monolith; and the effigies of the old Egyptian kings, personifications of dignity and power, holding in their hands the symbols of time and eternity, or grasping, in lieu of the sceptre, that emblematic staff, which, more potent than the wand of the mightiest magician, has controlled the destinies of millions of men, and which became in turn the wand of the Grecian hierophant in the mysteries of Eleusis, the lituus of the Roman augur, and the crosier of the Catholic archbishop. At his feet rolled the turbid flood of the mysterious river, to whose periodical inundation was due the civilization of that venerable country. The anticipation of this phenomenon had necessitated the study of astronomy; its overflow had developed a perfect system of irrigation, and a complicated body of laws, which regulated the distribution of its fertilizing waters; its subsidence had required a thorough acquaintance with the rules of geometry and mensuration; and the noxious vapors arising from its steaming deposits demanded the speedy disinfection and embalming of all putrescent animal matter, a precaution which was rigidly enforced by established custom and the inexorable precepts of religion. The initiations of the priesthood, the jealously treasured maxims of its occult knowledge, the attributes of its innumerable deities, all bore an intimate relation to the waters of the Nile, whose recurring and invariable changes also indicated the seasons of the Egyptian year, which were measured by the harvests. The influence produced by the sight of these marvels upon the destiny of the simple Arab, whose horizon had hitherto been defined by the shifting sands and quivering vapors of the Desert, by whom the grandeur and symmetry of architectural design were undreamt of, and whose ideas of decoration were limited to the barbaric tracery of an earthen jar or the coarse patterns of the primitive loom, was incalculable. As every civilization is but an adaptation to new conditions of elements more or less perceptible in those which have preceded it, so it was with that of the Arabs. Their architecture, mainly indebted for its beauty to the selection of designs from the vegetable world and the skilful combination of geometrical forms, may in this respect justly lay claim to originality. Nevertheless, in the groundwork of its finest edifices, the practised eye can easily detect the foreign influence by which the efforts of its artisans have been inspired; and the characteristics of Persian, Egyptian, Carthaginian, and Byzantine are prominent in the solid walls, the graceful curves, and the sparkling mosaics of the builders’ masterpieces which adorn the widely-separated provinces of the Mohammedan empire.