CLEOPATRA’S NEEDLE. 
The most striking monuments of ancient Alexandria are the well-known Obelisks and 
Pompey’s Pillar. Of the former one only remains standing. They are the same 
which Pliny mentions as having been placed before the Temple of Caesar, and which he 
supposes to have been cut and sculptured at Mesphres. In this, indeed, he is not far from 
the truth, since the Pharaoh, whose ovals they hear, was the third Thothmes; and it 
is remarkable that the names of the kings who lived about that period, the first and 
second Thothmes, are written in Manetho’s list as Mesphra-Thothmosis. In the lateral 
lines are the ovals of Pemeses the Great, the supposed Sesostris; and additional columns 
of hieroglyphics at the angles of the lower part present that of a later king, apparently 
Osirei II., the third successor of the great Remeses. 
These Obelisks stood originally at Heliopolis, and were brought to Alexandria by one of 
the Caesars, perhaps Julius, since tradition has attached to them the title of Cleopatra’s 
Needles. They are of red granite of Syene, like most of the Obelisks of Egypt, and 
are nearly sixty paces apart. The standing Obelisk is about seventy feet high, and seven 
feet seven inches square at its base. That which has been thrown down, and lies close to 
its pedestal, is' mutilated, and only sixty-six feet in length, but otherwise of the same 
dimensions as that which is erect. It was given to the English Government by Moham¬ 
med Ali, who offered even to transport it free of expense to the shore, and put it on 
board any vessel or raft which might he sent to remove it; 1 hut, though the idea of 
removing it was long entertained, and the English Government has often been 
reproached for not bringing it away, as a trophy of the glorious termination of the 
war of 1801 in Egypt, the project appears to have been abandoned. 
1 This has been greatly misrepresented by Stephens, an American author, in his Incidents of Travel. 
He says it was taken down many years ago “ by the English, for the purpose of being carried to England, 
but the Pacha prevented it! ” 
