now remaining perfect. It measures ninety-two feet from the ground, and its companion is not much less, being about seventy-five. At Luxor, a few miles off, another pair remained till lately; but one of them now graces the Place de la Concorde. These two were in a wider space than the four at Karnac, but they were close to the face of the great propylons, by which it might have been expected that they would be completely dwarfed. But the ancient builders knew better. The wall behind them is composed of enormous blocks of sandstone. Yet this single piece of granite reaches nearly to the top of the wall. Such is the reflection suggested by their situation. At Karnac you see the point of the tall pillar appearing above the tops of the palms, and of the gigantic buildings close to it; but you see only the point until you are near enough to recognise that it is a monolith. The whole world cannot show such another block, yet it is a small thing, considered merely as a building. To see it aright you must, said its designers, see it near; or, if any of it is to be revealed to the world at large, it must be the extremity only, and that surrounded by great columns and lofty gates, so that a scale is ready to assist your eye in estimating its size when at length you enter the narrow precincts of the court from whose floor it shoots up into the blue sky above your head. This evidently was the idea of the obelisk-makers, and they were undoubtedly right. An obelisk built up of little bits of stone is not really an obelisk; and at Paris the great open place, the fountains, the bridge, the distant portico, all go, not to enhance the size of the monolith, but to diminish it. So, too, the wide roadway and gardens, the magnificent sweep of the granite quay, the great breadth of the river, the mighty span of the railway bridge, all dwarf Cleopatra's Needle, and deprive it of everything but its purely antiquarian interest. TOMBS OF THE SULTANS. CHAPTER IV. DERVISHES. The Coptic and Muslim Calendars-The Egyptian Saints' Days-The Dervish is not a Monk-The Colours of Turbans-The Descendants of Mohammed-The Pilgrims' Return-The Mahmal-The Doseh. IT is almost impossible for a stranger to know beforehand the date at which any Coptic or Muslim ceremony will take place. Mr. Michell's Calendar will help him, no doubt; but even this most able and careful work will not prophesy a delay in the return of the pilgrims, or in the rising of the Nile, or the cloudiness of the first night of a moon. Moreover, in addition to the European ways of counting time, in Egypt both the Copts and the Mahometans have their respective almanacks, and go by them. The Coptic is of the greatest interest to students of the ancient remains, and the most curious part of the Coptic calendar is formed of the Ephemeridal Notices for every day in the year. These quaint sentences remind us of the remarks in Partridge and other almanacks of a hundred years ago; but they are of a much more important character than might be supposed at first sight. When we read that the 23rd of January is a "good season for marriages," or that on the nineteenth of August there is "feebleness of bile," we are only disposed to be amused. But Mr. Michell reminds us that these notes have been in use for thousands of years, and have survived all revolutions. "They are the echoes," he says, "of a distant past, and they sum up the wisdom of ages in matters of agriculture and hygiene." The modern calendar, in short, is the old calendar of the days referred to even under the Ptolemies as ancient, and "with its paternal, and often naïve, advice has embalmed the thoughts and observations of some of the most ancient of mummies." The modern Copts date from what they call the "era of Martyrs," that is, the second year of Diocletian, A.D. 289; and the present year, 1295 of the Hejra, corresponds with parts of the two Coptic years 1594-1595. Their bis This sextile system starts from the so-called era of Menophres, their leap-year always preceding ours. era of Menophres is of an antiquity so remote that it takes us back to the time of Moses. Whether or not Menophres was the Menephtah of some writers and the Pharaoh of the Exodus, his era is B.C. 1322. In that year it was observed that the first day of the first month, which had, as it were, been travelling backwards through the seasons, fell exactly upon the day of the heliacal rising of the star Sothis. It was ascertained that 365 days elapsed between two such risings at the latitude of Memphis. This Sothic year, the annus quadratus of Pliny, was known to the Ptolemies as the Alexandrine, and was converted by Sosigenes into the Julian year. Sosigenes, an Egyptian himself, merely transferred the New Year's Day from autumn to winter, taking the reputed date of the foundation of Rome as his era. But in Egypt the first day of the year has remained the same, and the Copts actually keep the same New Year's Day and call their first month by the same name as the Pharaohs more than thirty centuries ago. Before this Sothic year was discovered, however, at least two other systems are ascertained to have been in use. The earliest of which we have any knowledge. consisted of 360 days, and was the first unintercalated solar year. It seems probable that this ancient term was employed down to a late period for registering the dates of kings, and the festivals kept according to |