Such are the materials of which the Roman pharos was constructed; materials identical with those which compose the Tour d’Ordre at Boulogne. When it was first disused as a lighthouse, it is impossible, to say; but as its elevation must have constantly enveloped it in mists, and rendered its fires useless, we should opine that it was not employed after the Conquest. In course of time it was devoted to military purposes, its lower chamber being converted into a guard-room; and of late years it has been appropriated as a government store-house. Lights are now established on the piers of Dover Harbour, and with those of the South Foreland on the English coast, and of Cape Grisnez and Boulogne on the French coast, amply suffice for the due illumination of the Straits. It is much to be desired that every care should be taken for the preservation from further injury of so interesting a relic of Roman times as the pharos at Dover. [Illustration] [Illustration] CHAPTER V. THE COLOSSUS OF RHODES. “Men receive with indifference from one another, and without examination, the traditions of past events, even of events connected with the history of their own country. Thus, for the most part, in their indolence to search out the truth, they accept at once all the fables and exaggerations forced upon their notice.” It is thus that Thucydides expresses himself; and though his observation is two thousand years old, it has lost nothing of its point or truth. A striking example of its applicability is afforded by the striking illustration now before us;—a representation of the Colossus of Rhodes, according to the generally received idea that this celebrated statue of Apollo was planted at the entrance to the harbour of Rhodes, where it served as a pharos; and that it was of such surpassing magnitude that ships under full sail could pass between its gigantic limbs. But there is no evidence that the Colossus ever served as a pharos; at least, no ancient author asserts that such was its employment. The first writer who converted it into a beacon-light was Urbain Chevreau, an industrious but not particularly able compiler of the seventeenth century; but he neglects to say from what source he obtained his information. In the second place, the attitude traditionally ascribed to the Rhodian Colossus—an attitude neither graceful nor dignified—is also a pure conceit of comparatively modern times. It is, however, more ancient than the former, since it dates from the sixteenth century, when Blaise de Vigenère, the translator of Philostratus, transformed the masterpiece of Chares, the pupil of Lysippus, into a fantastic impossibility. Where he, too, obtained his information, no one can ascertain; for on this important point he preserved the prudent silence of Chevreau.