“A long time has elapsed since our conversation, in July last, with reference to the removal of the obelisk, commonly known as ‘Cleopatra’s Needle,’ as proposed by General Sir James Alexander to the Metropolitan Board of Works. Detained in Persia by an attack of fever, and by unlooked-for difficulties in travelling, I have arrived in Egypt later, by more than three months, than I intended when I left England. “The taking away of the ancient monuments from a country which they were originally designed to adorn, is a policy against which there is much to be said. It is almost pitiful to contemplate upon the now carefully-protected Acropolis of Athens—a caryatide, rudely carved in wood, doing duty with her four lovely sisters of marble, in hearing the entablature of the Erectheum, while the original is in London instructing the art-world, perhaps no better than would a plaster cast, in the beauty and grace of Greek sculpture. But these considerations do not apply, with any considerable force, to the prostrate obelisk now lying upon the shore of the new port of Alexandria. It forms no part of any structure; it is not protected, nor in any way cared for by the Egyptians; and, within fifty yards of the ground in which the English column is lying, there is another, apparently of the same age and size, carved with hieroglyphics of similar character. It appears to me, therefore, that the English people could, if they please, appropriate this gift free from any fear or feeling that in doing so they would be ‘spoiling the Egyptians.’