n London, on the embankment of the Thames, standing majestic in its great height and solidity, is that wonderful column of red granite known to all as Cleopatra's Needle. What a history is attached to the obelisk, a history which is as wonderful and strange as the Needle itself is antique, for its age dates back as far as 1,500 years before the Christian Era. We are told that "the child Moses may have played around the foot of this pillar; the Israelites looking citywards from the brickfields saw the sunlight glittering on its tapering point; the plague of darkness clothed it as with a garment; the plague of frogs croaked and squatted on its pediment; the plague of locusts dashed themselves in flights against it, and unto its likeness the heart of Pharaoh was hardened. The sight of it takes us back to a time when the Pisgah—sight of Canaan—was but a promise with a desert and forty years between." Connecting the history of the pillar with such ancient Biblical facts as these, we realize how really aged the Needle is; but we have still to remember that it had been witness to events which took place many hundreds of years even before the days of Moses.
When Thothmes III., called Egypt's greatest King, was in power he gave command for another pair of obelisks to be cut out of the quarries at Syrene and erected by the side of those already standing, which Rameses had set up before one of the many temples of the Sun which were in Heliopolis.
Gazing thoughtlessly at the column one is prone to overlook the fact that this tremendous pillar is unlike other equally high columns in our land, as this one was not built up to its present height by stone being laid upon stone or block being placed upon block, until the desired height and form were attained, but from the first this was hewn out of its place in the quarry in one enormous mass. We can, therefore, understand the difficult undertaking it would be to remove such a weight of granite from one place to the other in the days when steam was not in use. The quarries of Syrene were seven hundred miles from Heliopolis. In an interesting book on this subject written by the Rev. James King (and to him I am indebted for much of this information), we have an account of how in those early times the task of cutting out and removing this column was effected.
He tells us that in an old quarry at Syrene there is to be seen an obelisk upon which the workmen were busy, when for some reason they were obliged to leave it only partially cut out. From this it appears that when the quarrymen wished to abstract a huge mass, such as the Needle would be, they marked out the form by cutting a deep groove, in which, at intervals, they made oblong holes. Into these holes they firmly wedged blocks of timber, and then, filling the grooves with water, the wood in time swelled and thus the granite cracked along the outline from wedge to wedge. Next came the difficulty of taking the Needle on its first journey, seven hundred miles up the river to the City of Heliopolis. When it lay ready for removal in the quarry, rollers made of palm trees were laid so that the column could be placed on them, and by this means it could be pushed down to the edge of the river, and there a raft was built round it. When the Nile overflowed its banks, this raft and its burden floated, and the stone was conveyed to the nearest and most suitable point from which it could again be conveyed on rollers as before to the pedestal which was prepared for it to stand upon, and by the help of ropes and levers made from the date palm it was placed in position. So faultless was the work done by those men of old that, when the column was erected on the pedestal, both had been so accurately levelled, where the one fitted on the other, that the Needle when standing was perfectly true in the perpendicular.
Mr. King continues to inform us that in a grotto at El-Bershch is a representation showing the removal of a gigantic figure. The statue is placed on a sledge, and men are represented going before it pouring oil in grooves, along which the sledge slides, and by means of ropes four rows of men drag the figure along. And from this we learn the method of the column's first removal. Once erected in Heliopolis before one of the many temples of the Sun, the Needle was allowed to remain there with its companion one for fourteen centuries.
Twenty-three years before Christ, Augustus Cæsar ordered the removal of them from Heliopolis to Alexandria, and so the Needle came to be taken on its second journey. In Alexandria was a gorgeous palace of the Cæsars, and before the palace the columns were set up. They are called Cleopatra's Needles, but in reality Cleopatra had no connection with their history. She may have helped to design the magnificent building the front of which these obelisks adorned, and her devoted subjects wishing to give honour to the memory of their much-loved Queen gave the pillars her name.
For fifteen centuries they were left to stand in this last-named position, which was close to the Port of Alexandria; and many years after the grand building of the Cæsars had fallen in ruins, these two columns still stood. With years the sea had advanced to the base of the one in which we are more especially interested, and with the ever-advancing and receding waters the foundation of the Needle became so worn that three hundred years ago it fell to the ground unbroken and unharmed.
From a] [Photo.
PRISING UP THE NEEDLE, IN ORDER TO BUILD THE FRAMEWORK UNDER IT.