formerly inhabited by a swarming population. Jungle has shot up and partly obliterated streets which were once thronged with a busy people in pursuit of their various avocations; and the visitor may now loose himself in the solitude of ruins, where crowds were formerly the only impediments to a free passage.

The most conspicuous object within the fort is the mausoleum of Mahomet Shah, which was forty-two years building. It is a large quadrangular structure, 150 feet square and 150 feet high; the dome is only ten feet less in diameter than the cupola of St. Peter's. The echo within, as in the whispering gallery of St. Paul's, is so perfect, that the visitor is ready to fancy it the voice of another person mimicking him. At the four corners of the tomb are octagonal minarests, about 140 feet in height. The general style of the tomb is grandeur and simplicity. Outside of the fort, the mausoleum of Ibrahim II. is the most conspicuous building. On the outside, the walls are carved into Arabic inscriptions, sculptured with great skill, and disposed in every variety of ornament. A person looking at the illuminated page of a beautiful oriental manuscript, magnifying this, and fancying it to be represented by sculpture, painting, and gilding on the face of a wall of black granite, will have some conception || of the labour, skill, and brilliancy of this work. The whole of the Koran is said to be carved on the four sides of this elegant structure, in which the utmost art and taste of the architect and the sculptor have combined to produce the richest effect.

EPHESUS.

WE pay a visit to Ephesus, in search of one of the "Seven Wonders of the world"-the Temple of Diana, celebrated both in sacred and secular story; but its magnificence has departed. All that constituted the splendour of this edifice: its columns, of which 127 were the gifts of kings; its works of art, comprising the master-pieces of Apelles and Praxiteles, have disappeared. It can now

REMAINS OF THE GREAT TEMPLE AT EPHESUS.

be identified only by the marshy spot on which it was erected, and by the prodigious extent and magnitude of the arches raised above as a foundation. The vaults formed by them compose a labyrinth, and pure water is knee-deep underneath. There is not an apartment entire; but thick walls, shafts of columns, and fragments of every kind are confusedly scattered.

Its

As in the case of Solomon's Temple, the first was destroyed and replaced by a second still more magnificent. The original structure fell not by the rage of Xerxes, who spared it, but by the conceit of an Ephesian, who, to immortalize his name, set fire to it! The second temple was burnt by the Goths. destruction is thus described by Gibbon :-"In the general calamities of mankind, the death of an individual, however exalted, the ruin of an edifice, however famous, are passed over with careless inattention. we cannot forget that the Temple of Diana at Ephesus, after having risen with increasing splendour from seven repeated misfortunes, was finally burnt by the Goths in their third naval invasion. The arts of Greece, and the wealth of Asia, had conspired to erect that sacred and magnificent structure. It was admired

Yet,

as one of the wonders of the world. Successive empires, the Persian, Macedouian, and the Roman, had revered its sanctity, and enriched its splendour. But the rude savages of the Baltic were destitute of a taste for the elegant arts, and they despised the ideal terrors of a foreign superstition."

Besides the temple, the Stadium, the Theatre, the Odeon, and the Gymnasium, may all be distinguished in outline.

It was this theatre, doubtless, into which the people rushed, shouting, "Great is Diana!" when St. Paul, by his preaching, produced a tumult at Ephesus. In both wings of this theatre are architectural fragments; and over an arch, once one of the avenues, is an inscription, enjoining the reader, "If he did not think proper to approach the festive scene, at least to be pleased with the skill of the architect, who had saved a vast circle of the theatre." The

above engraving gives a view of this remnant of antiquity.

ALEXANDRIA.

was

at

ANOTHER of the old "Seven Wonders of the World"- the Tower of Pharos, Alexandria. The ruins of it are buried in the sea, at the bottom of which, in a calm day, one may easily distinguish large columns, and several vast pieces of marble, which give sufficient proofs of the magnificence of the building in which they were anciently employed. The harbour lay in the centre of the city, and at its entrance stood the tower. It was a large square structure, built of white marble, on the top of which a fire was constantly kept burning, in order to guide ships by night.

Ancient Alexandria was a magnificent city. There was one street two thousand feet wide, adorned with houses, temples, and public buildings. Throughout the whole extent, the eye was never sa

ALEXANDRIA.

tiated with admiring the marble, the porphyry, and the obelisks which were destined hereafter to adorn Rome and

Constantinople. This street was indeed the finest the world ever saw. The palace occupied a quarter of the city. The Temple of Serapion, Ammianus Marcellinus assures us, surpassed all the temples then in the world for beauty and magnificence, with the sole exception of the Capitol at Rome. Here also was the famous library, containing 700,000 volumes, which was destroyed by the Saracens. Amron, who captured it, thus wrote to his master, the caliph of Omar. "I have taken the great city

of the West. It is impossible for me to enumerate the variety of its riches and beauty; I shall content myself with observing, that it contains 4000 palaces, 4000 baths, 460 theatres, 12,000 shops, for the sale of vegetable food, and 40,000 Jews."

The present state of Alexandria affords a scene of magnificence and desolation. In the space of two leagues, inclosed by walls, nothing is seen but the remains of pilasters, of capitals, and of obelisks, and whole mountains of shattered columns and monuments of ancient art, heaped upon one another, and accumulated to a height even greater than that of the houses.

According to Sonnini, "columns subverted and scattered about; mutilated statues; and fragments of every species overspread the ground. It is the hideous theatre of destruction the most horrible. The soul is saddened on contemplating those remains of grandeur and magnificence; and it is raised into indignation against the barbarians who dared to apply a sacrilegious hand to monuments which time, the most pitiless of destroyers, would have respected."

THE SON'S PROMISE.

SATURDAY night, with its hour of liberation from the demands of six days' toil, was fast stealing on, after a warm day and a brilliant sunset. The river was yet gay with returning boats of all descriptions, the paddle and the oar stirring up a refreshing foam here and there on the otherwise still surface of the waters. The steps of the