“Look at our architecture!” he exclaimed, greatly to the indignation of
      both the travellers, who pinched him black and blue to no purpose. “Look,” he cried with enthusiasm, “at the Bowling-Green Fountain in New
      York! or if this be too vast a contemplation, regard for a moment the
      Capitol at Washington, D. C.!”—and the good little medical man went
      on to detail very minutely, the proportions of the fabric to which he
      referred. He explained that the portico alone was adorned with no less
      than four and twenty columns, five feet in diameter, and ten feet apart. The Count said that he regretted not being able to remember, just at that
      moment, the precise dimensions of any one of the principal buildings of
      the city of Aznac, whose foundations were laid in the night of Time, but
      the ruins of which were still standing, at the epoch of his entombment, in
      a vast plain of sand to the westward of Thebes. He recollected, however,
      (talking of the porticoes,) that one affixed to an inferior palace in a
      kind of suburb called Carnac, consisted of a hundred and forty-four
      columns, thirty-seven feet in circumference, and twenty-five feet apart. The approach to this portico, from the Nile, was through an avenue two
      miles long, composed of sphynxes, statues, and obelisks, twenty, sixty,
      and a hundred feet in height. The palace itself (as well as he could
      remember) was, in one direction, two miles long, and might have been
      altogether about seven in circuit. Its walls were richly painted all over,
      within and without, with hieroglyphics. He would not pretend to assert
      that even fifty or sixty of the Doctor’s Capitols might have been built
      within these walls, but he was by no means sure that two or three hundred
      of them might not have been squeezed in with some trouble. That palace at
      Carnac was an insignificant little building after all. He (the Count),
      however, could not conscientiously refuse to admit the ingenuity,
      magnificence, and superiority of the Fountain at the Bowling Green, as
      described by the Doctor. Nothing like it, he was forced to allow, had ever
      been seen in Egypt or elsewhere. I here asked the Count what he had to say to our railroads. “Nothing,” he replied, “in particular.” They were rather slight, rather
      ill-conceived, and clumsily put together. They could not be compared, of
      course, with the vast, level, direct, iron-grooved causeways upon which
      the Egyptians conveyed entire temples and solid obelisks of a hundred and
      fifty feet in altitude. I spoke of our gigantic mechanical forces. He agreed that we knew something in that way, but inquired how I should
      have gone to work in getting up the imposts on the lintels of even the
      little palace at Carnac. This question I concluded not to hear, and demanded if he had any idea of
      Artesian wells; but he simply raised his eyebrows; while Mr. Gliddon
      winked at me very hard and said, in a low tone, that one had been recently
      discovered by the engineers employed to bore for water in the Great Oasis. I then mentioned our steel; but the foreigner elevated his nose, and asked
      me if our steel could have executed the sharp carved work seen on the
      obelisks, and which was wrought altogether by edge-tools of copper. This disconcerted us so greatly that we thought it advisable to vary the
      attack to Metaphysics. We sent for a copy of a book called the “Dial,” and
      read out of it a chapter or two about something that is not very clear,
      but which the Bostonians call the Great Movement of Progress. The Count merely said that Great Movements were awfully common things in
      his day, and as for Progress, it was at one time quite a nuisance, but it
      never progressed. We then spoke of the great beauty and importance of Democracy, and were at
      much trouble in impressing the Count with a due sense of the advantages we
      enjoyed in living where there was suffrage ad libitum, and no king. He listened with marked interest, and in fact seemed not a little amused. When we had done, he said that, a great while ago, there had occurred
      something of a very similar sort. Thirteen Egyptian provinces determined
      all at once to be free, and to set a magnificent example to the rest of
      mankind. They assembled their wise men, and concocted the most ingenious
      constitution it is possible to conceive. For a while they managed
      remarkably well; only their habit of bragging was prodigious. The thing
      ended, however, in the consolidation of the thirteen states, with some
      fifteen or twenty others, in the most odious and insupportable despotism
      that was ever heard of upon the face of the Earth. I asked what was the name of the usurping tyrant. As well as the Count could recollect, it was Mob. Not knowing what to say to this, I raised my voice, and deplored the
      Egyptian ignorance of steam. The Count looked at me with much astonishment, but made no answer. The
      silent gentleman, however, gave me a violent nudge in the ribs with his
      elbows—told me I had sufficiently exposed myself for once—and
      demanded if I was really such a fool as not to know that the modern
      steam-engine is derived from the invention of Hero, through Solomon de
      Caus. We were now in imminent danger of being discomfited; but, as good luck
      would have it, Doctor Ponnonner, having rallied, returned to our rescue,
      and inquired if the people of Egypt would seriously pretend to rival the
      moderns in the all-important particular of dress. The Count, at this, glanced downward to the straps of his pantaloons, and
      then taking hold of the end of one of his coat-tails, held it up close to
      his eyes for some minutes. Letting it fall, at last, his mouth extended
      itself very gradually from ear to ear; but I do not remember that he said
      any thing in the way of reply. Hereupon we recovered our spirits, and the Doctor, approaching the Mummy
      with great dignity, desired it to say candidly, upon its honor as a
      gentleman, if the Egyptians had comprehended, at any period, the
      manufacture of either Ponnonner’s lozenges or Brandreth’s pills. We looked, with profound anxiety, for an answer—but in vain. It was
      not forthcoming. The Egyptian blushed and hung down his head. Never was
      triumph more consummate; never was defeat borne with so ill a grace. Indeed, I could not endure the spectacle of the poor Mummy’s
      mortification. I reached my hat, bowed to him stiffly, and took leave. Upon getting home I found it past four o’clock, and went immediately to
      bed. It is now ten A.M. I have been up since seven, penning these
      memoranda for the benefit of my family and of mankind. The former I shall
      behold no more. My wife is a shrew.