one of the
notable sights in Alexandria To the tray
eler who is of an archaeological turn.
The walls and some of the towers are
still standing. 1t is in the form of n
square paved with Roman cement, which
is still firm and good. Exactly in the
Caesars quarters were placed. Many of
the gardens in Alexandria are supplied
with fresh, sweet water from old Roman
wells. We rode out on donkeys TO Pom
pegs Pillar, which Hops would visit, as
his sisters had impressed upon him the
importance of studying up obelisks, In
vain | assured him it was not an obelisk
and had nothing to do whatever with
Pompey
Pompey owes most of his modern
celebrity, aside from the thrashing that
julius Caesar gave him, to the allitera-
tive title bestowed carelessly upon the
monument. The Greek inscription
plainly legible upon its base, indicates
that it was erected by one Publius, a
project of Egypt, in honor of Diocletian
This latter gentleman earpet-bagged
Egypt 300 years before the system Of
morals to which we owe missionaries
and the Beecher scandal wasestablished.
More precisely, refer to the Christian
era Alexandria stood an eight-months'
siege before its capitulaton surrendered
one-half the population to fire and
sword. Including shaft, capitol and
pedestal, the pillar is one hundred and
ten feet high. 1t is of red polished
granite, called syenite from the Arab
village of Syenc seven hundred miles
up the Nile, where the obelisks were
also quarried. Cleopatra's Needles, as
they are called, stood on the seashore
near the Rantleh railroad station One
Of them, fallen one, was given by
Mehemet Ali, the rKhediye's grand
father to the British Government
nearly forty years ago. II was only re-
Gently the English people thought it
would be worth the cost of removal, and
its adventures since its attempt and its
final wreck in the Bay of Biscay are yet
fresh in the mind of your readers. The
other still stands, and is shpposed to have
been offered to the United States. The
report very probably owes its origin TO
SOME imaginative correspondent who
thought it would be exactly like lsmail
Pasha to do II.
The Khedive is so magnificent in his
bestowal of largesse he would give his
good friends, the Americans, the source
of the Nile to ornament Capitol square,
and pay for the cost of removal, if any
one will tell him how, The " Needles "
are of syente or red granite, and once
stood before the temple of Neptune, in
Heliopolis. They were qharried in the
reign of King Thotmes III, 1895 b. G.
They were as ancient and curious to the
young Moses, as he played around the
bull rushes above Cairo in his youth, as
they are to us, who date from the birth
of Christ. Yet they are modern toys
when compared to the Pyramids. Rome
has had one of them for many years,
and there is another on the Place de la
Concorde in Paris The Khedive can
easily afford to give them away, for
they have neither beauty nor antiquity
to recommend them to him. One or
two still stands in Memphis, near Cairo,
on the Nile, and there is one at the first
cataract, lying where it was quarried
out of the solid rock, with the under side
still uncut from the original rock. All
the obelisks vary from sixty to eighty
feet in height, and are inscribed from
top to base with Egyptian hieroglyphics.