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14 only required the British Government to make the announcement that at least a contingent of our troops should be allowed to remain in Egypt for the preservation of order to induce capitalists to come forward and commence building. But this the Government had hesitated to do, and confidence in the future was consequently shaken. Who that knows Egypt can doubt that a permanent protectorate, supported by a sufficient British army, would prove a blessing of incalculable value to the country?

No object in Alexandria interested me more than the noble monolith known as “Pompey's Pillar.” The name is misleading, as one naturally associates it with that of the great Roman general; but, as the Greek inscription shows, it was erected in honour of Diocletian during the prefecture of Pompeius, in the year 302. But whatever its origin, its immense size and beautiful proportions strike the beholder with admiration. Like most of the Egyptian monoliths, it is of red porphyritic granite, 73 feet in length, with a circumference of 29 feet 8 inches, highly polished, standing on a pedestal, and surmounted by a capital 16 feet 6 inches in diameter, giving a total height of very nearly 100 feet to the monument. It may well be doubted whether a monolith of this description belongs to the epoch of the Roman occupation. It is far more likely that its origin dates back to that period of very ancient Egyptian art which gave birth to the obelisks, the Sphinx, and the Great Pyramids. Its original birthplace was amongst the granite quarries of Upper Egypt, and whether hewn fresh from the native rock, or taken from some more ancient structure, it was a work of no small skill to transport it from its original site and erect it upon the elevated platform of solid limestone from which it is visible for miles in almost every direction.

It is to be hoped that Pompey's Pillar will defy the cupidity of foreign states. Within a few years the two companion monoliths of the ancient city have been carried away: one to adorn the banks of the Thames, the other those of the Hudson. Who that visits the modern cities of Europe, and witnesses the monuments of ancient Egyptian art, of which that country has been stripped, in order that they may be adorned, can restrain a sigh of regret at the spoliation of the land where art of the grandest conception had its birthplace and its maturity while that of Greece and Rome was still in the future?