We have now an opportunity of sending letters. They will be the last you will have. For we shall delay nowhere on our way back after we have again visited the temples at this place. You may expect us in two days after this packet arrives. * * * * * "So they are really coming back," said Lucy; "I am so glad. I want very much to see Rahaba." Hugh, who was more taken up with sight-seeing at that moment, began to make his calculations as to how much we should be able to see before the Nile party reached Cairo. We determined to lose no time, but to set off early in the morning to see Pompey's Pillar, and such other sights as we could. The day after, we must go back to Cairo to meet our friends. CHAPTER XII. CONCLUSION. [Illustration] We wished to make the most of our day in Alexandria; and, at Lucy's request, went first to see Cleopatra's Needle, which, as Lucy observed, is not a needle, but an obelisk of red granite, about seventy feet high. There were two, but one has fallen. Sandys, an Egyptian traveller of a hundred years ago, calls this obelisk "Pharaoh's Needle." Even in his day the other had fallen. It was so nearly buried in sand that we could only see part of the top of it. The two obelisks are supposed to have been brought from Heliopolis by one of the Cæsars, to adorn the city of Alexandria. We next went to "Pompey's Pillar." It is more than ninety feet high. We were quite angry with the foolish people whose vanity has made them scribble their names on the pedestal. "I am very glad that all the people who have disgraced themselves so are not English," said Hugh. So we all were, if one could feel glad about anything so discreditable. There were French and Italian names there as well as English. [Illustration: MARKETING IN ALEXANDRIA.] About two miles beyond the Rosetta Gate we came to Cæsar's Camp. It was here that Augustus Cæsar defeated Antony's followers. We saw some remains of towers and walls. This spot also had a still greater interest for us English as being the place on which Sir Ralph Abercrombie fell, in the famous battle on the 21st of March, 1801. In the afternoon we went over the "mosque of the thousand and one columns." This mosque is said to stand on the spot where the church of St. Mark once stood, and where the evangelist St. Mark was put to death. The church was destroyed by the Moslems in the year 121, in the reign of Malek el Kamel, and whilst the crusaders were besieging Damietta. We passed another large mosque, the Mosque of St. Athanasius. From this mosque was taken the sarcophagus called "The Tomb of Alexandria," which is now in the British Museum. The next day we returned to Cairo, and on the day following our Nile travellers arrived. A very happy meeting it was. They had stayed one day at Luxor, to see the temples there, and had then hastened back to Cairo as quickly as they could.