lear and balmy; a
light northerly breeze brought the refreshing fragrance of the sea, and
the slender palm-trees that bordered the canal threw long shadows
mingling with the massive shade of the sycamores. The road was astir with
busy groups, birds sang in the trees, and the old musician drank in the
exciting and aromatic atmosphere of the Egyptian Spring with keen
enjoyment.

As they reached the middle of the steep bridge across the canal he
involuntarily stood still, riveted by the view of the southwest. In his
excitement he threw up his arms, his eyes glistened with moisture and
with the enthusiasm of youth, and, as was always the case when his
emotions were stirred by some glorious work of God or man, an image rose
to his mind, all unbidden--the image of his eldest son, now dead, but in
life his closest and most sympathetic comrade. He felt as though his hand
could grasp the shoulder of that son, too early snatched away, whose
gifts had far transcended those of the surviving Orpheus--as though he
too could gaze with him on the grand scene that lay before him.

On a platform of rocks and mighty masonry rose a structure of wonderful
magnificence and beauty, so brilliantly illuminated by the morning sun
that its noble proportions and gorgeous colors showed in dazzling
splendor and relief. Over the gilt dome bent the cloudless blue of the
African sky, and the polished hemisphere shone, as radiant as the sun
whose beams it reflected. Sloping planes for vehicles, and flights of
steps for pedestrians led up to the gates. The lower part of this
wonderful edifice--the great Temple of Serapis--was built to stand
forever, and the pillars of the vestibule supported a roof more fitted to
the majesty of the gods than to the insignificance of mortals; priests
and worshippers moved here like children among the trunks of some
gigantic forest. Round the cornice, in hundreds of niches, and on every
projection, all the gods of Olympus and all the heroes and sages of
Greece seemed to have met in conclave, and stood gazing down on the world
in gleaming brass or tinted marble. Every portion of the building blazed
with gold and vivid coloring; the painter's hand had added life to the
marble groups in high relief that filled the pediments and the smaller
figures in the long row of metopes. All the population of a town might
have found refuge in the vast edifice and its effect on the mind was like
that of a harmonious symphony of adoration