So from the "Place la Concorde" blot the shame,
And bid it lead a life more worthy of its name.
Paris, Wednesday, Nov. 18, 1840.
Among the conspicuous objects that in Paris by their number and beauty astonish the stranger, he is early attracted by the venerable obelisk of Luxor. It is of a single block of red sienite, and covered with hieroghyphics, most of which refer to Sesostris, during whose reign it was erected.
In such good preservation is this relic of antiquity and art, that the mind is slow in believing that nearly 3400 years have elapsed, since it was first placed in front of the great temple of Thebes, the modern Luxor. It was given, with another of the same size, by the Viceroy of Egypt to the French government. But such were the difficulties to be overcome in its transportation, that the removal of its partner has never been attempted. The labor of taking it down, and conveying it to the banks of the Nile, occupied eight hundred men for three months. A road had to be constructed and a vessel built on purpose to receive it. The latter was obliged to be sawn off vertically, to accomodate the ponderous passenger, and performed its voyage with peril. Three years after its separation from its original site it arrived in Paris, and in three more years, by the most ingenious and powerful machinery, its final elevation in its new home was effected. It stands on a pedestal of granite in the
