PAGE PARIS OBELISK 22 OBELISK AT CONSTANTINOPLE 35 POMPEY’S PILLAR AT ALEXANDRIA 37 THE COLOSSAL SPHYNX 54 OBELISK OF USERTESEN AT HELIOPOLIS 59 CARTOUCHES OF USERTESEN 60 STANDARD OF THE KING 82 MEMNONIAN COLOSSI, THE VOCAL MEMNON 94 PYLON OF A HOUSE OR TEMPLE 103 PROPYLON OF THE TEMPLE AT EDFOO 105 PLAN OF ORNAMENTATION OF THE ENTRANCE OF AN EGYPTIAN TEMPLE 111 SACRED SCARABÆI 116 ENGRAVED UNDER-SURFACE OF SCARABÆI 118 CARTOUCHES OF PTOLEMY AND CLEOPATRA 135 OBELISK AT AXUM IN ABYSSINIA 145 CARTOUCHES OF THOTHMES III. 150 CARTOUCHES OF RAMESES II. 156 BRITISH MUSEUM OBELISKS 161 OBELISK AT ARLES 171 CLEOPATRA’S NEEDLE. More than twenty-two centuries ago—that is to say, about three hundred and thirty-two years before the birth of Christ—a Greek general, after a victorious campaign against the Persian rulers of Egypt, and a triumphant progress along the eastern boundary of the Delta (at that time the heart of the Egyptian kingdom), embarked in his galley on the Rosetta branch of the Nile, and swept down its stream to the Mediterranean Sea. Veering to the west, he steered along the African coast, and very soon came in sight of a small narrow island, called Pharos, lying at a short distance from the shore, and separated from it by a deep-sea channel capable of floating ships of heavy burden. This island served as a ready-made breakwater to the channel inside, and seemed intended to convert it into a natural harbour. It was on this very spot that the city of Alexandria sprung into existence, in obedience to the command of the victorious general already mentioned, who, indeed, was no less a personage than Alexander the Great, King of Macedonia, the first of a line of Greek kings who reigned over Egypt for three hundred years.