The imposing architecture of Egypt was chiefly owing to the impressive vastness of the public buildings.  It was not produced by beauty of proportion or graceful embellishments; it was designed to awe the people, and kindle sentiments of wonder and astonishment.  So far as this end was contemplated it was nobly reached; even to this day the traveller stands in admiring amazement before those monuments that were old three thousand years ago.  No structures have been so enduring as the Pyramids; no ruins are more extensive and majestic than those of Thebes.  The temple of Karnak and the palace of Rameses the Great were probably the most imposing ever built by man.  This temple was built of blocks of stone seventy feet in length, on a platform one thousand feet long and three hundred wide, with pillars sixty feet in height.  But this and other structures did not possess that unity of design which marked the Grecian temples.  Alleys of colossal sphinxes formed the approach.  At Karnak the alley was six thousand feet long, and before the main body of the edifice stood two obelisks commemorative of the dedication.  The principal structures of Egyptian temples do not follow the straight line, but begin with pyramidal towers which flank the gateways; then follow, usually, a court surrounded with colonnades, subordinate temples, and houses for the priests.  A second pylon, or pyramidal tower, leads to the interior and most considerable part of the temple,—­a portico inclosed with walls, which receives light only through the entablature or openings in the roof.  Adjoining this is the cella of the temple, without columns, enclosed by several walls, often divided into various small chambers with monolithic receptacles for idols or mummies or animals.  The columns stand within the walls.  The colonnade is not, as among the Greeks, an expansion of the temple; it is merely the wall with apertures.  The walls, composed of square blocks, are perpendicular only on the inside, and bevelled externally, so that the thickness at the bottom sometimes amounts to twenty-four feet; thus the whole building assumes a pyramidal form, the fundamental principle of Egyptian architecture.  The columns are more slender than the early Doric, are placed close together, and have bases of circular plinths; the shaft diminishes upward, and is ornamented with perpendicular or oblique furrows, but not fluted like Grecian columns.  The capitals are of the bell form, ornamented with all kinds of foliage, and have a narrow but high abacus.  They abound with sculptured decorations, the designs of which were borrowed from the vegetation of the country.  The highest of the columns of the temple of Luxor is five and a quarter times the greatest diameter.