Pompey’s Pillar—as, in defiance of history, men still continue to call it—stands to-day in a wild and dreary waste—widely different from the scene that surrounded it when, of old, the Nile swarmed with gilded barges, and the waters of the Mediterranean were ploughed by countless argosies, and the flickering glare of the pharos was the guiding star of the commerce of the world. You reach it, as Miss Martineau tells us, through the dreariest of cemeteries, where all is of one dust colour, even to the aloe which is fixed upon every grave. From the base, the view is curious to novices. Groups of Arabs are at work in the crumbling, whitish, hot soil, with files of soldiers keeping watch over them. To the south-east you obtain a fine view of Lake Mareotis, whose slender line of shore seems liable to be broken through by the first ripple of its waters. The space between it and the sea is one expanse of desolation. A strip of vegetation—some marsh, some field, and some grove—looks well near the lake; and so do a little settlement on the canal, and a lateen sail gliding among the trees. * * * * * As commerce increased, and flowed into fresh channels, men very naturally multiplied on every coast the landmarks which played the same useful part by day as did the pharoses by night. If we may believe Coulier, we owe to the Etruscans the invention of that system of beacons which, neglected for many centuries, has been resuscitated of late years, and developed according to fixed principles. Where natural landmarks are non-existent, we now-a-days rear small but durable constructions of timber or masonry, at suitable points of the shore, painting them of a brown colour if they stand defined against the sky, as on the summit of a lofty hill, or of a white colour, if they are projected on the land. When it is desirable to indicate the position of a submarine reef, on whose hidden point a good many ships might otherwise go down, a _buoy_ is placed there—that is, a floating frame-work of iron or wood, with or without a bell, and painted of various colours. Some of these buoys, as in the channel of a river or the water-way of a harbour, are hollow cones of iron, kept in their positions by stout cables and a heavy anchor. Others, of larger dimensions, resemble a kind of cage; not a few are built up of masonry, where the water is shallow, like small turrets; and these are provided with chains and ladders for the convenience of shipwrecked seamen. The floating buoys are generally furnished with great bells, which are swung to and fro with a solemn and overpowering peal, by the oscillations of the waves. “Beware! beware!” they seem to cry; but, alas! their warning sounds are often heard too late, and the “tall ship,” swept onward by the demon of the storm, frequently clashes against the very buoy that gave warning of the danger. [Illustration: A FLOATING BEACON OR BUOY.]