MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
any great inconvenience; and ob- 
viates. the delay of waiting for a 
vessel, which is afterward to be ex- 
posed to the casualties of a voyage of 
Do inconsiderable length 
From England you may reach 
Vienna in ten days, and Constanti- 
nople, I presume, in fifteen days 
more ; from thence you may go to 
Bagdad by Diarbekir in twelve days, 
and from Bagdad to Bussora*, in a 
light boat along the Tigris, in four 
days. If a vessel is ready there to 
receive you, Bombay may be reach- 
ed in twen'y-one days. 
This, I am persuaded, is perfectly 
practicable, if our ministers and re- 
sidents at the different places make 
use of their influence in preventing 
unnecessary delays, and the person 
charged with the packet is reward- 
ed according to the diligence he has 
shewn in the performance of the 
joursey. 
Obelisk of Sesostris at Rome. 
From Wilcox’s Roman Conversations. 
N their way to that part of the 
Campus Martius, the eldest of 
the young gentlemen conversed 
much with his noble friend, on the 
successive rise and fall of many 
seats of science, Thebes, Memphis, 
Alexandria, Babylon, Athens, and 
Rome: not without bestowing on bis 
own country the fond, patriotic wish 
_Esto perpetua! Words worthy to be 
the dying speech of every good man. 
~ 
A55 
He was repeating them with an 
emphatic warmth, when the coach 
stopped. Crito then led the com- 
pany into a small back area, where 
they saw that famous obelisk, to 
‘which, as to an eternal monument, 
the great Sesostis, in some measure, 
consigned the history of his glory : 
inscribing upon it the extent of his 
enipire, and the number of his tri- 
butary nations. They saw it over- 
turned,—broken in several. frag- 
ments,—half covered with filth and 
rubbish,—omni inguinatum contu- 
mela t,-——-and proportionately in as 
Jow a state of ruin and humiliation 
as the glory of its founder was ever 
exalted; that proud and _ insolent 
man, who so arrogantly styled him- 
self ‘‘ king of kings,” and ‘* lord 
of lords.’” 
Two of its sides are entirely 
maimed and obliterated by fire; in- 
juries repeatedly received in the 
times of Cambyses, Totilas, and 
Robert of Normandy. On the other 
two sides, and on its top, are several 
inscriptions and figures, which may 
justly be thought the most ancient 
sculptures now extant in the whole 
world}. They are of such excellent 
workmanship, as plainly to demon- 
strate that the Greek and Roman 
art of sculpture was founded on the 
primeval arts of Egypt. These 
figures and inscriptions have been, 
for many centuries past, utterly un- 
intelligible. 
The same fate attends all the 
other monuments in Upper Egypt ; 
* Timagine that the journey from Aleppo to Bussora over the desert, would be 
much sooner performed, if the teaveller was to make directly for the Euphrates, 
and take boat to go down the river to Bussora, 
+ Phadr. L. ii, 21. 
_ t The extreme antiquity of this obelisk will appear to the reader in a stronger 
light, when he recollects that it was hewn into its present shape before any of the 
pyramids were built, From Pliny’s accowat, this obelisk was the work of Sesostris; 
and according to all the Greek historians, Sesostris was prior in antiquity to Cheops, 
Cephren, or any of the builders of the pyramids, 
Ps Ff4 
for 
