754 
ANCIENT PILLARS. 
remains of the several creatures, to distinguish their interlacing 
bodies. The height now projecting out of the encroaching 
ground, measures about twelve feet; the circumference may with 
ease be embraced. Where time had worn the brass away, I 
could perceive the column was filled with a hard white substance, 
like lime. This apparently choking-up substance can hardly 
have been there from the first formation of the pillar; else, where 
are we to find room for the internal channels, whence flowed the 
triple beverage in honour of the god, when it decorated the 
temple at Delphos ? 
Several feet beyond this serpent-column, rises a very lofty 
pillar, once entirely cased in plates of gilded metal, from which 
it received the name of the brazen pillar. From top to bottom 
of the present remains, numberless holes are seen all over the 
surface, which formerly received the rivets of the now vanished 
plates. Its present state is so tottering, and so little thought is 
taken about rendering it more secure, that a short time must 
level it with the ground ; a subject of particular regret, since it is 
considered the ancient goal of the games. 
We next visited one of the vast cisterns of the city, called that 
of The thousand and one pillars. It it said to have been the work 
of Philoxenus. The depth is immense, and its narrow arched 
roof rests on three hundred columns, distant from each other 
about eight feet. They stand in long ranges, crowned by un¬ 
shapely capitals possessing no ornament whatever. The quantity 
of water this reservoir could hold might form a little lake; at 
present it is turned to a different purpose, being, in fact, a 
manufactory, filled by hundreds of thread-spinners and their 
wheels. Pipes, placed near the bottom of this great tank, formerly 
conveyed its waters to the various streets in its vicinity, where 
