Part 3

But although the Egyptian climate deals tenderly with these beautiful objects, the sand-storms are not so merciful: showers of sand are often precipitated with the violence of small shot against the polished stone; and the sharp particles of sand, by successive battery, leave their impression on the surface: at first the polish alone is blurred; but by degrees the picture-writing itself is worn away. This is apparent on the Alexandrian obelisk, of which the two sides exposed to the fury of the land-storms are seriously corroded, while the sea-face is but little injured. The British obelisk shows similar marks of wear from causes of the same kind, but has further to complain of the rapacity of travellers, who have damaged it considerably in their endeavours to carry away fragments of so brilliant a memorial of ancient times. The angles of the shaft have been chipped in many places; and as a refinement of mischief, even the perpendicular sides of some of the hieroglyphs have likewise been chiselled away. When we come to the patriarch of obelisks at Heliopolis, that of King Usertesen I., we shall find that the Nile has been busy with its sheen, and has left his mark of annual overflow on the lower part of its shaft; whilst elsewhere we have the account of a fragment of an ancient obelisk set up in the midst of a garden, in the perfumed atmosphere of luxuriant flowers, in which the wild bees have puttied up the channels of the hieroglyphics with their tenacious combs. But another and a graver trial is in waiting for our obelisk:—How will it accommodate itself to the climate of the British metropolis? It will endure: of that we can have no doubt; neither will it fail in our respect and admiration even when it has lost some of its pristine loveliness, and has submitted to harmonise its tone with the dulness of its surroundings.

The hewing, the carving, and the burnishing of one of these huge monoliths, under any circumstances, must have been a laborious undertaking, and have required a considerable period for its completion. Thus we are in formed that one of the obelisks of Heliopolis, one of Pharaoh’s Needles, a work of Thothmes III., occupied thirty-six years in its elaboration. It is the tallest of its race, and now stands as a memorial of the Emperors Constantine and Constantius, in front of the Lateran Church at Rome; whereas another obelisk, now standing at Karnak (also of the Thothmes period, but executed under the direction of Queen Hatasou, daughter of Thothmes I., and sister of the second and third Thothmes), is stated, in an inscription on its base, to have been, with its fellow, hewn from the quarry and erected in the short period of seven months. Queen Hatasou’s obelisk is the second in altitude of the obelisk family, measuring 97 feet 6 inches;[10] while that of St. John Lateran, when entire, measured about 108 feet.

[10] Queen Hatasou’s obelisk has been stated to be 108 feet high; but M. Mariette, who makes this statement in one of his books—in a more recent work, calls it as above, 97 feet 6 inches, which is probably correct.

It has been suggested as probable that the obelisk was brought, in the rough state, to the spot where it was to stand, and that it was smoothed and polished there previously to its erection. And a farther question arises:—Was it erected plain, and afterwards carved in the erect position, or was it carved before it was set up? If the former of these suppositions be admitted, then the hewing and erecting of the pair of monoliths in seven months is not so marvellous, especially when we call to mind the vast number of artificers always at the command of the Egyptian Government. There is clear evidence that carving after erection was practicable, and not unusual; for it must have been in the erect position that the side columns of engraving were added to the British obelisk by Rameses, and no doubt that also on the Thothmes obelisk at Karnak. The inscription on the base of Queen Hatasou’s obelisk affords an additional argument in proof of the ornamentation of the column being subsequent to erection, inasmuch as it informs us that the whole shaft was gilt from top to bottom; and although, at the present time, all trace of gold has vanished, the surface of the stone bears evidence of having been left rough, as if prepared to receive a thin coating of plaster such as was in common use among the builders of the temples, when painting was resorted to; the hollows of the carvings being left smooth and polished. The same inscription likewise states that the obelisk was capped with gold, the spoils of war, wrested from the enemies of the country.

Pliny the younger, after mentioning the Syenite granite as sown with fiery spots, remarks, that a certain king of Egypt was admonished in a dream to set up obelisks. “The kings of Egypt,” he says, “in times past, as it were upon a strife and contention one to exceed another, made of this stone certain long beames, which they called obelisks, and the very Egyptian name implieth so much.” Rameses, he observes, “pitched on end another obeliske which carried in length a hundred foot, wanting one, and on every side four cubits square.”[11] “It is said that Ramises above named kept 2,000 men at work about this obeliske;” and to secure its safe erection, “caused his own son to be bound to the top thereof. * * * Certes, this obeliske was a piece of work so admirable, that when Cambyses had won the city where it stood, by assault, and put all within to fire and sword, and burnt all before him as far as to the very foundation and underpinning of the obeliske, commanded expressly to quench the fire; and so, in a kind of reverence, yet unto a mass and pile of stone, spared it, who had no regard at all of the city besides.”[12]

[11] This may have been one of the Luxor obelisks, notwithstanding the alleged difference of height; since even, at the present day, the figures of Egyptologists are remarkably unreliable.

[12] “The Historie of the World,” commonly called the “Natural Historie of C. Plinius, secundus.” Translated into English by Philemon Holland, Doctor of Physicke; 1634: book 36, chap. 8.

When the obelisk was completed at Syené, the next step was that of its removal to the spot where it was destined to stand. This was usually effected by excavating beneath it a dry dock, and fixing therein two large barges. When all was properly adjusted, the water was let into the dock, and as the barges rose they lifted up their burden, and formed a raft, which was then floated down the stream of the Nile. In the case of the British obelisk, the destination of the raft was Heliopolis, a distance, as the crow flies, of nearly 600 miles: subsequently, as we know, the obelisk was conveyed to Alexandria, adding nearly 150 miles more, and making a real total of 730 miles. And if to these figures we allow 3,000 for the journey home, we have reason to hail our obelisk as a not inconsiderable traveller.

We can hardly be surprised that the Greeks and the Romans should have been fascinated with the delicate beauty of the obelisks, and should have desired to possess them. Two hundred and eighty-four years before the birth of Christ, Ptolemy Philadelphus built a tomb for his wife Arsinoë at Alexandria, which he enriched with an obelisk fifty-six feet high. The obelisk had been cut, as usual, in the quarry of Syené during the reign of the last of the Egyptian Pharaohs, Nectanebo II.; it had not been engraved, but its date may be stated as about six hundred years before the Christian era. The architect, Satyrus, transported it in a somewhat similar manner to that already described. “He dug a canal to it as it lay upon the ground, and moved two heavily-laden barges underneath it. The burdens were then taken out of the barges, and as they floated higher they raised the obelisk off the ground. He then found it a task as great, or greater, to set it up in its place; and this Greek engineer would surely have looked back with wonder on the labour and knowledge of mechanics which must have been used in setting up the obelisks, colossal statues, and pyramids which he saw scattered over the country.” It was erected, according to Pliny, “in the haven of Arsinoë * * * but for that it did hurt to the ship docks there, one Maximus, a governor of Egypt under the Romans, removed it from thence into the market-place of the said city (Rome), cutting off the top of it, intending to put a finial thereupon gilded, which afterwards was forelet and forgotten.” This description corresponds with that of the obelisk now standing behind the church of St. Maria Maggiore, in Rome, which is wanting both in inscription and pyramidion; but its present height is stated to be only 48 feet 5 inches, in lieu of 56 feet. This latter circumstance may be accounted for on the supposition of its having been broken before it was finally erected at Rome—an accident by no means unusual with the Roman obelisks—and by the probable squaring of its base for the purpose of securing a steadier foundation.

The Emperor Augustus, the conqueror of the last of the Ptolemies, and pioneer of the Roman dynasty, who took possession of the throne of Egypt thirty years before the Christian era, signalised his artistic taste by sending four beautiful obelisks to Rome: one of the period of Seti I. and his son Rameses II.; one of that of Psammeticus II.; and two without inscription or pyramidion, of which one is ascribed to Nectanebo. These obelisks now occupy places of honour in Rome—one in the Piazza del Popolo, the elegant Flaminian obelisk; one on the Piazza de Monte Citorio; one behind the church of St. Maria Maggiore; and the remaining one in the Piazza Quirinale. That on the Monte Citorio was originally planted in front of the church of St. Lorenzo in Lucina, where it acted as the gnomon or pointer of a sun-dial erected by Augustus; and the two plain obelisks were set up in front of his mausoleum.

The means employed by Augustus for the transport of these obelisks was a galley propelled by 300 oars-men. The war-ships of the Greek and Roman dynasties were sometimes of imposing magnitude and strength, and were furnished with a number of rams. One of these ships “was 420 feet long, and fifty-seven feet wide, with forty banks of oars. The longest oars were fifty-seven feet long, and weighted with lead at the handles, that they might be the more easily moved. This huge ship was to be rowed by 4,000 rowers; its sails were to be shifted by 400 sailors, and 3,000 soldiers were to stand in ranks upon deck. There were seven beaks in front, by which it was to strike and sink the ships of the enemy. The royal barge in which the king and Court moved on the quiet waters of the Nile, was nearly as large as this ship of war. It was 330 feet long, and forty-five feet wide.”

This maritime power of Egypt calls to mind two leading prejudices of the ancient Egyptians, which very much influenced their destiny: they were averse to change, preferring, in all things, to remain as they were, rather than risk the uncertainty of reform; and, secondly, they had a religious horror of the ocean, believing it to be a breach of the divine law to endeavour to subdue it, and attempt to navigate it. Therefore, when we hear of ships from Alexandria finding their way through the Pillars of Hercules (otherwise the Straits of Gibraltar) to England, we recognise at once the adventure of neighbouring nations, particularly that of the Phœnicians, who traded with Cornwall, exchanging wheat for metal more than five hundred years before the Christian era. The last of the Egyptian kings, Nectanebo II., made a struggle against this ancient prejudice, and fitted up a fleet in the Red Sea, manned by Phœnicians. His ships, steering steadily to the south, and afterwards following the line of the coast, succeeded in rounding the Cape of Good Hope, and reaching the Straits of Gibraltar, and so accomplished the circumnavigation of Africa. The voyage lasted between two and three years, and the captain returned in safety to Egypt, but without his ships; he consequently failed to obtain credit for, or belief in, his success.

Constantine, the first Christian among the emperors of Rome, conveyed to Byzantium, as a decoration for his new city of Constantinople, an obelisk of the period of Thothmes III., which now graces the Atmeidan, or Hippodrome: it stood originally at Heliopolis, and was one of the Needles of Pharaoh. He likewise, in all probability, sent to Arles the obelisk which is now standing in that city. It was found, in later times, grown over with bushes, and partly buried in a garden at the port of La Roquette. Charles the Second and Catherine de Medicis ordered its disinterment, and it was erected at Arles, as a memorial of Louis the Great, in the year 1676. Constantine directed the removal of another obelisk from Heliopolis, and this he also intended for Constantinople; but dying previously to its arrival at Alexandria, it was conveyed to Rome by his son Constantius. This latter is the beautiful obelisk set up in the Piazza of St. John Lateran at Rome: it is the tallest obelisk known; and although it has lost three feet of its base, measures at present 105 feet 7 inches. It bears the signets of Thothmes III. and Thothmes IV., and is the obelisk previously mentioned as having occupied thirty-six years in the preparation. The temple of Serapis at Alexandria formerly possessed two fine obelisks, but both have now disappeared; they, probably, may also have found their way to Rome. The ruins of this temple were called the citadel; and all that remains of both is Pompey’s Pillar, which was erected in one of the principal courts of the temple.

Pompey’s Pillar is a magnificent column, placed on a hillock just outside the walls of the old town. It is cut out of red syenic granite; is beautifully polished, and is said to be the largest monolithic pillar in the world; its total height, according to Captain Smyth, being 99 feet 4¾ inches; or, in round numbers, 100 feet, including the pedestal; its girth, near the base, being nearly 28 feet. It is surmounted with a Corinthian capital, of a differently coloured granite from that of the shaft, and of inferior workmanship, and stands on a short stump of a broken obelisk about four feet high, inverted, and built into the pedestal; the surface of the obelisk being covered with hieroglyphs. The column was ascended by the French in 1798, and by Captain Smyth in the spring of 1822. Captain Smyth wished to ascertain its qualification for astronomical purposes; but found it too unsteady for delicate observations; and, moreover, that it had an inclination to the south-west, in the direction opposite to that of the prevailing north-east wind. It has an inscription on the pedestal, which cost much time and perseverance to make out,[13] and was at length deciphered as follows:—

“Consecrated to the adorable Emperor Augustus Diocletian, the tutelar divinity of Alexandria, by Pontius, prefect of Egypt.”

[13] A French writer, referring to the decipherment of this inscription, which, as it appears, was an onerous undertaking, observes:—“This scientific labour fell to the lot of two British soldiers, Captain Dundas and Lieutenant Desarde, and to them we are indebted for the discovery of ‘a page of history, and a splendid page.’”

This inscription clearly settles the personality of the column, and is an answer to those by whom it has been called “The Pillar of Severus,” and “The Pillar of Hadrian.” One author believes that it might have been erected by Ptolemy Euergetes, as a record of the recovery of some thousands of pictures and statues which had been carried off by Cambyses. But the true story appears to be this:—In the year 297 of the existing era, Egypt had risen in rebellion against her rulers, and Alexandria, always contumacious, was subdued by Diocletian after a siege of eight months. Diocletian, riding among the obstructions which encumbered the fallen city, was nearly thrown from his horse. His escape from accident doubtless prompted a grateful feeling in his heart towards the Father of Mercies, and he erected this pillar as a witness of his faith, surmounting it with a statue of his horse, which has long since disappeared. Nevertheless, the ancient prejudices of our affections are ever ready to spring forth, like buried seeds in a garden; and a deep-felt regard for the old consul, Pompey, who had been so treacherously assassinated on the shores of Egypt, now competes with the better claims of Diocletian for the honour of this magnificent memorial; just as the obelisks of Alexandria will, to the end of time, ever be remembered in association with the memory of Cleopatra.

We have advanced at present no further than the portal of the country which stands supreme in the production of these interesting relics of former grandeur, the obelisks; and yet we have made acquaintance with nearly twenty which have emigrated from their native land. Rome is the fortunate possessor of ten; France, of two; Constantinople, of two; and England, of Cleopatra’s Needle and four or five smaller ones. Let us now take a step further onwards, and visit them in their parental home. Four hours and a-half in the railway-train (express) suffice to transport us from Alexandria to Cairo, a distance of 130 miles. Cairo, the queen of Eastern cities, is the present metropolis of Egypt, the seat of its government, and the residence of its ruler, Ismail Pasha, the Khedive, Viceroy of the Sultan of Turkey. It is situated at the apex or head of the Delta, and forms the nob of the fan, of which the ribs, radiating northwards towards the sea, are the seven branches of the Nile; or, we may prefer to regard it as one of the three points of the triangle termed Delta; Alexandria and Port Said, 140 miles apart, occupying the other two points. Port Said, indeed, is bidding fair to become the rival of Alexandria, and will grow in importance with the Suez Canal, of which it is the entrance. Already we hear of the defences of the sea-board between Alexandria and Port Said, and the protection of a work which is identified with the intrinsic prosperity of England. An Egyptian Bournemouth or Torquay, in the meantime, has established itself on the line of the canal, and invalids are already migrating for health to Ismailia, to luxuriate in the balmy and exhilarating climate of Egypt.

Cairo is comparatively a modern city, being 1,200 years the junior of Alexandria, and possesses few traces of antiquity. A fragment of an obelisk helps to pave one of its entrance-gates—alas! to what base uses fallen!—probably a work of Usertesen, of Thothmes, or of Rameses. But if we turn our back upon the Delta, the land of prolific produce, the battle-field of many centuries, and the grave of innumerable ancient cities, and gaze towards the south, we see before us that wonderful river, which, rising in the bosom of Africa, and bursting through the granite rocks of Syené—the As-souan, or gate of Egypt—precipitates itself, a foaming cataract,[14] into the valley of Egypt, and pursues its meandering course, without tributary and without bridge, for more than 600 miles in a straight line from Syené to Cairo. It is a river of poetry and of fertility; for nine months of the year the northern breeze (the Etesian wind) blows against its stream from early morning until night, to waft the travellers, in the sylph-like Nile-boat, called Dahabeeyah, through their journey of health and recreation. At night the boat is moored for its rest; the wind is lost in sleep, but wakens to its duties in the early morn; while rain is a thing almost unknown. In the month of June the Nile rises at Syené; and during August, September, and October, the low flat land of the Delta is converted into a sheet of water, which diffuses richness and fruitfulness throughout the grimy soil.

[14] The fall of the Nile at Syené, or As-souan, is termed the first cataract, in consideration of its being the first of seven similar falls which occur in the course of that river. It is in reality the only fall in Egypt, the second being in Nubia, 200 miles higher up. Strictly speaking, it is not a cataract, but a succession of rapids three miles in length, and studded with rocks. The ascent of the Dahabeeyah is made without danger between these rocks and through the more practicable channels; but the descent brings to view dangerous cataracts of considerable force and volume, demanding much experience and ability on the part of the captain to shoot them with safety, and a well-built boat to bear the shock. Hence a prime care of the traveller, before starting from Cairo, is to secure a vessel capable of encountering the risks of the cataract. The second cataract, from its greater extent and more numerous rocks, is practically impassable. The abundance of the rocks in its bed has suggested for it the Arab expression of “the belly of stone.”

Lady Duff Gordon, in her agreeable “Letters from Egypt,” under date 1863-5 (the time of the mutiny), tells us how she passed a winter at El-Uksur, residing in the French house—a ruinous building, which had been occupied by the French officers who had charge of the expedition for conveying the Luxor Obelisk to Paris. She takes especial note of “a whole wet day,” as an event unknown in Thebes for ten years. During her residence in Upper Egypt, she watched the annual rising of the Nile, and remarks that the water was at first green, and soon after blood-red; the apparent colour being, in both cases, probably due to refraction of light. Some authors speak of the waters of the Nile as being greenish-brown, and brown; and others as yellow. Mr. A. C. Smith calls the Nile “yellow, muddy, and sluggish:” when filtered it throws down a considerable deposit of mud, containing an abundance of organic matter, but is then sweet, soft, and peculiarly palatable. As an example of Egyptian veneration for the grand old river, Lady Duff Gordon observes, that whenever a marriage is celebrated, and the bridegroom has “taken the face” of his bride—that is, has looked upon that which is habitually concealed from view, namely, the face—she is conducted to the river bank to gaze upon the Nile.