ing. Some years ago, this one and another were
given to the French by the government of Egypt, and the French king sent
a large company of men to take this one down and bring it to Paris. They
built an immense vessel on purpose for transporting it. This vessel they
sent to Egypt. It went up the Nile as near to the place where the
obelisk stood as it could go. The place was called Luxor. The obelisk
stood back at some distance from the river; and there were several Arab
huts near it, which it was necessary to pull down. There were also
several other houses in the way by the course which the obelisk must
take in going to the river. The French engineers bought all these
houses, and pulled them down. Then they made a road leading from the
place where the obelisk stood to the river. Then they cased the whole
stone in wood, to prevent its getting broken or injured on the way. Then
they lowered it down by means of immense machines which they constructed
for the purpose, and so proceeded to draw it to the river. But with all
their machines, it was a prodigiously difficult work to get it along. It
took eight hundred men to move it, and so slowly did it go that these
eight hundred men worked three months in getting it to the landing.
There they made a great platform, and so rolled it on board the float.
There was a steamer at hand to take it in tow, and it was brought to
France. It then took five or six months to bring it across the country
from the sea shore to Paris.

"When, at last, they got it here, it took them nearly a year to
construct the machines for raising it. They built the pedestal for it to
stand upon, which you see is as high as a two-story house, and then
appointed a day for the raising. All the world, almost, came to see.
This whole square was full. There were more than a hundred thousand
persons here. The king came, and his family, and all his generals and
great officers. It was the greatest raising that ever was seen."

"Why, there must have been just as great a raising," said Rollo, "when
they first put it up in Egypt."

"No," said Mr. George; "because there it stood nearly upon the ground,
but here it is on the top of a lofty pedestal. Look there! Those are
pictures of the machines which they raised it by."

So saying, Mr. George pointed to beautifully gilded diagrams which were
sculptured upon one side of the pedestal. There were beams, and ropes,
and pulleys without number, with the obelisk among them; b