centimetres; and the disposal suggested an inner peristyle,
forming an impluvium. Thus the cube could not have been a heroon
or tomb. Four bases of columns, with a number of drums, lie in
the heap of ruins, and in the torrent-bed six, of which we
carried off four. They are much smaller than the pilasters of the
entrance; the lower tori of the bases measure 0.60 centimetre in
diameter, and 0.20 in height (to 0.90 and 0.25), while the drums
are 0.45, instead of 0.65. It is an enormous apparatus to support
what must have been a very light matter of a roof. The only
specimen of a colonette-capital has an upper diameter of 0.26, a
lower of 0.17, and a height of 0.16.

Although the Meccan Ka'bah is, as its name denotes, a "cube,"
this square alabaster box did not give the impression of being
either Arab or Nabathaan. The work is far too curiously and
conscientiously done; the bases and drums, as the sundries
carried to Cairo prove, look rather as if turned by machinery
than chiselled in the usual way. I could not but conjecture that
it belongs to the days of such Roman invasions as that of Alius
Gallus. Strabo[EN#73] tells us of his unfortunate friend and
companion, that, on the return march, after destroying
Negran[EN#74] (Pliny, vi. 32), he arrived at Egra or Hegra
(El-'Wijh), where he must have delayed some time before he could
embark "as much of his army as could be saved," for the opposite
African harbour, Myus Hormus. It is within the limits of
probability that this historical personage[EN#75] might have
built the Gasr, either for a shrine or for a nymphaum, a
votive-offering to the Great Wady, which must have cheered his
heart after so many days of "Desert country, with only a few
watering-places." Perhaps an investigation of the ruins at Ras