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CHAPTER III. 
1 H E first impression on beholding Axum church, is its great re- 
semblance to the Gothic seats of noblemen in England. As we came 
nearer, we passed the fallen ruins of a great number of obelisks, 
some of which present no appearance of having been ever deco- 
rated with sculpture, while others seem to have had much atten- 
tion paid to them in this respect; at length, after passing a large 
reservoir of water on our left, we were much gratified with a view 
of an obelisk still erect, which had been hitherto concealed by a 
large Daroo tree, and is undoubtedly the one mentioned by Poncet, 
and afterwards described and drawn by Bruce. It is about eighty 
feet high, and formed out of a single block of granite, curiously 
carved, and in excellent proportion. My attention was for a long 
time rivetted on this beautiful and extraordinary monument, of 
which, however, the elevation published by the traveller last men- 
tioned, can furnish no idea. It is difficult to conceive the method 
by which such a solid mass of granite was raised ; and the astonish- 
ment excited at the magnitude of the work was more particularly 
striking, after passing through a country now reduced to so rude a 
state as Abyssinia. A little way below this only obelisk that has 
withstood the effects of time, and which appears so perfect that it 
might be supposed to have been lately erected, we came opposite to 
the church, which Bruce has most unjustly depreciated, since, when 
