A pilgrimage to the temples and tombs of Egypt, Nubia, and ...

310 CAMBYSES.
Paris; and, from the unfinished state of the
northern face of the largest of them, it is evident
that the hieroglyphics were executed after the
obelisk had been erected. In one of the tombs
at Assassief we saw paintings which represented
the progress of sculptors chiselling a colossal
statue ; those at work on the upper parts were
mounted upon wooden scaffoldings, placed at dis-
tances one above the other; and I imagine the
embellishments of the obelisks must have been
managed in the same way.
The ruthless destroyer, Cambyses, broke and
defaced the splendid accessories to the kingly
edifices of Thebes and Karnak ; those which his
soldiery could not overthrow, they mutilated, and
the Persians were the only conquerors of Egypt
who thus barbarously disfigured its temples and
palaces; for the Macedonians and the Romans
respected what the Persians had endeavoured to
destroy ; and even restored what these latter
had succeeded in overthrowing. Yet it is related
of Cambyses, that when, in the delirium of con-
quest, he had caused the royal city of Thebes to
be devastated by fire, and that he was watching
the fatal progress of the flames, struck by the
beauty of the obelisks as they towered serenely
above the destroying element, he gave orders that