of Devenish and other places in Ireland, capped by a conical stone roof terminating in a single stone, which were for a long time a puzzle to the antiquary, are now ascertained to be simply steeples connected with Christian churches of the tenth and eleventh centuries.  And just as these towers are now left isolated and solitary without a trace of the buildings with which they were associated, so the Egyptian temples have passed away, and the obelisks are left alone in the desert.  But we can reconstruct in imagination the massive and lofty buildings in front of which they stood, and where they showed to the greatest advantage.  Instead of being dwarfed by the enormous masses of the propylons, their height gained by the near comparison.  The obelisks in our squares and vast open spaces have their effect destroyed by the buildings being at a distance from them.  There is no scale near at hand to assist the eye in estimating the height; consequently they seem much smaller than they really are.  But when seen in the narrow precincts of a temple court, from whose floor they shot up into the blue sky overhead, surrounded by great columns and lofty gates, breaking the monotony of the heavy masses of masonry of which the Egyptian temples were composed, and acting the part which campanili and spires perform in modern churches, a standard of comparison was thus furnished which greatly enhanced their magnitude.

Nothing could be grander than the objects associated with the obelisks where they stood.  The temple was approached by an avenue of huge sphinxes, in some cases a mile and a half long.  Drawing nearer, the worshipper saw two lofty obelisks towering up a hundred feet in height, on the right and left.  Behind these he would observe with awe four or six gigantic statues seated with their hands on their knees.  And at the back of the statues he would gaze with astonishment upon two massive towers or pylons, broader at the base than at the summit, two hundred feet wide and a hundred and twenty feet high, crowned by a gigantic cornice, with their whole surface covered with coloured sculptures, representing one of the great dramas in the reign of a victorious monarch.  Above them would rise the tall masts of coloured cedar-wood, inserted in sinkings chased into the wall, surmounted by the expanded banners of the king, or the heraldic bearings of the temple floating in the breeze.  Between the huge propylons opened up the great gateway of the temple, sixty feet high, which led into a vast court, surrounded by columns and open to the sky.  Beyond were walls whose roofs were supported by a forest of enormous pillars, which seemed to have been raised by giants.  Each hall diminished in size, but increased in sacredness, until the inmost sanctuary was reached; small, dark, and awful in its obscurity.  Here was the holy shrine in the shape of a boat or ark, having in it a kind of chest partially veiled, in which was hid the mystic symbol of the god.