![Click to view higher resolution image](../Eaton29.jpg) |
at Heliopolis,
a few miles from Cairo, and bears the name of the Pharaoh who was contemporary
with Moses. It was removed to Alexandria to ornament the temple of the Caesars
below which it stood, with another similar to it which long since fell,
and now lies nearby almost covered with Earth. Pompey’s Pillar, or
more properly, the Column of Diocletian, which stands to the opposite side
of the city next claimed our attention. This stands to the opposite side
of the city next claimed our attention. This conspicuous monument is about
a hundred feet high, standing on a pedestal, and surrounded by a capital.
The main shaft is cylindrical, and consists of a single stone, nearly thirty
feet in circumference.
Both of these columns stand at a considerable distance south of the present
city, the old Alexandria, with its gorgeous temples, palaces, and schools,
in the midst of which they once stood, having passed away, and left nothing
else remaining but mounds of earth and heaps of rubbish. These, too, will
at length fall. Around the base of the Cleopatra’s Needle the salt
waves of a high sea break and foam, and it is by their action, and that
of the atmosphere, gradually being destroyed.
One gets an idea of the greatness and populousness of ancient cities by
the extensive tombs or places of sculpture which as cities of the dead,
hewn in rock, and built beneath the surface, have long escaped the hand
of destruction.
It was so in Rome, it is so in Alexandria. A short ride from Diocletian’s
Pillar brought us to the slope of an eminence honeycombed with houses of
the dead of long ago.
We entered and explored a number, and found the architecture of some of
them, combining fine Grecian characteristics with embellishments in fresco,
whose colors are still bright and clear. We subsequently visited other catacombs
along the seas-shore beyond Cleopatra’s Needle. They were like the
first, and appeared to be very extensive; but numerous Arabs or Egyptians
were digging among them for stones for building materials, or to burn for
fire.
Thus the tombs prepared with so much care and expense are ruthlessly broken
into, the sanctuaries of the dead imbedded, and their bones scattered with
the sand and rubbish. Somewhere in the city, the tomb of the great Alexandria
was despoiled, and
|