[CONTENTS]
[ILLUSTRATIONS]
[INDEX]

• By the Same Author
• A Report on the Antiquities of Lower Nubia
• A Catalogue of the Weights and Balances in the Cairo Museum
• A Guide to the Antiquities of Upper Egypt
• Travels in the Upper Egyptian Deserts
• The Life and Times of Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt
• A History of Egypt from 1798 to 1914
• Madeline of the Desert
• The Dweller in the Desert
• Bedouin Love
• The Life and Times of Akhnaton, Pharaoh of Egypt

THE GLORY OF THE PHARAOHS

Arthur Weigall

THE GLORY
OF THE
PHARAOHS

BY
ARTHUR WEIGALL
Late Inspector General of Antiquities, Egyptian Government, and
Member of the Catalogue Staff of the Cairo Museum;
Officer of the Order of the Medjidieh.
Author of “The Life and Times of Akhnaton,” etc.
~
With 17 Illustrations
G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS
NEW YORK LONDON
The Knickerbocker Press
1923
Copyright, 1923
by
Arthur Weigall
Made in the United States of America

PUBLISHER’S FOREWORD

In view of the fact that Mr. Arthur Weigall, while inclined to obscure himself owing to a distaste for public life, is widely known in several fields of activity, the Publisher has felt that a short foreword to this volume will be of interest to those who have wondered as to the author’s identity.

The writer of these entertaining and scholarly essays was born in 1880, being the son of the late Major Arthur Weigall and grandson of the Rev. Edward Weigall, M.A., Vicar of Buxton, Derbyshire: a descendant of an officer of that name who came to England as Equerry to William of Orange in 1698.

Various members of the family of Weigall have attained distinction in England as scholars, painters, sculptors, authors, and diplomats; but the writer of these essays was originally destined for the Army, and for that reason was educated at Wellington College. Later, however, he matriculated for New College, Oxford, causing some flutter in that academic circle by offering Egyptian hieroglyphic texts as his special subject for the examination; but he abandoned his ‘Varsity career in 1900 in order to go out to Egypt as assistant excavator to Professor Flinders Petrie.

At the early age of twenty-four, he was appointed by his friend, Lord Cromer, Inspector General of Antiquities for Upper Egypt, a post for which his scholarship, his administrative ability, and his great energy eminently fitted him. This arduous position he held until 1914; and during his tenure of office he carried out the most important reforms with a view to the preservation and safeguarding of antiquities, the suppression of lawless excavation, and the advancement of the science of Egyptology. He was present at most of the great discoveries made during those years, and in particular he supervised the excavations in the Valley of the Tombs of the Kings at Thebes, in which some of the famous royal sepulchres were discovered.

Besides his administrative and archæological work he found time to make several daring expeditions into the unexplored regions of the Eastern Desert; and in these years he also wrote a number of Egyptological books, including A Guide to the Antiquities of Upper Egypt and Lower Nubia: Travels in the Upper Egyptian Deserts: The Life and Times of Akhnaton, Pharaoh of Egypt: The Life and Times of Cleopatra: etc. He also made a considerable study of the political situation in the Near East; and his book A History of Events in Egypt from 1798 to 1914, and various papers in the Fortnightly Review, had considerable influence on British policy. For some time, too, Mr. Weigall was a member of the Catalogue Staff of the Cairo Museum, and in that connection wrote an important work of a mathematical character on ancient Weights and Balances.

These books, and his many papers in the Nineteenth Century, Fortnightly Review, Blackwood’s Magazine, etc., were received with a chorus of praise; and he was soon recognised as the foremost writer upon Egyptology, and a master of felicitous expression and description. His friend the late President Roosevelt, writing in the Outlook, spoke of him as having “that supreme quality of seeing the living body through the dry bones and then making others see it also,” and as being “not merely accurate, but truthful with the truth that comes only from insight and broadminded grasp of essential facts, added to exhaustive study and wide learning.”

“Mr. Weigall is one of the best living authorities on Upper Egypt,” said the Athenæum, “and his delightful books are justly admired.” “He is a scholar,” said the Times, “deeply versed in Egyptian archæology and history and himself a partner in many discoveries.... He is an idealist gifted with insight and sympathy.” The Observer described him as “a scholar who has let learning quicken and not dull his wits”; and the Pall Mall Gazette spoke of him as “the key to one of the richest storehouses the world contains.” “He makes the sights, the sounds, the very air of the Egyptian deserts visit the senses of his readers with a keenness that is almost painful,” wrote the Westminster Gazette. “He is the scholar-sportsman,” said the Times again, “gifted with a fine sensitiveness to the mystery and romance of ancient things.”

In 1914, after receiving high honours from various governments, and when his administrative work and his writings had brought him to a position of eminence, he suffered a breakdown in health, due to his exertions in Egypt; and he was obliged to resign and to return to England. Here, during his convalescence, he occupied his spare time by painting designs for stage scenery; and from 1915 to 1918 many of the leading spectacular productions at the chief London theatres owed their success to his art.

As in the case of his historical writings, so in that of this hobby, his work was received with unanimous praise. We read of a ballet of his at the Alhambra as being “one of the most beautiful stage pictures ever seen”; of a scene at the Palace Theatre “so exquisite as to make a success of the production without anything else” (Tatler); of another scene for which “there is no measure of praise too high” (Sunday Times); and so on throughout the entire Press.

Mr. Weigall, however, having deeply influenced the whole art of stage decoration in this country by introducing bold simplicity of design and pure colour and light effects, did not long continue to spend his time in this manner; and with the return of health he resumed his archæological work and set himself to the long task of preparing material for works on Egyptian art and history, and on comparative ethics, which are not yet completed. Meanwhile, and perhaps to some extent as a means of livelihood, he wrote three novels: Madeline of the Desert (1920), The Dweller in the Desert (1921), entitled Burning Sands in the United States, and Bedouin Love (1922). These books, again hailed with high tributes from the Press, have attained great popularity and have passed through many editions. From time to time he also wrote the lyrics for songs which have obtained wide appreciation, and he was the author of various little sketches, both dramatic and comic, which have been seen upon the London stage.

For some months in 1921 he came before the public in another guise. An article of his in the Nineteenth Century, in which he pointed out the influence being exercised by the Kinematograph on our national life, attracted the attention of the late Lord Northcliffe, who invited Mr. Weigall to write a long series of articles in the Daily Mail on the subject. This led to an intensive study of the whole subject of “films,” and the articles, of a fervently patriotic character, had the effect of removing some unpleasant features from the motion-picture theatres, while the general improvement in the tone of this form of entertainment is largely due to his influence.

At the time of writing (January, 1923) Mr. Weigall is once more in Egypt, and further archæological works from his pen may be expected. In November, 1922, the present Publisher re-issued, and within a few weeks sold out, a revised (fourth) edition of The Life and Times of Akhnaton, perhaps the author’s most popular historical work; and it is hoped that this new volume will be found to be of equal interest and entertainment. The essays published herein were written between 1907 and the present year. Some of them appeared as part of a book many years ago; others were printed in various leading journals; and yet others have been specially written for this volume. In this regard the Publisher’s thanks are due to the editors of the Nineteenth Century, the Fortnightly Review, the Cornhill Magazine, Blackwood’s Magazine, the New Statesman, the Century Magazine, Putnam’s Magazine, and the Quarterly Review.

CONTENTS

ILLUSTRATIONS

The Glory of the Pharaohs

CHAPTER I
EGYPTOLOGY IN THE OPEN

In this first chapter I propose to extol the Egyptologist who works abroad in the field, in contrast to him who studies at home in the museum; for, in reading over the papers collected into this volume, I see that there is a sort of motif which runs through them all, linking them together, namely that the archæology of Egypt, to be properly appreciated, must be studied, so to speak, at the lips of the Sphinx itself.

It is an unfortunate fact that the archæologist is generally considered to be a kind of rag-and-bone man; one who, sitting all his life in a dusty room, shuns the touch of the wind and takes no pleasure in the vanities under the sun. Actually, this is not so very often a true description of him. The ease with which long journeys are now undertaken, the immunity from insult or peril which the traveller usually enjoys, have made it possible for the archæologist to seek his information at its source in almost all the countries of the world; and he is not obliged, as was his grandfather, to take it at second-hand from the volumes of mediæval scholars. Moreover, the necessary collections of books of reference are now to be found in very diverse places; and thus it comes about that there are plenty of archæologists who are able to leave their own museums and studies for limited periods.

And as regards his supposed untidy habits, the phase of cleanliness which, like a purifying wind, descended suddenly upon the world in the second half of the nineteenth century, has penetrated even to libraries and museums, removing every speck of dust therefrom. The archæologist, when engaged in the sedentary side of his profession, lives nowadays in an atmosphere charged with the odours of furniture-polish and monkey-brand. A place less dusty than the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, or than the Metropolitan Museum in New York, could not easily be imagined. The disgusting antiquarian of a past generation, with his matted locks and stained clothing, could but be ill at ease in such surroundings, and could claim no brotherhood with the majority of the present-day archæologists. Cobwebs are now taboo; and the misguided old man who dwelt amongst them is seldom to be found outside of caricature, save in the more remote corners of the earth.

The archæologist in these days, then, is not often confined permanently to his museum, though in many cases he remains there as much as possible; and still less often is he a person of objectionable appearance. The science is generally represented by two classes of scholar; the man who sits in the museum or library for the greater part of his life, and lives as though he would be worthy of the furniture polish, and the man who works in the field for a part of the year and there lives as though he regarded the clean airs of heaven in even higher estimation. Thus, in arguing the case for the field-worker, as I propose here to do, there is no longer the easy target of the dusty antiquarian at which to hurl the javelin. One cannot merely urge a musty individual to come out into the open air. That would make an easy argument. One has to take aim at the less vulnerable person of the scholar who chooses to spend the greater part of his time in a smart gallery of exhibits or in a well-ordered and spotless library, and whose only fault is that he is too fond of those places. One may no longer tease him about his dusty surroundings; but I think it is possible to accuse him of setting a very bad example by his affection for home comforts, and of causing indirectly no end of mischief. It is a fact that there are many Greek scholars who are so accustomed to read their texts in printed books that they could not make head nor tail of an original document written in a cursive Greek hand; and there are not a few students of Egyptian archæology who do not know the conditions and phenomena of the country sufficiently to prevent the occurrence of occasional glaring errors in the exposition of their theories.

There are three main arguments which may be set forward to induce Egyptologists to go as often as possible to Egypt, and to urge their students to do so, instead of educating the mind to the habit of working at home.

Firstly, the study of archæology in the open helps to train up young men in the path of health in which they should go. Work in the Egyptian desert, for example, is one of the most healthy and inspiring pursuits that could be imagined; and study in the shrines overlooking the Nile, where, as at Gebel Silsileh, one has to dive into the cool river and swim to the sun-scorched scene of one’s work, is surely more invigorating than study in the atmosphere of the local museum. A gallop up to the Tombs of the Kings puts a man in a readier mood for a morning’s work than does a ride in a street-car or an omnibus through crowded thoroughfares; and he will feel a keenness as he pulls out his notebook that he can never have experienced in his western city. There is, moreover, a certain amount of what is called “roughing it” to be enjoyed by the archæologist in Egypt; and thus the body becomes toughened and prepared for any necessary spurt of work. To rough it in the open is the best medicine for tired heads, as it is the finest tonic for brains in a normal condition.

In parenthesis an explanation must be given of what is meant here by that much misunderstood condition of life which is generally known as “roughing it.” A man who is accustomed to the services of two valets will believe that he is roughing it when he is left to put the diamond studs in his evening shirts with his own fingers; and a man who has tramped the roads all his life will hardly consider that he is roughing it when he is outlawed upon the unsheltered moors in late autumn. The degree of hardship to which I refer lies between these two extremes. The science of Egyptology does not demand from its devotees a performance of many extreme acts of discomfort; but, during the progress of active work, it does not afford many opportunities for luxurious self-indulgence, or for any slackness in the taking of exercise.

As a protest against the dilettante antiquarian (who is often as objectionable a character as the unwashed scholar) there are certain archæologists who wear the modern equivalent of a hair shirt, who walk abroad with pebbles in their shoes, and who speak of sitting upon an easy-chair as a moral set-back. The strained and posed life which such savants lead is not to be regarded as a rough one; for there is constant luxury in the thought of their own toughness, and infinite comfort in the sense of superiority which they permit themselves to feel. It is not roughing it to feed from a packing-case when a table adds insignificantly to the impedimenta of the camp; it is pretending to rough it. It is not roughing it to eat canned food out of the can when a plate might be used: it is either hypocrisy or slovenliness.

To rough it is to lead an exposed life under conditions precluding the possibility of indulging in certain comforts which, in their place and at the right time, are enjoyed and appreciated. A man may well be said to rough it when he camps in the open, and dispenses with the luxuries of civilisation; when he pours a jug of water over himself instead of lying in ecstasy in an enamelled bath; eats a meal of two undefined courses instead of one of five or six; twangs a banjo to the moon instead of ravishing his ear with a sonata upon the grand piano; rolls himself in a blanket instead of sitting over the library fire; turns in at nine p.m. and rises ere the sun has topped the hills instead of keeping late hours and lying abed; sleeps on the ground or upon a narrow camp-bed (which occasionally collapses) instead of sprawling at his ease in a four-poster.

A life of this kind cannot fail to be of benefit to the health; and, after all, the work of a healthy man is likely to be of greater value than that of one who is anæmic or out of condition. It is the first duty of a scholar to give attention to his muscles, for he, more than other men, has the opportunity to become enfeebled by indoor work. Few students can give sufficient time to physical exercise; but in Egypt the exercise is taken during the course of the work, and not an hour is wasted. The muscles harden and the health is ensured without the expending of a moment’s thought upon the subject.

Archæology is too often considered to be the pursuit of weak-chested youths and eccentric old men; it is seldom regarded as a possible vocation for normal persons of sound health and balanced mind. An athletic and robust young man, clothed in the ordinary costume of a gentleman, will tell a new acquaintance that he is an Egyptologist, whereupon the latter will exclaim in surprise: “Not really?—you don’t look like one.” A kind of mystery surrounds the science. The layman supposes the antiquarian to be a very profound and erudite person, who has pored over his books since a baby, and has shunned those games and sports which generally make for a healthy constitution. The study of Egyptology is thought to require a depth of knowledge that places its students outside the limits of normal learning, and presupposes in them an unhealthy amount of schooling. This, of course, is absurd.

Nobody would expect an engineer who built bridges and dams, or a great military commander, to be a seedy individual with longish hair, pale face, and weak eye-sight; and yet probably he has twice the brain capacity of the average archæologist. It is because the life of the antiquarian is, or is generally thought to be, unhealthy and sluggish that he is so often regarded as a worm.

Some attempt should be made to rid the science of this forbidding aspect; and for this end students ought to do their best to make it possible for them to be regarded as ordinary, normal, healthy men. Let them discourage the popular belief that they are prodigies, freaks of mental expansion. Let them shun pedantry and the affectations of the dons’ common-room as they would the plague. Let their first desire be to show themselves good, useful, hardy, serviceable citizens, and they will do much to remove the stigma from their profession. Let them be acquainted with the feeling of a bat or racket in the hands, or a saddle between the knees; let them know the rough path over the mountains, or the diving-pool amongst the rocks, and their mentality will not be found to suffer. A winter’s “roughing it” in the Theban necropolis or elsewhere would do much to banish the desire for perpetual residence at home in the west; and a season in Egypt would alter the point of view of the student more considerably than he could imagine. Moreover, the appearance of the scholar prancing about on his fiery steed (even though it be but an Egyptian donkey) will help to dispel the current belief that he is incapable of physical exertion; and his reddened face rising, like the morning sun, above the rocks on some steep pathway over the Theban hills will give the passer-by cause to alter his opinion of the students of antiquity.

As a second argument a subject must be introduced which will be distasteful to a large number of archæologists. I refer to the narrow-minded policy of certain European and American museums, whose desire it is at all costs to place Egyptian and other eastern antiquities actually before the eyes of western students, in order that they may have the comfort and entertainment of examining at home the wonders of lands which they make no effort to visit. I have no hesitation in saying that the craze for recklessly dragging away unique monuments from Egypt to be exhibited in western museums for the satisfaction of the untravelled man, is the most pernicious bit of folly to be found in the whole broad realm of Egyptological misbehaviour.

A museum has three main justifications for its existence. In the first place, like a home for lost dogs, it is a repository for stray objects. No curator should endeavour to procure for his museum any antiquity which could be safely exhibited on its original site and in its original position. He should receive chiefly those stray objects which otherwise would be lost to sight, or those which would be in danger of destruction. He should make it his first endeavour not so much to obtain objects direct from Egypt as to gather in those antiquities which are in the possession of dealers or private persons who cannot be expected to look after them with due care, or make them accessible to students.

In the second place, a museum is a storehouse for historical documents such as papyri and ostraca, and in this respect it is simply to be regarded as a kind of public library, capable of unlimited and perfectly legitimate expansion. Such objects are not often found by robbers in the tombs which they have violated, nor are they snatched from temples to which they belong. They are usually discovered accidentally, and in a manner which precludes any possibility of their actual position having much significance. The immediate purchase, for example, by museum agents of the Tell el Amarna tablets—the correspondence of a great Pharaoh—which had been discovered by accident, and would perhaps have been destroyed, was most wise.

In the third place, a museum is a permanent exhibition for the instruction of the public, and for the enlightenment of students desirous of obtaining comparative knowledge in any one branch of their work, and for this purpose it should be well supplied not so much with original antiquities as with casts, facsimiles, models, and reproductions of all sorts.

To be a serviceable exhibition both for the student and the public a museum does not need to possess only original antiquities. On the contrary, as a repository for stray objects, a museum is not to be expected to have a complete series of original antiquities in any class, nor is it the business of the curator to attempt to fill up the gaps without thought of the consequences. To do so is to encourage the straying of other objects. The curator so often labours under the delusion that it is his first business to collect together by fair means or foul as large a number as possible of valuable masterpieces. In reality that is a very secondary matter. His first business, if he be an Egyptologist, is to see that Egyptian masterpieces remain in situ so far as is practicable; and his next is to save what has irrevocably strayed from straying further. If the result of this policy be a poor collection, then he must devote so much the more time and money to obtaining facsimiles and reproductions.

But the curator generally has the insatiable appetite of the collector. The authorities of one museum bid vigorously against those of another at the auction which constantly goes on in the shops of the dealers in antiquities. They pay huge prices for original statues, reliefs, or sarcophagi; prices which would procure for them the finest series of casts or facsimiles or would give them valuable additions to their legitimate collection of papyri. And what is it all for? It is certainly not for the benefit of the general public. It is almost solely for the benefit of the student and scholar who cannot, or will not, go to Egypt. Soon it comes to be the curator’s pride to observe that savants are hastening to his museum to make their studies. His civic conceit is tickled by the spectacle of Egyptologists travelling long distances to take notes in his metropolitan museum.

All this is as wrong-headed as it can be. While he is filling his museum he does not seem to understand that he is denuding every necropolis in Egypt. I will give one or two instances of the destruction wrought by western museums. I take them at random from my memory.

In the year 1900 the then Inspector-General of Antiquities in Upper Egypt discovered a tomb at Thebes in which there was a beautiful relief sculptured on one of the walls, representing Queen Tiy. This he photographed, and the tomb was once more buried. In 1908 I chanced upon this monument, and proposed to open it up as a show place for visitors; but alas!—the relief of the queen had disappeared, and only a gaping hole in the wall remained. It appears that robbers had entered the tomb at about the time of the change of inspectors; and, realising that this relief would make a valuable exhibit for some western museum, they had cut out of the wall as much as they could conveniently carry away—namely, the head and upper part of the figure of Tiy. The hieroglyphic inscription which was sculptured near the head was carefully erased, in case it should contain some reference to the name of the tomb from which they were taking the fragment; and over the face some false inscriptions were scribbled in Greek characters, so as to give the stone an unrecognisable appearance. In this condition it was conveyed to a dealer’s shop, and it now forms one of the exhibits in the Royal Museum at Brussels.

In the same museum, and in others also, there are fragments of beautiful sculpture hacked out of the walls of the famous tomb of Khaemhet at Thebes. In the British Museum there are large pieces of wall-paintings broken out of Theban tombs. The famous inscription in the tomb of Anena at Thebes, which was one of the most important texts of the early Eighteenth Dynasty, was smashed to pieces several years ago to be sold in small sections to museums; and a certain scholar was instrumental in purchasing back for us eleven of the fragments, which have now been replaced in the tomb, and with certain fragments in Europe, form the sole remnant of the once imposing stela.

One of the most important scenes out of the famous reliefs of the Expedition to Pount, at Dêr el Bahri, found its way into the hands of the dealers, and was ultimately purchased by the museum in Cairo. The beautiful and important reliefs which decorated the tomb of Horemheb at Sakkâra, hacked out of the walls by robbers, are now exhibited in six different museums; London, Leyden, Vienna, Bologna, Alexandria, and Cairo. Of the two hundred tombs of the nobles now to be seen at Thebes, I cannot, at the moment, recall a single one which had not suffered in this manner at some time previous to the organisation of the present strict supervision which was instituted by Mr. Carter and myself.

The curators of western museums will argue that had they not purchased these fragments they would have fallen into the hands of less desirable owners. This is quite true, and, indeed, it forms the nearest approach to justification that can be discovered. Nevertheless, it has to be remembered that this purchasing of antiquities is the best stimulus to the robber, who is well aware that a market is always to be found for his stolen goods. It may seem difficult to censure the purchaser, for certainly the fragments were “stray” when the bargain was struck, and it is the business of the curator to collect stray antiquities. But why were they stray? Why were they ever cut from the walls of the Egyptian monuments? Assuredly because the robbers knew that museums would purchase them. If there had been no demand there would have been no supply.

To ask the curators to change their policy, and to purchase only those objects which are legitimately on sale, would, of course, be as futile as to ask the nations to disarm. The rivalry between museum and museum would alone prevent a cessation of this indiscriminate traffic. I can see only one way in which a more sane and moral attitude can be introduced, and that is by the development of the habit of visiting Egypt and of working upon archæological subjects in the shadow of the actual monuments. Only the person who is familiar with Egypt can know the cost of supplying the stay-at-home scholar with exhibits for his museums. Only one who has resided in Egypt can understand the fact that Egypt itself is the real place for Egyptian monuments. He alone can appreciate the work of the Egyptian Government in preserving the remains of ancient days.

The resident in Egypt, interested in archæology, comes to look with a kind of horror upon museums, and to feel extraordinary hostility to what may be called the museum spirit. He sees with his own eyes the half-destroyed tombs, which to the museum curator are things far off and not visualised. While the curator is blandly saying to his visitor: “See, I will now show you a beautiful fragment of sculpture from a distant and little-known Theban tomb,” the white resident in Egypt, with black murder in his heart, is saying: “See, I will show you a beautiful tomb of which the best part of one wall is utterly destroyed that a fragment might be hacked out for a distant and little-known European or American museum.”

To a resident in Europe, Egypt seems to be a strange and barbaric land, far, far away beyond the hills and seas; and her monuments are thought to be at the mercy of wild Bedouin Arabs. In the less recent travel books there is not a published drawing of a temple in the Nile Valley but has its complement of Arab figures grouped in picturesque attitudes. Here a fire is being lit at the base of a column, and the black smoke curls upwards to destroy the paintings thereon; here a group of children sport upon the lap of a colossal statue; and here an Arab tethers his camel at the steps of the high altar. It is felt, thus, that the objects exhibited in European museums have been rescued from Egypt and recovered from a distant land. This is not so. They have been snatched from Egypt and lost to the country of their origin.

He who is well acquainted with Egypt knows that hundreds of watchmen, and a small army of inspectors, engineers, draughtsmen, surveyors, and other officials now guard these monuments, that strong iron gates bar the doorways against unauthorised visitors, that hourly patrols pass from monument to monument, and that any damage done is punished by long terms of imprisonment; he knows that the Egyptian Government spends hundreds of thousands of pounds upon safeguarding the ancient remains; he is aware that the organisation of the Department of Antiquities is an extremely important branch of the Ministry of Public Works. He has seen the temples swept and garnished, the tombs lit by electric light and the sanctuaries carefully rebuilt. He has spun out to the Pyramids in the electric tramcar or in a taxi-cab; has strolled in evening dress through the halls of Karnak, after dinner at the hotel; and has rung up the Theban Necropolis on the telephone.

A few seasons’ residence in Egypt shifts the point of view in a startling manner. No longer is the country either distant or insecure; and, realising this, the student becomes more balanced, and he sees both sides of the question with equal clearness. The archæologist may complain that it is too expensive a matter to travel to Egypt. But why, then, are not the expenses of such a journey met by the various museums? Quite a small sum will pay for a student’s winter in Egypt and his journey to and from that country. Such a sum is given readily enough for the purchase of an antiquity; but surely right-minded students are a better investment than wrongly-acquired antiquities.

It must be now pointed out, as a third argument,

The author standing upon the cliffs between the Temple of Dêr el Bahri and the Valley of the Tombs of the KingsThe author standing upon the cliffs between the Temple of Dêr el Bahri and the Valley of the Tombs of the Kings

that an Egyptologist cannot study his subject properly unless he be thoroughly familiar with Egypt and modern Egyptians.

A student who is accustomed to sit at home, working in his library or museum, and who has never resided in Egypt, or has but travelled for a short time in that country, may do extremely useful work in one way or another, but that work will not be faultless. It will be, as it were, lop-sided; it will be coloured with hues of the west, unknown to the land of the Pharaohs and antithetical thereto. A London architect may design an apparently charming villa for a client in Jerusalem, but unless he know by actual and prolonged experience the exigencies of the climate of Palestine, he will be liable to make a sad mess of his job. By bitter experience the military commanders learnt in the late war that a plan of campaign prepared at home was of little use to them. The cricketer may play a very good game upon the home ground, but upon a foreign pitch the first straight ball will send his bails flying into the clear blue sky.

An archæologist who attempts to record the material relating to the manners and customs of the ancient Egyptians cannot complete his task, or even assure himself of the accuracy of his statements, unless he has studied the modern customs and made himself acquainted with the permanent conditions of the country. The modern Egyptians are the same people as those who bowed the knee to Pharaoh, and many of their customs still survive. A student can no more hope to understand the story of Pharaonic times without an acquaintance with Egypt as she now is than a modern statesman can hope to understand his own times solely from a study of the past.

Nothing is more paralysing to a student of archæology than continuous book-work. A collection of hard facts is an extremely beneficial mental exercise, but the deductions drawn from such a collection should be regarded as an integral part of the work. The road-maker must also walk upon his road to the land whither it leads him; the ship-builder must ride the seas in his vessel, though they be uncharted and unfathomed. Too often the professor will set his students to a compilation which leads them no farther than the final fair copy. They will be asked to make for him, with infinite labour, a list of the High Priests of Amon; but unless he has encouraged them to put such life into those figures that each one shall seem to step from the page to confront his recorder, unless the name of each shall call to mind the very scenes amidst which he worshipped, then is the work uninspired and deadening to the student.

A catalogue of ancient scarabs is required, let us suppose, and the students are set to work upon it. They examine hundreds of specimens, they record the variations in design, they note the differences in the glaze or material. But can they picture the man who wore the scarab?—can they reconstruct in their minds the scene in the workshop wherein the scarab was made?—can they hear the song of the workmen or their laughter when the overseer was not nigh? In a word, does the scarab mean history to them, the history of a period, of a dynasty, of a craft? Assuredly not, unless the students know Egypt and the Egyptians, have heard their songs and their laughter, have watched their modern arts and crafts. Only then are they in a position to reconstruct the picture.

The late Theodore Roosevelt, in his Romanes lecture at Oxford, gave it as his opinion that the industrious collector of facts occupied an honourable but not an exalted position; and he added that the merely scientific historian must rest content with the honour, substantial, but not of the highest type, that belongs to him who gathers material which some time some master shall arise to use. Now every student should aim to be a master, to use the material which he has so laboriously collected; and though at the beginning of his career, and indeed throughout his life, the gathering of material is a most important part of his work, he should never compile solely for the sake of compilation, unless he be content to serve simply as a clerk of archæology.

An archæologist must be a historian. He must conjure up the past; he must play the Witch of Endor. His lists and indices, his catalogues and note-books, must be but the spells which he uses to invoke the dead. The spells have no potency until they are pronounced: the lists of Kings of Egypt have no more than an accidental value until they call before the curtain of the mind those monarchs themselves. It is the business of the archæologist to wake the dreaming dead: not to send the living to sleep. It is his business to make the stones tell their tale: not to petrify the listener. It is his business to put motion and commotion into the past that the present may see and hear: not to pin it down, spatchcocked, like a dead thing. In a word, the archæologist must be in command of that faculty which is known as the historic imagination, without which Dean Stanley was of opinion that the story of the past could not be told. “Trust Nature,” said Dryden. “Do not labour to be dull!”

But how can that imagination be at once exerted and controlled as it needs must be, unless the archæologist be so well acquainted with the conditions of the country about which he writes that his pictures of it can be said to be accurate? The student must allow himself to be saturated by the very waters of the Nile before he can permit himself to write of Egypt. He must know the modern Egyptians before he can construct his model of Pharaoh and his court.

When the mummy of Akhnaton was discovered and was proved to be that of a man of only thirty years of age, many persons doubted the identification on the grounds that the king was known to have been married at the time when he came to the throne, seventeen years before his death, and it was freely stated that a marriage at the age of eleven or twelve was impossible and out of the question. Thus it actually remained for the present writer to point out that the fact of the king’s death occurring seventeen years after his marriage practically fixed his age at his decease at not much above twenty-nine years, so unlikely was it that his marriage would have been delayed beyond his twelfth year. Those who doubted the identification on such grounds were showing all too clearly that the manners and customs of the Egyptians of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, so many of which have come down intact from olden times, were unknown to them.

Here we come to the root of the trouble. The Egyptologist who has not resided for some time in Egypt, is inclined to allow his ideas regarding the ancient customs of the land to be influenced by his unconsciously-acquired knowledge of the habits of the west. But is he blind that he sees not the great gulf fixed between the ways of the east and those of his accustomed west? It is of no value to science to record the life of Thutmosis III with Napoleon as our model for it, nor to describe the daily life of the Pharaoh with the person of an English king before our mind’s eye. Our western experience will not give us material for the imagination to work upon in dealing with Egypt. The setting for our Pharaonic pictures must be derived from Egypt alone; and no Egyptologist’s work that is more than a simple compilation is of value unless the sunlight and the sandy glare of Egypt have burnt into his eyes, and have been reflected on to the pages under his pen.

The archæologist must possess the historic imagination, but it must be confined to its proper channels. It is impossible to exert this imagination without, as a consequence, a figure rising up before the mind partially furnished with the details of a personality and fully endowed with the broad character of an individual. The first lesson, thus, which we must learn is that of allowing no incongruity to appear in our figures. In ancient history there can seldom be sufficient data at the Egyptologist’s disposal with which to build up a complete figure; and his puppets must come upon the stage sadly deficient, as it were, in arms, legs, and apparel suitable to them, unless he know from an experience of modern Egyptians how to restore them and to clothe them in good taste. The substance upon which the imagination works must be no less than a collective knowledge of the people of the nation in question. Rameses must be constructed from an acquaintance with many a Pasha of modern Egypt, and his Chief Butler must reflect the known characteristics of a hundred Beys and Effendis. Without such “padding” the figures will remain but names, and with names Egyptology is already over-stocked.

It is remarkable to notice how little is known regarding the great personalities in history. Taking three characters at random: we know extremely little that is authentic regarding King Arthur; our knowledge of the actual history of Boadicea is extremely meagre; and the precise historian would have to dismiss Pontius Pilate in a few paragraphs. But let the archæologist know so well the manners and customs of the period with which he is dealing that he will not, like the author of the stories of the Holy Grail, dress Arthur in the armour of the thirteenth century, nor fill the mind of Pilate with the thoughts of a modern Colonial Governor; let him be so well trained in scientific cautiousness that he will not give unquestioned credence to the legends of the past; let him have sufficient knowledge of the nation to which his hero or heroine belonged to be able to fill up the lacunæ with a kind of collective appreciation and estimate of the national characteristics—and I do not doubt that his interpretations will hold good till the end of all history.

The Egyptologist to whom Egypt is not a living reality is handicapped in his labours more unfairly than is realised by him. Avoid Egypt, and though your brains be of vast capacity, though your eyes be never raised from your books, you will yet remain in many ways an ignoramus, liable to be corrected by the merest tourist in the Nile valley. But come with me to a Theban garden that I know, where, on some still evening, the dark palms are reflected in the placid Nile, and the acacias are mellowed by the last light of the sunset; where, in leafy bowers, the grapes cluster overhead, and the fig-tree is burdened with fruit. Beyond the broad sheet of the river rise those unchanging hills which encompass the Valley of the Tombs of the Kings; and at their foot, dimly seen in the evening haze, sit the twin colossi, as they have sat since the days of Amenophis the Magnificent. The stars begin to be seen through the leaves now that the daylight dies, and presently the Milky Way becomes apparent, stretching across the vault of the night, as when it was believed to be the Nile of the Heavens.

The owls hoot to one another through the garden; and at the edge of the alabaster tank wherein the dusk is mirrored, a frog croaks unseen amidst the lilies. Even so croaked he on this very ground in those days when, typifying eternity, he seemed to utter the endless refrain, “I am the resurrection, I am the resurrection,” into the ears of men and maidens beneath these self-same stars.

And now a boat floats past, on its way to Karnak, silhouetted against the last-left light of the sky. There is music and song on board. The sound of the pipes is carried over the water and pulses to the ears, inflaming the imagination with the sorcery of its cadences and stirring the blood by its bold rhythm. The gentle breeze brings the scent of many flowers to the nostrils, and with these come drifting thoughts and undefined fancies, so that presently the busy considerations of the day are lulled and forgotten. The twilight seems to cloak the extent of the years, and in the gathering darkness the procession of the centuries is hidden. Yesterday and to-day are mingled together, and there is nothing to distinguish to the eye the one age from the other. An immortal, brought suddenly to the garden at this hour, could not say from direct observation whether he had descended from the clouds into the twentieth century before or the twentieth century after Christ; and the sound of the festal pipes in the passing boat would but serve to confuse him the more.

In such a garden as this the student will learn more Egyptology than he could assimilate in many an hour’s study at home; for here his five senses play the student and Egypt herself is his teacher. While he may read in his books how this Pharaoh or that feasted o’ nights in his palace beside the river, here, not in fallible imagination but in actual fact, he may see Nilus and the Lybian desert to which the royal eyes were turned, may smell the very perfume of the palace garden, and may hearken to the self-same sounds that lulled a king to sleep in Hundred-gated Thebes.

Not in the west, but only by the waters of the Nile will he learn how best to be an historian of ancient Egypt, and in what manner to make his studies of interest, as well as of technical value, to his readers, for he will here discover the great secret of his profession. Suddenly the veil will be lifted from his understanding, and he will become aware that Past and Present are so indissoluble as to be incapable of separate interpretation or single study. He will learn that there is no such thing as a distinct Past or a defined Present. “Yesterday this day’s madness did prepare,” and the affairs of bygone times must be interpreted in the light of recent events. The Past is alive to-day and all the deeds of man in all the ages are living at this hour in offspring. There is no real death. The earthly grave will not hide, nor the mountain tomb imprison, the actions of the men of old Egypt, so consequent and fruitful are all human affairs. This is the knowledge which will make the Egyptologist’s work of lasting value; and nowhere else save in Egypt can he acquire it. This, indeed, for him is the secret of the Sphinx; and only at the lips of the Sphinx itself can he learn it.

CHAPTER II
THE NECESSITY OF ARCHÆOLOGY TO THE GAIETY OF THE WORLD

When a great man puts a period to his existence upon earth by dying, he is carefully buried in a tomb and a monument is set up to his glory in the neighbouring church. He may then be said to begin his second life, his life in the memory of the chronicler and historian. After the lapse of an æon or two the works of the historian, and perhaps the tomb itself, are rediscovered; and the great man begins his third life, now as a subject of discussion and controversy amongst archæologists in the pages of a scientific journal. It may be supposed that the spirit of the great man, not a little pleased with his second life, has an extreme distaste for his third. There is a dead atmosphere about it which sets him yawning as only his grave yawned before. The charm has been taken from his deeds; there is no longer any spring in them. He must feel towards the archæologist much as a young man feels towards his cold-blooded parent by whom his love affair has just been found out. The public, too, if by chance it comes upon this archæological journal, finds the discussion nothing more than a mental gymnastic, which, as the reader drops off to sleep, gives him the impression that the writer is a man of profound brain capacity, but, like the remains of the great man of olden times, as dry as dust.

There is one thing, however, which has been overlooked. This scientific journal does not contain the ultimate results of the archæologist’s researches. It contains the researches themselves. The public, so to speak, has been listening to the pianist playing his morning scales, has been watching the artist mixing his colours, has been examining the unshaped block of marble and the chisels in the sculptor’s studio. It must be confessed, of course, that the archæologist has so enjoyed his researches that often the ultimate result has been overlooked by him. In the case of Egyptian archæology, for example, there are only two or three Egyptologists who have ever set themselves to write a readable history, whereas the number of books which record the facts of the science is legion.

The archæologist not infrequently lives, for a large part of his time, in a museum. However clean it may be, he is surrounded by rotting tapestries, decaying bones, crumbling stones, and rusted or corroded metal objects. His indoor work has paled his cheek, and his muscles are not like iron bands. He stands, often, in the contiguity to an ancient broadsword most fitted to demonstrate the fact that he could never use it. He would probably be dismissed his curatorship were he to tell of any dreams which might run in his head—dreams of the time when those tapestries hung upon the walls of barons’ banquet-halls, or when those stones rose high above the streets of Camelot.

Moreover, those who make researches independently must needs contribute their results to scientific journals, written in the jargon of the learned. I came across a now forgotten journal, a short time ago, in which an English gentleman, believing that he had made a discovery in the province of Egyptian hieroglyphs, announced it in ancient Greek. There would be no supply of such pedantic swagger were there not a demand for it.

Small wonder, then, that the archæologist is often represented as partaking somewhat of the quality of the dust amidst which he works. It is not necessary here to discuss whether this estimate is just or not: I only wish to point out its paradoxical nature.

More than any other science, archæology might be expected to supply its exponents with stuff that, like old wine, would fire the blood and stimulate the senses. The stirring events of the Past must often be reconstructed by the archæologist with such precision that his prejudices are aroused, and his sympathies are so enlisted as to set him fighting with a will under this banner or under that. The noise of the hardy strife of young nations is not yet silenced for him, nor have the flags and the pennants faded from sight. He has knowledge of the state secrets of kings, and, all along the line, is an intimate spectator of the crowded pageant of history. The caravan-masters of the past, the admirals of the “great green sea,” the captains of archers, have related their adventures to him; and he might repeat to you their stories. Indeed, he has such a tale to tell that, looking at it in this light, one might expect his listeners all to be good sturdy men and noble women. It might be supposed that the archæologist would gather round him only men who have pleasure in the road that leads over the hills, and women who have known the delight of the open. One has heard so often of the “brave days of old” that the archæologist might well be expected to have his head stuffed with brave tales and little else.

His range, however, may be wider than this. To him, perhaps, it has been given to listen to the voice of the ancient poet, heard as a far-off whisper; to breathe in forgotten gardens the perfume of long dead flowers; to contemplate the love of women whose beauty is perished in the dust; to hearken to the sound of the harp and the sistra; to be the possessor of the riches of historical romance. Dim armies have battled around him for the love of Helen; shadowy captains of sea-going ships have sung to him through the storm the song of the sweethearts left behind them; he has feasted with sultans, and kings’ goblets have been held to his lips; he has watched Uriah the Hittite sent to the forefront of the battle.

Thus, were he to offer a story, one might now suppose that there would gather around him, not the men of muscle, but a throng of sallow listeners, as improperly expectant as were those who hearkened under the moon to the narrations of Boccaccio, or, in old Baghdad, gave ear to the tales of the thousand and one nights. One might suppose that his audience would be drawn from those classes most fondly addicted to pleasure, or most nearly representative, in their land and in their time, of the light-hearted and not unwanton races of whom he had to tell.

Who could better arrest the attention of the coxcomb than the archæologist who has knowledge of silks and scents now lost to the living world? To the gourmet who could more appeal than the archæologist who has made abundant acquaintance with the forgotten dishes of the East? Who could more surely thrill the senses of the courtesan than the archæologist who can relate that which was whispered by Antony in the ear of Cleopatra? To the gambler who could be more enticing than the archæologist who has seen kings play at dice for their kingdoms? The imaginative, truly, might well collect the most highly disreputable audience to listen to the tales of the archæologist.

But no, these are not the people who are anxious to catch the pearls which drop from his mouth. Do statesmen and diplomatists, then, listen to him who can unravel for them the policies of the Past? Do business men hasten from Threadneedle Street and Wall Street to sit at his feet, that they may have instilled into them a little of the romance of ancient money? I fear not.

Come with me to some provincial town, where this day Professor Blank is to deliver one of his archæological lectures at the Town Hall. We are met at the door by the secretary of the local archæological society: a melancholy lady in green plush, who suffers from St. Vitus’s dance. Gloomily we enter the hall and silently accept the seats which are indicated to us by an unfortunate gentleman with a club-foot. In front of us an elderly female with short hair is chatting to a very plain young woman draped like a lay figure. On the right an emaciated man with a very bad cough shuffles on his chair; on the left two old grey-beards grumble to one another about the weather, a subject which leads up to the familiar “Mine catches me in the small of the back”; while behind us the inevitable curate, of whose appearance it would be trite to speak, describes to an astonished old lady the recent discovery of the pelvis of a mastodon.

The professor and the aged chairman step on to the platform; and, amidst the profoundest gloom, the latter rises to pronounce the prefatory rigmarole. “Archæology,” he says, in a voice of brass, “is a science which bars its doors to all but the most erudite; for, to the layman who has not been vouchsafed the opportunity of studying the dusty volumes of the learned, the bones of the dead will not reveal their secrets, nor will the crumbling pediments of naos and cenotaph, the obliterated tombstones, or the worm-eaten parchments, tell us their story. To-night, however, we are privileged! for Professor Blank will open the doors for us that we may gaze for a moment upon that solemn charnel-house of the Past in which he has sat for so many long hours of inductive meditation.”

And the professor by his side, whose head, perhaps, was filled with the martial music of the long-lost hosts of the Lord, or before whose eyes there swayed the entrancing forms of the dancing-girls of Babylon, stares horrified from chairman to audience. He sees crabbed old men and barren old women before him, afflicted youths and fatuous maidens; and he realises at once that the golden keys which he possesses to the gates of the treasury of the jewelled Past will not open the doors of that charnel-house which they desire to be shown. The scent of the king’s roses fades from his nostrils, the Egyptian music which throbbed in his ears is hushed, the glorious illumination of the Palace of a Thousand Columns is extinguished; and in the gathering gloom we leave him fumbling with a rusty key at the mildewed door of the Place of Bones.

Why is it, one asks, that archæology is a thing so misunderstood? Can it be that both lecturer and audience have crushed down that which was in reality uppermost in their minds: that a shy search for romance has led these people to the Town Hall? Or perchance archæology has become to them something not unlike a vice, and to listen to an archæological lecture is their remaining chance of being naughty. It may be that, having one foot in the grave, they take pleasure in kicking the moss from the surrounding tombstones with the other; or that, being denied, for one reason or another, the jovial society of the living, like Robert Southey’s “Scholar” their hopes are with the dead.

Be the explanation what it may, the fact is indisputable that archæology is patronised by those who know not its real meaning. A man has no more right to think of the people of old as dust and dead bones than he has to think of his contemporaries as lumps of meat. The true archæologist does not take pleasure in skeletons as skeletons, for his whole effort is to cover them decently with flesh and skin once more and to put some thoughts back into the empty skulls. Nor does he delight in ruined buildings: rather he deplores that they are ruined. Coleridge wrote like the true archaeologist when he composed that most magical poem “Khubla Khan”——

“In Xanadu did Khubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.”

And those who would have the pleasure-domes of the gorgeous Past reconstructed for them must turn to the archæologist; those who would see the damsel with the dulcimer in the gardens of Xanadu must ask of him the secret, and of none other. It is true that, before he can refashion the dome or the damsel, he will have to grub his way through old refuse heaps till he shall lay bare the ruins of the walls and expose the bones of the lady. But this is the “dirty work”; and the mistake which is made lies here: that this preliminary dirty work is confused with the final clean result. An artist will sometimes build up his picture of Venus from a skeleton bought from an old Jew round the corner; and the smooth white paper which he uses will have been made from putrid rags and bones. Amongst painters themselves these facts are not hidden, but by the public they are most carefully obscured. In the case of archæology, however, the tedious details of construction are so placed in the foreground that the final picture is hardly noticed at all. As well might one go to an aerodrome to see men fly, and be shown nothing else but screws and nuts, steel rods and woodwork. Originally the fault, perhaps, lay with the archæologist; now it lies both with him and with the public. The public has learnt to ask to be shown the works, and the archæologist is often so proud of them that he forgets to mention the purpose of the machine.

A Roman statue of bronze, let us suppose, is discovered in the Thames valley. It is so corroded and eaten away that only an expert could recognise that it represents a reclining goddess. In this condition it is placed in the museum, and a photograph of it is published in the daily paper. Those who come to look at it in its glass case think it is a bunch of grapes, or possibly a monkey; those who see its photograph say that it is more probably an irregular catapult-stone or a fish in convulsions.

The archæologist alone holds its secret, and only he can see it as it was. He alone can know the mind of the artist who made it, or interpret the full meaning of the conception. It might have been expected, then, that the public would demand, and the archæologist delightedly furnish, a model of the figure as near to the original as possible; or, failing that, a restoration in drawing, or even a worded description of its original beauty. But no: the public, if it wants anything, wants to see the shapeless object in all its corrosion; and the archæologist forgets that it is blind to aught else but that corrosion. One of the main duties of the archæologist is thus lost sight of: his duty as Interpreter and Remembrancer of the Past.

All the riches of olden times, all the majesty, all the power, are the inheritance of the present day; and the archæologist is the recorder of this fortune. He must deal in dead bones only so far as the keeper of a financial fortune must deal in dry documents. Behind those documents glitters the gold, and behind those bones shines the wonder of the things that were. And when an object once beautiful has by age become unsightly one might suppose that he would wish to show it to none save his colleagues or the reasonably curious layman. When a man makes a statement that his grandmother, now in her ninety-ninth year, was once a beautiful woman, he does not go and find her to prove his words and bring her tottering into the room: he shows a picture of her as she was; or, if he cannot find one, he describes what good evidence tells him was her probable appearance. In allowing his controlled and sober imagination thus to perform its natural functions, though it would never do to tell his grandmother so, he becomes an archæologist, a Remembrancer of the Past.

In the case of archæology, however, the public does not permit itself to be convinced. In the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford excellent facsimile electrotypes of early Greek weapons are exhibited; and these have far more value in bringing the Past before us than the actual weapons of that period, corroded and broken, would have. But the visitor says “These are shams,” and passes on.

It will be seen, then, that the business of archæology is often misunderstood both by archæologists and by the public; and that there is really no reason to believe, with Thomas Earle, that the real antiquarian loves a thing the better for that it is rotten and stinketh. That the impression has gone about is his own fault, for he has exposed too much to view the mechanism of his work; but it is also the fault of the public for not asking of him a picture of things as they were.

Man is by nature a creature of the present. It is only by an effort that he can consider the future, and it is often quite impossible for him to give any heed at all to the past. The days of old are so blurred and remote that it seems right to him that any relic from them should, by the maltreatment of Time, be unrecognisable. The finding of an old sword, half-eaten by rust, will only please him in so far as it shows him once more by its sad condition the great gap between those days and these, and convinces him again of the sole importance of the present. The archæologist, he will tell you, is a fool if he expects him to be interested in a wretched old bit of scrapiron. He is right. It would be as rash to suppose that he would find interest in an ancient sword in its rusted condition as it would be to expect the spectator at the aerodrome to find fascination in the nuts and screws. The true archæologist would hide that corroded weapon in his work-shop, where his fellow-workers alone could see it. For he recognises that it is only the sword which is as good as new that impresses the public; it is only the Present that counts. That is the real reason why he is an archæologist. He has turned to the Past because he is in love with the Present. He, more than any man, worships at the altar of the goddess of To-day; and he is so desirous of extending her dominion that he has adventured, like a crusader, into the lands of the Past, in order to subject them to her. Adoring the Now, he would resent the publicity of anything which so obviously suggested the Then as a rust-eaten old blade. His whole business is to hide the gap between Yesterday and To-day; and, unless a man be initiate, he would have him either see the perfect sword as it was when it sought the foeman’s bowels, or see nothing. The Present is too small for him; and it is therefore that he calls so insistently to the Past to come forth from the darkness to augment it. The ordinary man lives in the Present, and he will tell one that the archæologist lives in the Past. This is not so. The layman, in the manner of the little Nationalist, lives in a small and confined Present; but the archæologist, like a true Imperialist, ranges through all time, and calls it not the Past but the Greater Present.

The archæologist is not, or ought not to be, lacking in vivacity. One might say that he is so sensible to the charms of society that, finding his companions too few in number, he has drawn the olden times to him to search them for jovial men and agreeable women. It might be added that he has so laughed at jest and joke that, fearing lest the funds of humour run dry, he has gathered the laughter of all the years to his enrichment. Certainly he has so delighted in noble adventure and stirring action that he finds his newspaper insufficient to his needs, and fetches to his aid the tales of old heroes. In fact, the archæologist is so enamoured of life that he would raise all the dead from their graves. He will not have it that the men of old are dust: he would bring them forth to share with him the sunlight which he finds so precious. He is so much an enemy of Death and Decay that he would rob them of their harvest; and, for every life that the foe has claimed, he would raise up, if he could, a memory that would continue to live.

The meaning of the heading which has been given to this chapter is now becoming clear, and the direction of the argument is already apparent. So far it has been my purpose to show that the archæologist is not a rag-and-bone man, though the public generally thinks he is, and he often thinks he is himself. The attempt has been made to suggest that archæology ought not to consist in sitting in a charnel-house amongst the dead, but rather in ignoring that place and taking the bones into the light of day, decently clad in flesh and finery. It has now to be shown in what manner this parading of the Past is needful to the gaiety of the Present.

Amongst cultured people whose social position makes it difficult for them to dance in circles on the grass in order to express or to stimulate their gaiety, and whose school of deportment will not permit them to sing a merry song of sixpence as they trip down the streets, there is some danger of the fire of merriment dying for want of fuel. Vivacity in printed books, therefore, has been encouraged, so that the mind at least, if not the body, may skip about and clap its hands. A portly gentleman with a solemn face, reading his “Punch” or his “Life” in the club, is, after all, giving play to precisely those same humours which in ancient days might have led him, like Georgy Porgy, to kiss the girls or to perform any other merry joke. It is necessary, therefore, ever to enlarge the stock of things humorous, vivacious, or rousing, if the thoughts are to be kept young and eyes bright in this age of restraint. What would Yuletide be without the olden times to bolster it up? What would the Christmas numbers do without the pictures of our great-grand-parents’ coaches snowbound, of huntsmen of the eighteenth century, of jesters at the courts of the barons? What should we do without the “Vicar of Wakefield,” the “Compleat Angler,” “Pepys’ Diary,” and all the rest of the ancient books? And, going back a few centuries, what an amount we should miss had we not “Æsop’s Fables,” the “Odyssey,” the tales of the Trojan War, and so on. It is from the archæologist that one must expect the augmentation of this supply; and just in that degree in which the existing supply is really a necessary part of our equipment, so archæology, which looks for more, is necessary to our gaiety.

In order to keep his intellect undulled by the routine of his dreary work, Matthew Arnold was wont to write a few lines of poetry each day. Poetry, like music and song, is an effective dispeller of care; and those who find Omar Khayyam or “In Memoriam” incapable of removing the burden of their woes, will no doubt appreciate the “Owl and the Pussy-cat,” or the Bab Ballads. In some form or other verse and song are closely linked with happiness; and a ditty from any age has its interest and its charm.

“She gazes at the stars above:
I would I were the skies,
That I might gaze upon my love
With such a thousand eyes!”

That is from the Greek of a writer who is not much read by the public at large, and whose works are the legitimate property of the antiquarian. It suffices to show that it is not only to the moderns that we have to look for dainty verse that is conducive to a light heart. The following lines are from the ancient Egyptian:—

“While in my room I lie all day
In pain that will not pass away,
The neighbours come and go.
Ah, if with them my darling came
The doctors would be put to shame:
She understands my woe.”

Such examples might be multiplied indefinitely; and the reader will admit that there is as much of a lilt about those which are here quoted as there is about the majority of the ditties which he has hummed to himself in his hour of contentment. Here is Philodemus’ description of his mistress’s charms:—

“My lady-love is small and brown;
My lady’s skin is soft as down;
Her hair like parsley twists and turns;
Her voice with magic passion burns....”

And here is an ancient Egyptian’s description of not very dissimilar phenomena:—

“A damsel sweet unto the sight,
A maid of whom no like there is;
Black are her tresses as the night,
And blacker than the blackberries.”

Does not the archæologist perform a service to his contemporaries by searching out such rhymes and delving for more? They bring with them, moreover, so subtle a suggestion of bygone romance, they are backed by so fair a scene of Athenian luxury or Theban splendour, that they possess a charm not often felt in modern verse. If it is argued that there is no need to increase the present supply of such ditties, since they are really quite unessential to our gaiety, the answer may be given that no nation and no period has ever found them unessential; and a light heart has been expressed in this manner since man came down from the trees.

Let us turn now to another consideration. For a man to be light of heart he must have confidence in humanity. He cannot greet the morn with a smiling countenance if he believe that he and his fellows are slipping down the broad path which leads to destruction. The archæologist never despairs of mankind; for he has seen nations rise and fall till he is almost giddy, but he knows that there has never been a general deterioration. He realises that though a great nation may suffer defeat and annihilation, it is possible for it to go down in such a thunder that the talk of it stimulates other nations for all time. He sees, if any man can, that all things work together for happiness. He has observed the cycle of events, the good years and the bad; and in an evil time he is comforted by the knowledge that the good will presently roll round again. Thus the lesson which he can teach is a very real necessity to that contentment of mind which lies at the root of all gaiety.

Again, a man cannot be permanently happy unless he has a just sense of proportion. He who is too big for his boots must needs limp; and he who has a swollen head is in perpetual discomfort. The history of the lives of men, the history of the nations, gives one a fairer sense of proportion than does almost any other study. In the great company of the men of old he cannot fail to assess his true value: if he has any conceit there is a greater than he to snub him; if he has a poor opinion of his powers there is many a fool with whom to contrast himself favourably. If he would risk his fortune on the spinning of a coin, being aware of the prevalence of his good-luck, archæology will tell him that the best luck will change; or if, when in sore straits, he ask whether ever a man was so unlucky, archæology will answer him that many millions of men have been more unfavoured than he. Archæology provides a precedent for almost every event or occurrence where modern inventions are not involved; and, in this manner, one may reckon their value and determine their trend. Thus many of the small worries which cause so leaden a weight to lie upon the heart and mind are by the archæologist ignored; and many of the larger calamities by him are met with serenity.

But not only does the archæologist learn to estimate himself and his actions; he learns also to see the relationship in which his life stands to the course of Time. Without archæology a man may be disturbed lest the world be about to come to an end: after a study of history he knows that it has only just begun; and that gaiety which is said to have obtained “when the world was young” is to him, therefore, a present condition. By studying the ages the archæologist learns to reckon in units of a thousand years; and it is only then that that little unit of threescore-and-ten falls into its proper proportion. “A thousand ages in Thy sight are like an evening gone,” says the hymn, but it is only the archæologist who knows the meaning of the words; and it is only he who can explain that great discrepancy in the Christian faith between the statement “Behold, I come quickly” and the actual fact. A man who knows where he is in regard to his fellows, and realises where he stands in regard to Time, has learnt a lesson of archæology which is as necessary to his peace of mind as his peace of mind is necessary to his gaiety.

It is not needful, however, to continue to point out the many ways in which archæology may be shown to be necessary to happiness. The reader will have comprehended the trend of the argument, and, if he be in sympathy with it, he will not be unwilling to develop the theme for himself. Only one point, therefore, need here be taken up. It has been reserved to the end of this chapter, for, by its nature, it closes all arguments. I refer to Death.

Death, as we watch it around us, is the black menace of the heavens which darkens every man’s day; Death, coming to our neighbour, puts a period to our merrymaking; Death, seen close beside us, calls a halt in our march of pleasure. But let those who would wrest her victory from the grave turn to a study of the Past, where all is dead yet still lives, and they will find that the horror of life’s cessation is materially lessened. To those who are familiar with the course of history, Death seems, to some extent, but the happy solution of the dilemma of life. So many men have welcomed its coming that one begins to feel that it cannot be so very terrible. Of the death of a certain Pharaoh an ancient Egyptian wrote: “He goes to heaven like the hawks, and his feathers are like those of the geese; he rushes at heaven like a crane, he kisses heaven like the falcon, he leaps to heaven like the locust”; and we who read his words can feel that to rush eagerly at heaven like the crane would be a very fine ending of the story. Archæology, and especially Egyptology, in this respect is a bulwark to those who find the faith of their fathers wavering; for, after much study, the triumphant assertion which is so often found in Egyptian tombs—“Thou dost not come dead to thy sepulchre, thou comest living”—begins to take hold of the imagination. Death has been the parent of so much goodness, dying men have cut such a dash, that one looks at it with an awakening interest. Even if the sense of the misfortune of death is uppermost in an archæologist’s mind, he may find not a little comfort in having before him the example of so many good men, who, in their hour, have faced that great calamity with squared shoulders.

“When Death comes,” says a certain sage of ancient Egypt, “it seizes the babe that is on the breast of its mother as well as him that has become an old man. When thy messenger comes to carry thee away, be thou found by him ready.” Why, here is our chance; here is the opportunity for that flourish which modesty, throughout our life, has forbidden to us! John Tiptoft, Earl of Worcester, when the time came for him to lay his head upon the block, bade the executioner to smite it off with three strokes as a courtesy to the Holy Trinity. King Charles the Second, as he lay upon his death-bed, apologised to those who stood around him for “being such an unconscionable time adying.” The story is familiar of Napoleon’s aide-de-camp, who, when he had been asked whether he were wounded, replied, “Not wounded, killed,” and thereupon expired. The Past is full of such incidents; and so inspiring are they that Death comes to be regarded as a most stirring adventure. The archæologist, too, better than any other, knows the vastness of the dead men’s majority; and, if, like the ancients, he believe in the Elysian fields, where no death is and decay is unknown, he alone will realise the excellent nature of the company into which he will there be introduced.

There is, however, far more living going on in the world than dying; and there is more happiness (thanks be!) than sorrow. Thus the archæologist has a great deal more of pleasure than of pain to give us for our enrichment. The reader will here enter an objection. He will say: “This may be true of archæology in general, but in the case of Egyptology, with which we are here mostly concerned, he surely has to deal with a sad and solemn people.” The answer is that no nation in the world’s history has been so gay, so light-hearted as the ancient Egyptians; and Egyptology furnishes, perhaps, the most convincing proof that archæology is, or should be a merry science, very necessary to the gaiety of the world. I defy a man suffering from his liver to understand the old Egyptians; I defy a man who does not appreciate the pleasure of life to make anything of them. Egyptian archæology presents a pageant of such brilliancy that the archæologist is often carried along by it as in a dream, down the valley and over the hills, till, Past blending with Present, and Present with Future, he finds himself led to a kind of Island of the Blest, where death is forgotten and only the joy of life, and life’s good deeds, still remain; where pleasure-domes, and all the ancient “miracles of rare device,” rise into the air from above the flowers; and where the damsel with the dulcimer beside the running stream sings to him of Mount Abora, and of the old heroes of the days gone by. If the Egyptologist or the archæologist could revive within him one-hundredth part of the elusive romance, the delicate gaiety, the subtle humour, the intangible tenderness, the unspeakable goodness, of much that is to be found in his province, one would have to cry, like Coleridge:—

“Beware, beware!
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread,
For he on honey-dew hath fed,
And drunk the milk of Paradise.”

CHAPTER III
THE MISFORTUNES OF WENAMON

In the previous chapter it has been suggested that the archæologist is, to some extent, enamoured of the Past because it can add to the stock of things which are likely to tickle the fancy. So humorous a man is he, so fond of the fair things of life, so stirred by its adventures, so touched by its sorrows, that he must needs go to the Past to augment the supplies provided by the Present.

Here, then, is the place to give an example of the entertainment which he is likely to find in this province of his; and if the reader can detect any smell of dust or hear any creak of dead bones in the story which follows, it will be a matter of surprise to me.

In the year 1891, at a small village in Upper Egypt named El Hibeh, some natives unearthed a much-damaged roll of papyrus which appeared to them to be very ancient. Since they had heard that antiquities have a market value they did not burn it along with whatever other scraps of inflammable material they had collected for their evening fire, but preserved it, and finally took it to a dealer who gave them in exchange for it a small sum of money. From the dealer’s hands it passed into the possession of Monsieur Golenischeff, a Russian Egyptologist, who happened to be travelling in Egypt; and by him it was carried to Petrograd, or St. Petersburg, as it was then called, where it now rests, if it has not been destroyed during the troubles there. This savant presently published a translation of the document, which at once caused a sensation in the Egyptological world; and during the next few years four amended translations were made by different scholars. The interest shown in this tattered roll was due to the fact that it had been found to contain the actual report written by an official named Wenamon to his chief, the High Priest of Amon-Ra, relating his adventures in the Mediterranean while procuring cedar-wood from the forests of Lebanon. The story which Wenamon tells is of the greatest value to Egyptology, giving as it does a vivid account of the political conditions obtaining in Syria and Egypt during the reign of the Pharaoh Rameses XII; but it also has a very human interest, and the misfortunes of the writer may excite one’s sympathy and amusement, after this lapse of three thousand years, as though they had occurred at the present day.

In the time at which Wenamon wrote his report Egypt had fallen on evil days. A long line of incapable descendants of the great Rameses II and Rameses III had ruled the Nile valley; and now a wretched ghost of a Pharaoh, Rameses XII, sat upon the throne, bereft of all power, a ruler in name only. The government of the country lay in the hands of two great nobles: in Upper Egypt, Herhor, High Priest of Amon-Ra, was undisputed master; and in Lower Egypt, Nesubanebded, a prince of the city of Tanis (the Zoan of the Bible), virtually ruled as king of the Delta. Both these persons ultimately ascended the throne of the Pharaohs; but at the time of Wenamon’s adventure the High Priest was the more powerful of the two, and could command the obedience of the northern ruler, at any rate in all sacerdotal matters. The priesthood of Amon-Ra, was the greatest political factor in Egyptian life. That god’s name was respected even in the courts of Syria, and though his power was now on the wane, fifty years previously the great religious body which bowed the knee to him was feared throughout all the countries neighbouring to Egypt. The main cause of Wenamon’s troubles was the lack of appreciation of this fact that the god’s influence in Syria was not as great as it had been in the past; and this report would certainly not have been worth recording here if he had realised that prestige is, of all factors in international relations, the least reliable.

In the year 1113 B.C. the High Priest undertook the construction of a ceremonial barge in which the image of the god might be floated upon the sacred waters of the Nile during the great religious festivals at Thebes; and for this purpose he found himself in need of a large amount of cedar-wood of the best quality. He therefore sent for Wenamon, who held the sacerdotal title of “Eldest of the Hall of the Temple of Amon,” and instructed him to proceed to the Lebanon to procure the timber. It is evident that Wenamon was no traveller, and we may perhaps be permitted to picture him as a rather portly gentleman of middle age, not wanting either in energy or pluck, but given, like some of his countrymen, to a fluctuation of the emotions which would jump him from smiles to tears, from hope to despair, in a manner amazing to any but an Egyptian. To us he often appears as an overgrown baby, and his misfortunes have a farcical nature which makes its appeal as much through the medium of one’s love of the ludicrous as through that of one’s interest in the romance of adventure. Those who are acquainted with Egypt will see in him one of those types of naif, delightful children of the Nile, whose decorous introduction into the parlour of the nations of to-day is requiring such careful rehearsal.

For his journey the High Priest gave Wenamon a sum of money, and as credentials he handed him a number of letters addressed to Egyptian and Syrian princes, and entrusted to his care a particularly sacred little image of Amon-Ra, known as Amon-of-the Road, which had probably accompanied other envoys to the Kingdoms of the Sea in times past, and would be recognised as a token of the official nature of any embassy which carried it.

Thus armed Wenamon set out from El Hibeh—probably the ancient Hetbennu, the capital of the Eighteenth Province of Upper Egypt—on the sixteenth day of the eleventh month of the fifth year of the reign of Rameses XII (1113 B.C.), and travelled down the Nile by boat to Tanis, a distance of some 200 miles. On his arrival at this fair city of the Delta, whose temples and palaces rose on the borders of the swamps at the edge of the sea, Wenamon made his way to the palace of Nesubanebded, and handed to him the letters which he had received from the High Priest. These were caused to be read aloud; and Nesubanebded, hearing that Wenamon was desirous of reaching the Lebanon as soon as possible, made the necessary arrangements for his immediate despatch upon a vessel which happened then to be lying at the quay under the command of a Syrian skipper named Mengebet, who was about to set out for the Asiatic coast. On the first day of the twelfth month, that is to say fourteen days after his departure from his native town, Wenamon set sail from Tanis, crossing the swamps and heading out into “the Great Syrian Sea.”

The voyage over the blue rippling Mediterranean was calm and prosperous as the good ship sailed along the barren shores of the land of the Shashu, along the more mountainous coast of Edom, and thence northwards past the cities of Askalon and Ashdod. To Wenamon, however, the journey was fraught with anxiety. He was full of fears as to his reception in Syria, for the first of his misfortunes had befallen him. Although he had with him both money and the image of Amon-of-the-Road, in the excitement and hurry of his departure he had entirely forgotten to obtain again the bundle of letters of introduction which he had given Nesubanebded to read; and thus there were reasons for supposing that his mission might prove a complete failure. Mengebet was evidently a stern old salt who cared not a snap of the fingers for Amon or his envoy, and whose one desire was to reach his destination as rapidly as wind and oars would permit; and it is probable that he refused bluntly to return to Tanis when Wenamon informed him of the oversight. This and the inherent distrust of an Egyptian for a foreigner led Wenamon to regard the captain and his men with suspicion; and one must imagine him seated in the rough deck-cabin gloomily guarding the divine image and his store of money. He had with him a secretary and probably two or three servants; and one may picture these unfortunates anxiously watching the Syrian crew as they slouched about the deck. It is further to be remembered that, as a general rule, the Egyptians suffer excessively from sea-sickness.

After some days the ship arrived at the little city of Dor, which nestled at the foot of the Ridge of Carmel; and here they put in to replenish their supplies. Wenamon states in his report that Dor was at that time a city of the Thekel or Sicilians, some wandering band of sea-rovers having left their native Sicily to settle here, at first under the protection of the Egyptians, but now independent of them. The King of Dor, by name Bedel, hearing that an envoy of the High Priest of Amon-Ra had arrived in his harbour, very politely sent down to him a joint of beef, some loaves of bread, and a jar of wine, upon which Wenamon must have set to with an appetite, after subsisting upon the scanty rations of the sea for so long a time.

It may be that the wine was more potent than that to which the Egyptian was accustomed; or perhaps the white buildings of the city, glistening in the sunlight, and the busy quays, engrossed his attention too completely: anyhow, the second of his misfortunes now befell him. One of the Syrian sailors seized the opportunity to slip into his cabin and to steal the money which was hidden there. Before Wenamon had detected the robbery the sailor had disappeared for ever amidst the houses of Dor. That evening the distracted envoy, seated upon the floor of his cabin, was obliged to chronicle the list of stolen money, which list was afterwards incorporated in his report in the following manner:—

Total of what was stolen: gold, 5 debens; silver, 31 debens. A deben weighed about 100 grammes, and thus the robber was richer by 500 grammes of gold, which in those days would have the purchasing value of about £600 in our money, and 3,100 grammes of silver, equal to about £2,200.[1]

Wenamon must have slept little that night, and early on the following morning he hastened to the palace of King Bedel to lay his case before him. Fortunately Bedel did not ask him for his credentials but with the utmost politeness gave his consideration to the affair. Wenamon’s words, however, were by no means polite, and one finds in them a blustering assurance which suggests that he considered himself a personage of extreme consequence, and regarded a King of Dor as nothing in comparison with an envoy of Amon-Ra.

“I have been robbed in your harbour,”[2] he cried, so he tells us in the report, “and, since you are the king of this land, you must be regarded as a party to the crime. You must search for my money. The money belongs to Nesubanebded, and it belongs to Herhor, my lord” (no mention, observe, of the wretched Rameses XII), “and to the other nobles of Egypt. It belongs also to Weret, and to Mekmel, and to Zakar-Baal the Prince of Byblos.” These latter were the persons to whom it was to be paid.

The King of Dor listened to this outburst with Sicilian politeness, and replied in the following very correct terms: “With all due respect to your honour and excellency,” he said, “I know nothing of this complaint which you have lodged with me. If the thief belonged to my land and went on board your ship in order to steal your money, I would advance you the sum from my treasury while they were finding the culprit. But the thief who robbed you belonged to your ship. Tarry, however, a few days here with me and I will seek him.”

Wenamon, therefore, strode back to the vessel, and there remained, fuming and fretting, for nine long days. The skipper Mengebet, however, had no reason to remain at Dor, and seems to have told Wenamon that he could wait no longer. On the tenth day, therefore, Wenamon retraced his steps to the palace, and addressed himself once more to Bedel. “Look,” he said to the king, when he was ushered into the royal presence, “you have not found my money, and therefore you had better let me go with my ship’s captain and with those....” The rest of the interview is lost in a lacuna, and practically the only words which the damaged condition of the papyrus permits one now to read are, “He said, ‘Be silent!’” which indicates that even the patience of a King of Dor could be exhausted.

When the narrative is able to be resumed one finds that Wenamon has set sail from the city, and has travelled along the coast to the proud city of Tyre, where he arrived one afternoon penniless and letterless, having now nothing left but the little Amon-of-the-Road and his own audacity. The charms of Tyre, then one of the great ports of the civilised world, were of no consequence to the destitute Egyptian, nor do they seem to have attracted the skipper of his ship, who, after his long delay at Dor, was in no mood to linger. At dawn the next morning, therefore, the journey was continued, and once more an unfortunate lacuna interrupts the passage of the report. From the tattered fragments of the writing, however, it seems that at the next port of call—perhaps the city of Sidon—a party of inoffensive Sicilian merchants was encountered, and immediately the desperate Wenamon hatched a daring plot. By this time he had come to place some trust in Mengebet, the skipper, who, for the sake of his own good standing in Egypt, had shown himself willing to help the envoy of Amon-Ra in his troubles, although he would not go so far as to delay his journey for him; and Wenamon therefore admitted him to his councils. On some pretext or another a party led by the Egyptian paid a visit to these merchants and entered into conversation with them. Then, suddenly overpowering them, a rush was made for their cash-box, which Wenamon at once burst open. To his disappointment he found it to contain only thirty-one debens of silver, which happened to be precisely the amount of silver, though not of gold, which he had lost. This sum he pocketed, saying to the struggling merchants as he did so, “I will take this money of yours, and will keep it until you find my money. Was it not a Sicilian who stole it, and no thief of ours? I will take it.”

With these words the party raced back to the ship, scrambled on board, and in a few moments had hoisted sail and were scudding northwards towards Byblos, where Wenamon proposed to throw himself on the mercy of Zakar-Baal, the prince of that city. Wenamon, it will be remembered, had always considered that he had been robbed by a Sicilian of Dor, notwithstanding the fact that only a sailor of his own

An Egyptian Priest or Religious Official

From a wooden statuette of about B.C. 1300, now in Cairo

ship could have known of the existence of the money, as King Bedel seems to have pointed out to him. The Egyptian, therefore, did not regard this forcible seizure of silver from these other Sicilians as a crime. It was a perfectly just appropriation of a portion of the funds which belonged to him by rights. Let us imagine ourselves robbed at our hotel by Hans the German waiter: it would surely give us the most profound satisfaction to take Herr Schnupfendorff, the piano-tuner, by the throat when next he visited us, and go through his pockets. He and Hans, being of the same nationality, must suffer for one another’s sins, and if the magistrate thinks otherwise he must be regarded as prejudiced by too much study of the law.

Byblos stood at the foot of the hills of Lebanon, in the very shadow of the great cedars, and it was therefore Wenamon’s destination. Now, however, as the ship dropped anchor in the harbour, the Egyptian realised that his mission would probably be fruitless, and that he himself would perhaps be flung into prison for illegally having in his possession the famous image of the god to which he could show no written right. Moreover, the news of the robbery of the merchants might well have reached Byblos overland. His first action, therefore, was to conceal the idol and the money; and this having been accomplished he sat himself down in his cabin to await events.

The Prince of Byblos certainly had been advised of the robbery; and as soon as the news of the ship’s arrival was reported to him he sent a curt message to the captain saying simply “Get out of my harbour.” At this Wenamon gave up all hope, and, hearing that there was then in port a vessel which was about to sail for Egypt, he sent a pathetic message to the Prince asking whether he might be allowed to travel by it back to his own country.

No satisfactory answer was received, and for the best part of a month Wenamon’s ship rode at anchor, while the distracted envoy paced the deck, vainly pondering upon a fitting course of action. Each morning the same brief order, “Get out of my harbour,” was delivered to him by the harbour-master; but the indecision of the authorities as to how to treat this Egyptian official prevented the order being backed by force. Meanwhile Wenamon and Mengebet judiciously spread through the city the report of the power of Amon-of-the-Road, and hinted darkly at the wrath which would ultimately fall upon the heads of those who suffered the image and its keeper to be turned away from the quays of Byblos. No doubt, also, a portion of the stolen debens of silver was expended in bribes to the priests of the city, for, as we shall presently see, one of them took up Wenamon’s cause with the most unnatural vigour.

All, however, seemed to be of no avail, and Wenamon decided to get away as best he could. His worldly goods were quietly transferred to the ship which was bound for the Nile; and, when night had fallen, with Amon-of-the-Road tucked under his arm, he hurried along the deserted quay. Suddenly out of the darkness there appeared a group of figures, and Wenamon found himself confronted by the stalwart harbour-master and his police. Now, indeed, he gave himself up for lost. The image would be taken from him, and no longer would he have the alternative of leaving the harbour. He must have groaned aloud as he stood there in the black night, with the cold sea wind threatening to tear the covers from the treasure under his arm. His surprise, therefore, was unbounded when the harbour-master addressed him in the following words: “Remain until morning here near the prince.”

The Egyptian turned upon him fiercely. “Are you not the man who came to me every day saying ‘Get out of my harbour?’” he cried. “And now are you not saying ‘Remain in Byblos?’—your object being to let this ship which I have found depart for Egypt without me, so that you may come to me again and say ‘Go away.’”

The harbour-master in reality had been ordered to detain Wenamon for quite another reason. On the previous day, while the prince was sacrificing to his gods, one of the noble youths in his train, who had probably seen the colour of Wenamon’s debens, suddenly broke into a religious frenzy, and so continued all that day, and far into the night, calling incessantly upon those around him to go and fetch the envoy of Amon-Ra and the sacred image. Prince Zakar-Baal had considered it prudent to obey this apparently divine command, and had sent the harbour-master to prevent Wenamon’s departure. Finding, however, that the Egyptian was determined to board the ship, the official sent a messenger to the prince, who replied with an order to the skipper of the vessel to remain that night in harbour.

Upon the following morning a deputation, evidently friendly, waited on Wenamon, and urged him to come to the palace, which he finally did, incidentally attending on his way the morning service which was being celebrated upon the sea-shore. “I found the prince,” writes Wenamon in his report, “sitting in his upper chamber, leaning his back against a window, while the waves of the Great Syrian Sea beat against the wall below. I said to him ‘The mercy of Amon be with you!’ He said to me ‘How long is it from now since you left the abode of Amon?’ I replied ‘Five months and one day from now.’”

The prince then said “Look now, if what you say is true, where is the writing of Amon which should be in your hand? Where is the letter of the High Priest of Amon which should be in your hand?”

“I gave them to Nesubanebded,” replied Wenamon.

“Then,” says Wenamon, “he was very wroth, and he said to me ‘Look here, the writings and the letters are not in your hand. And where is the fine ship which Nesubanebded would have given you, and where is its picked Syrian crew? He would not put you and your affairs in charge of this skipper of yours, who might have had you killed and thrown into the sea. Whom would they have sought the god from then?—and you, whom would they have sought you from then?’ So he said to me, and I replied to him ‘There are indeed Egyptian ships and Egyptian crews that sail under Nesubanebded, but he had at the time no ship and no Syrian crew to give me.’”

The prince did not accept this as a satisfactory answer, but pointed out that there were ten thousand ships sailing between Egypt and Syria, of which number there must have been one at Nesubanebded’s disposal.

“Then,” writes Wenamon, “I was silent in this great hour. At length he said to me ‘On what business have you come here?’ I replied ‘I have come to get wood for the great and august barge of Amon-Ra, king of the Gods. Your father supplied it, your grandfather did so, and you too shall do it.’ So spoke I to him.”

The prince admitted that his fathers had sent wood to Egypt, but he pointed out that they had received proper remuneration for it. He then told his servants to go and find the old ledger in which the transactions were recorded, and this being done, it was found that a thousand debens of silver had been paid for the wood. The prince now argued that he was in no way the servant of Amon, for if he had been he would have been obliged to supply the wood without remuneration. “I am,” he proudly declared, “neither your servant nor the servant of him who sent you here. If I cry out to the Lebanon the heavens open and the logs lie here on the shore of the sea.” He went on to say that if, of his condescension, he now procured the timber Wenamon would have to provide the ships and all the tackle. “If I make the sails of the ships for you,” said the prince, “they may be top-heavy and may break, and you will perish in the sea when Amon thunders from heaven; for skilled workmanship comes only from Egypt to reach my place of abode.” This seems to have upset the composure of Wenamon to some extent, and the prince took advantage of his uneasiness to say “Anyway, what is this miserable expedition that they have had you make (without money or equipment)?”

At this Wenamon appears to have lost his temper. “O guilty one!” he said to the prince, “this is no miserable expedition on which I am engaged. There is no ship upon the Nile which Amon does not own, and his is the sea, and his this Lebanon of which you say ‘It is mine.’ Its forests grow for the barge of Amon, the lord of every ship. Why Amon-Ra himself, the king of the gods, said to Herhor, my lord, ‘Send me’; and Herhor made me go bearing the statue of this great god. Yet see, you have allowed this great god to wait twenty-nine days after he had arrived in your harbour, although you certainly knew he was there. He is indeed still what he once was: yes, now while you stand bargaining for the Lebanon with Amon its Lord. As for Amon-Ra, the king of the gods, he is the lord of life and health, and he was the lord of your fathers, who spent their lifetime offering to him. You also, you are the servant of Amon. If you will say to Amon ‘I will do this,’ and you execute his command, you shall live and be prosperous and be healthy, and you shall be popular with your whole country and people. Wish not for yourself a thing belonging to Amon-Ra, king of the gods. Truly the lion loves his own! Let my secretary be brought to me that I may send him to Nesubanebded, and he will send you all that I shall ask him to send, after which, when I return to the south, I will send you all, all your trifles again.”

“So spake I to him,” says Wenamon in his report, as with a flourish of his pen he brings this fine speech to an end. No doubt it would have been more truthful in him to say “So would I have spoken to him had I not been so flustered”; but of all types of lie this is probably the most excusable. At all events, he said sufficient to induce the prince to send his secretary to Egypt; and as a token of good faith Zakar-Baal sent with him seven logs of cedar-wood. In forty-eight days’ time the messenger returned, bringing with him five golden and five silver vases, twenty garments of fine linen, 500 rolls of papyrus, 500 ox-hides, 500 coils of rope, twenty measures of lentils, and five measures of dried fish. At this present the prince expressed himself most satisfied, and immediately sent 300 men and 300 oxen with proper overseers to start the work of felling the trees. Some eight months after leaving Tanis, Wenamon’s delighted eyes gazed upon the complete number of logs lying at the edge of the sea, ready for shipment to Egypt.

The task being finished, the prince walked down to the beach to inspect the timber, and he called to Wenamon to come with him. When the Egyptian had approached, the prince pointed to the logs, remarking that the work had been carried through although the remuneration had not been nearly so great as that which his fathers had received. Wenamon was about to reply when inadvertently the shadow of the prince’s umbrella fell upon his head. What memories or anticipations this trivial incident aroused one cannot now tell with certainty. One of the gentlemen-in-waiting, however, found cause in it to whisper to Wenamon “The shadow of Pharaoh, your lord, falls upon you”—the remark, no doubt, being accompanied by a sly dig in the ribs. The prince angrily snapped “Let him alone”; and with the picture of Wenamon gloomily staring out to sea, we are left to worry out the meaning of the occurrence. It may be that the prince intended to keep Wenamon at Byblos until the uttermost farthing had been extracted from Egypt in further payment for the wood, and that therefore he was to be regarded henceforth as Wenamon’s king and master. This is perhaps indicated by the following remarks of the prince.

“Do not thus contemplate the terrors of the sea,” he said to Wenamon. “For if you do that you should also contemplate my own. Come, I have not done to you what they did to certain former envoys. They spent seventeen years in this land, and they died where they were.” Then, turning to an attendant, “Take him,” he said, “and let him see the tomb in which they lie.”

“Oh, don’t let me see it,” Wenamon tells us that he cried in anguish; but, recovering his composure, he continued in a more valiant strain. “Mere human beings,” he said, “were the envoys who were then sent. There was no god among them (as there now is).”

The prince had recently ordered an engraver to write a commemorative inscription upon a stone tablet recording the fact that the king of the gods had sent Amon-of-the-Road to Byblos as his divine messenger and Wenamon as his human messenger, that timber had been asked for and supplied, and that in return Amon had promised him ten thousand years of celestial life over and above that of ordinary persons. Wenamon now reminded him of this, asking him why he should talk so slightingly of the Egyptian envoys when the making of this tablet showed that in reality he considered their presence an honour. Moreover, he pointed out that when in future years an envoy from Egypt should read this tablet, he would of course pronounce at once the magical prayers which would procure for the prince, who would probably then be in hell after all, a draught of water. This remark seems to have tickled the prince’s fancy, for he gravely acknowledged its value, and spoke no more in his former strain. Wenamon closed the interview by promising that the High Priest of Amon-Ra would fully reward him for his various kindnesses.

Shortly after this the Egyptian paid another visit to the sea-shore to feast his eyes upon the logs. He must have been almost unable to contain himself in the delight and excitement of the ending of his task and his approaching return in triumph to Egypt; and we may see him jauntily walking over the sand, perhaps humming a tune to himself. Suddenly he observed a fleet of eleven ships sailing towards the town, and the song must have died upon his lips. As they drew nearer he saw to his horror that they belonged to the Sicilians of Dor, and we must picture him biting his nails in his anxiety as he stood amongst the logs. Presently they were within hailing distance, and some one called to them asking their business. The reply rang across the water, brief and terrible: “Arrest Wenamon! Let not a ship of his pass to Egypt.” Hearing these words the envoy of Amon-Ra, king of the gods, just now so proudly boasting, threw himself upon the sand and burst into tears.

The sobs of the wretched man penetrated to a chamber in which the prince’s secretary sat writing at the open window, and he hurried over to the prostrate figure. “Whatever is the matter with you?” he said, so we are told, tapping the man on the shoulder.

Wenamon raised his head. “Surely you see these birds which descend on Egypt,” he groaned. “Look at them! They have come into the harbour, and how long shall I be left forsaken here? Truly you see those who have come to arrest me.”

With these words one must suppose that Wenamon returned to his weeping, for he says in his report that the sympathetic secretary went off to find the prince in order that some plan of action might be formulated. When the news was reported to Zakar-Baal, he too began to lament; for the whole affair was menacing and ugly. Looking out of the window he saw the Sicilian ships anchored as a barrier across the mouth of the harbour, he saw the logs of cedar-wood strewn over the beach, he saw the writhing figure of Wenamon pouring sand and dust upon his head and drumming feebly with his toes; and his royal heart was moved with pity for the Egyptian.

Hastily speaking to his secretary, he told him to procure two large jars of wine and a ram, and to give them to Wenamon on the chance that they might stop the noise of his lamentations. The secretary and his servants procured these things from the kitchen, and, tottering down with them to the envoy, placed them by his side. Wenamon, however, merely glanced at them in a sickly manner, and then buried his head once more. The failure must have been observed from the window of the palace, for the prince sent another servant flying off for a popular Egyptian lady of no reputation, who happened to be living just then at Byblos in the capacity of a dancing-girl. Presently she minced into the room, very much elated, no doubt, at this indication of the royal favour. The prince at once ordered her to hasten down on to the beach to comfort her countryman. “Sing to him,” he said, “Don’t let his heart feel apprehension.”

Wenamon seems to have waved the girl aside, and we may picture the prince making urgent signs to the lady from his window to renew her efforts. The moans of the miserable man, however, did not cease, and the prince had recourse to a third device. This time he sent a servant to Wenamon with a message of calm assurance. “Eat and drink,” he said, “and let not your heart feel apprehension. You shall hear all that I have to say in the morning.” At this Wenamon roused himself, and, wiping his eyes, consented to be led back to his rooms, ever turning, no doubt, to cast nervous glances in the direction of the silent ships of Dor.

On the following morning the prince sent for the leaders of the Sicilians and asked them for what reason they had come to Byblos. They replied that they had come in search of Wenamon, who had robbed some of their countrymen of thirty-one debens of silver. The prince was placed in a difficult position, for he was desirous to avoid giving offence either to Dor or to Egypt from whence he now expected further payment; but he managed to pass out on to clearer ground by means of a simple stratagem.

“I cannot arrest the envoy of Amon in my territory,” he said to the men of Dor. “But I will send him away, and you shall pursue him and arrest him.”

The plan seems to have appealed to the sporting instincts of the Sicilians, for it appears that they drew off from the harbour to await their quarry. Wenamon was then informed of the scheme, and one may suppose that he showed no relish for it. To be chased across a bilious sea by sporting men of hardened stomach was surely a torture for the damned; but it is to be presumed that Zakar-Baal left the Egyptian some chance of escape. Hastily he was conveyed on board a ship, and his misery must have been complete when he observed that outside the harbour it was blowing a gale. Hardly had he set out into the “Great Syrian Sea” before a terrific storm burst, and in the confusion which ensued we lose sight of the waiting fleet. No doubt the Sicilians put into Byblos once more for shelter, and deemed Wenamon at the bottom of the ocean as the wind whistled through their own bare rigging.

The Egyptian had planned to avoid his enemies by beating northwards when he left the harbour, instead of southwards towards Egypt; but the tempest took the ship’s course into its own hands and drove the frail craft north-westwards towards Cyprus, the wooded shores of which were, in course of time, sighted. Wenamon was now indeed ’twixt the devil and the deep sea, for behind him the waves raged furiously, and before him he perceived a threatening group of Cypriots awaiting him upon the wind-swept shore. Presently the vessel grounded upon the beach, and immediately the ill-starred Egyptian and the entire crew were prisoners in the hands of a hostile mob. Roughly they were dragged to the capital of the island, which happened to be but a few miles distant, and with ignominy they were hustled, wet and bedraggled, through the streets towards the palace of Hetebe, the Queen of Cyprus.

As they neared the building the queen herself passed by, surrounded by a brave company of nobles and soldiers. Wenamon burst away from his captors, and bowed himself before the royal lady, crying as he did so, “Surely there is somebody amongst this company who understands Egyptian.” One of the nobles, to Wenamon’s joy, replied “Yes, I understand it.”

“Say to my mistress,” cried the tattered envoy, “that I have heard even in far-off Thebes, the abode of Amon, that in every city injustice is done, but that justice obtains in the land of Cyprus. Yet see, injustice is done here also this day.”

This was repeated to the queen, who replied “Indeed!—what is this that you say?”

Through the interpreter Wenamon then addressed himself to Hetebe. “If the sea raged,” he said, “and the wind drove me to the land where I now am, will you let these people take advantage of it to murder me, I who am an envoy of Amon? I am one for whom they will seek unceasingly? And as for these sailors of the prince of Byblos, whom they also wish to kill, their lord will undoubtedly capture ten crews of yours, and will slay every man of them in revenge.”

This seems to have impressed the queen, for she ordered the mob to stand on one side, and to Wenamon she said, “Pass the night....”

Here the torn writing comes to an abrupt end, and the remainder of Wenamon’s adventures are for ever lost amidst the dust of El Hibeh. One may suppose that Hetebe took the Egyptian under her protection, and that ultimately he arrived once more in Egypt, whither Zakar-Baal had perhaps already sent the timber. Returning to his native town, it seems that Wenamon wrote his report, which for some reason or other was never despatched to the High Priest. Perhaps the envoy was himself sent for, and thus his report was rendered useless; or perhaps our text is one of several copies.

There can be no question that he was a writer of great power, and this tale of his adventures must be regarded as one of the jewels of the ancient Egyptian language. The brief description of the Prince of Byblos, seated with his back to the window, while the waves beat against the wall below, brings vividly before one that far-off scene, and reveals a lightness of touch most unusual in writers of that time. There is surely, too, an appreciation of a delicate form of humour observable in his account of some of his dealings with the prince. It is appalling to think that the peasants who found this roll of papyrus might have used it as fuel for their evening fire; and that, had not a drifting rumour of the value of such articles reached their village, this little tale of old Egypt and the long-lost Kingdoms of the Sea would have gone up to empty heaven in a puff of smoke.

CHAPTER IV
THE PRESERVATION OF ANTIQUITIES

In the Dresden Nachrichten, a newspaper of considerable standing, an article appeared in the second year of the late war, in which a well-known German writer advocated a ruthless attack upon the antiquities and art treasures of Italy.

“If Italian statesmen,” he said, “have imagined that the art treasures in their country are a species of insurance against a too energetic conduct of the War on Germany’s part, they will experience some very bitter disappointments.” He tells the Italian people that the well-being of the least significant German soldier—that is to say, any oaf from the lowest grade of German life—is of more value than the most magnificent gem of ancient or modern art; and in conclusion he declares that “when the monuments and cathedrals, the statues and the pictures, the churches and the palaces, of Venice, Milan, Florence and Rome, feel the sharpness of the German sword, it will be—and God knows that it will be—a just judgment that overtakes them.”

The views thus recorded are not to be regarded as the expression of an individual idiosyncrasy. The German treatment of the historical monuments of France and Belgium proved clearly enough that the Teutonic mind had discarded (let us hope temporarily) all reverence for ancient works of art as being a sentiment which was incompatible with the general policy of the nation; and we had abundant proof that the existence of what we reckon the greatest and most permanent treasures of civilisation was believed by our late enemies to be of infinitely less account than the smallest and most transient operation of their aggressive warfare. Of course, there were certain artistic people in Germany who would have regretted the destruction of the great masterpieces and might have felt concerned on receiving the news of such a catastrophe; but there is hardly a man of Teutonic race who would not have found excuses for the soulless creatures who then directed the activities of the nation, and would not repeat the criminal heresy that national necessity abrogates international obligations.

It is the irony of fate that the Germanic enemies of Italy, under the stress of war embraced a doctrine which was first preached by an Italian—a very young and unbalanced personage named Marinetti—who in his initial Manifesto of Futurism, dated 1909, declared that his sect “wished to destroy the museums and libraries which cover Italy with as many cemeteries.”

“Would you,” he wrote, “waste the best of your strength by a useless admiration of the past? To admire an old picture is to pour our sensitiveness into a funeral urn instead of casting it forward in violent gushes of action. The admirable past may be balsam for invalids and for prisoners; but we will have none of it, we, the young, the strong, the living Futurists. Come, then, seize the pickaxes and hammers! Sap the foundations of the venerable cities. We stand upon the extreme promontory of the centuries: why should we look behind us?”

This whole manifesto, indeed, might well have been written by a Prussian officer of the school which one trusts the war has dislodged; and the ninth article of the Futurist doctrine, which says “We wish to glorify war, militarism, patriotism, the destructive arm of the anarchist, the beautiful inventions that kill, and the contempt for women,” reveals a startling similarity to the creed of the German, as one saw it in those terrible years.

Our late enemies did not destroy valued historical monuments in the manner of savages who knew no better; they destroyed them because the reasoned doctrines upon which their Culture was founded declared that one living German was of greater value than all the revered works of dead masters, one blow for Germany more precious than all the art treasures in the world. The only essential difference between the teachings of Futurism, at which we laughed, and of Pan-Germanism, against which we fought with such astounding intensity, is that the Futurist advocated the wholesale destruction of all relics of the past, whereas Pan-Germanism tolerated the retention of those monuments and works of art which, owing to their situation, did not interfere in the slightest degree with the paramount activities of the day. In other words, the Germans regarded the safeguarding of these works of art as a matter quite secondary to all practical considerations. They had no objection to the protection of their own monuments, which, they realised, had some sort of patriotic worth; but they did not consider that antiquities had an ethical value in themselves, and they did not regard the destruction of foreign works of art with any real regret at the time.

The point of view held, then and now, by the rest of the civilised world, is entirely different. While we recognise that national monuments or treasures of art are an asset to the country which produced them, we are accustomed to consider them more as assets of the whole human race, irrespective of nationality. We feel that a beautiful antiquity has an intrinsic value, and it is a matter of conscience with us to hand on to the future the treasures which we have received from the past. Cologne Cathedral or the castles of the Rhine would have been as little likely to be damaged intentionally by us as our own ancient buildings. The cathedral of Rheims, though it be stocked with memories of our early struggles with France, is as beloved by every intelligent Englishman as is Westminster Abbey; and the burning of Louvain evoked in England a feeling of distress no less sincere than that which would have been aroused by the destruction of Oxford or Cambridge. Ancient masterpieces are the possession of the whole world: they are the records of the development of the whole human race, and we treasure them without regard to creed, nationality, or faction. The German threat to destroy the monuments of Italy or France could only be received with horror by us, and the sense of outrage would not have been different had we ourselves been at war with the Italian or French peoples. Each nation, we believe, is but the steward of its antiquities on behalf of the whole world, and warfare does not disrupt that stewardship.

This attitude towards the relics of bygone days is not usually defined by us. It is a sense so rooted in our minds that we have felt no need to find for it a reasoned explanation. But, since our late enemies, in the excitement of warfare, widely and openly preached a doctrine of destruction which we had believed to be held only by a few madmen of the Futurist sect, it is necessary for us to inquire into the unconsidered arguments upon which our sentiments in this regard are based. What, then, is the value of an ancient work of art? Why do we feel that buildings or objects of this kind are entitled to respect no matter how fierce the international struggle which surges around them? Let us search for an answer to these questions in order that the attitude dictated to us by intuitive sentiment may be justified by some process of definite thought. Here in the following pages are briefly outlined the main arguments which have presented themselves to the mind of one whose business for several years it has been to safeguard the treasures of the past from thoughtless or intentional damage, and who, in the stress of that labour, has often searched for the foundations of the instinctive desire to preserve intact to future generations the ancient glories of an alien race.

“Long memories make great peoples,” said Montalembert, and it is largely for this reason that the preservation of antiquities is desirable. Antiquities, whether they be works of art or objects of archæological interest, are the illustrations in the book of history, by means of which we are able to visualise the activities of past ages. The buildings and objects created by any period in a nation’s existence have a value more or less equal to the written records of that age. On the one hand the documentary records sometimes tell us of matters upon which structural or artistic relics throw no light; and on the other hand monuments and objects often give information to us which no written word could convey. Antiquities and histories are inseparable. The one kind of record supplements the other; and it is as difficult to read history aright without the aid of these tangible illustrations as it would be to study Euclid without linear diagrams. Thus to destroy antiquities is to destroy history.

The Germans of course did not attempt to make a distinction between objects and documents in their threat to Italy, or in their destructive policy in France and Belgium. Public libraries were necessarily endangered by the menace to public museums, galleries, and buildings; and the attack therefore was openly made upon the national archives themselves, both in their documentary and their material form. The cranks of the Futurist movement desired to annihilate historical records because they considered them to be of no value to human progress: the Germans were willing to obliterate these records because they considered them to be of less value than the temporary operations of their armies. There is very little difference between the two points of view.

Any person of intelligence will quickly recognise that the mind which looks with complacency upon the destruction of a part of the world’s archives will regard with equanimity the destruction of the entire record of man’s past activities. Ancient buildings, objects and documents are not so numerous that the loss of a few specimens can pass unnoticed; but even if the number were unlimited the crime of the destruction of some of that number would not be

A human-faced lion, probably dating from the reign of Pharaoh Amenemes III., B.C. 1825. One of the great masterpieces of ancient Egyptian art. Now in Cairo

diminished. A thief who steals a handy hundred pounds from a public fund is not less culpable because he leaves untouched the bulk of the capital sum, which happens to be out of his reach. This aspect of the matter thus resolves itself into a question whether a knowledge of history is of any practical value to the man of the present day, or whether it is merely a hindrance to the progress of his original thought. The Futurist definitely accepts the latter view.

“Would you poison yourselves,” says his Manifesto, “by a knowledge of history? Do you want to decay? Would you waste your strength by a useless admiration of the past, from which you can but emerge exhausted, reduced, downtrodden?”

The German seemed to take the same attitude towards history, with this one qualification—that he was prepared to tolerate, to a certain extent, the history of his own nation. In his blind agony he saw a certain use in the study of the development of Germanic thought, but recognised none in the lessons conveyed by the history of other nations. German antiquities had some sort of value to him because they were German, not because they were antiquities. Like the Futurist, he felt that he “stood upon the summit of the world”; he believed that he had the right to make new laws, to upset accustomed habits; he would not be bound by the old traditions of which the growth is recorded by history. Confident in the freedom and maniacal strength which he derived from his destruction of tradition, he bounded forward, to use the words of the Manifesto, “scratching the air with hooked fingers, and sniffing at the academy doors the odour of the rotting minds within; warming his hands at the fire made by the burning of the old books; while injustice, strong and healthy, burst forth radiantly in his eyes.”

Like the Futurist, the militant German hated the restrictions placed upon him by calm, sedate history; he detested the admonitions of accumulated experience; and, regarding himself as superman, he wished to be rid of all records, documentary or material, which tended to pull his thoughts down from the untrodden paths of his high attainment to the unchanging plains of the world. Just as in warfare he brushed aside every restraint which experience and custom had placed upon all military actions, and stopped his ears to the voice of history which counselled moderation, so in regard to the treatment of art treasures he adopted a policy of deliberate destructiveness based on the argument that the world’s art, the world’s history, the world’s accumulations of experience, the world’s very soul, was as nothing compared with Germany’s needs of the moment.

“Come, good incendiaries with your charred fingers,” he cried, in the words of the Futurist Manifesto, “set fire to the shelves of the libraries! Flood the museums, that the glorious canvases may drift hopelessly away! Destroy the venerable cities!” So might Germany, untrammelled by obsolete codes, reign supreme over a new earth.

The uses of history are most readily shown in the irresistible opposition which it presents to this attitude; and herein lies the practical value of all records of the past in whatever form they are placed before us. The simple consciousness that we who live in the present day are figures silhouetted against the luminous curtain of former ages produces in our minds a definite sense of proportion and decorum which is our surest defence against anarchy and uncontrol. Man’s knowledge of good and evil, of right and wrong, whether divinely inspired or not, is the result of his accumulated experience. It is an inherited instinct, derived like the instinct of self-defence, from the teachings of the past; and on that intuitive sense is based all law, all order, and all righteousness. To destroy antiquities, and consequently to obliterate a piece of history, is to help in the undermining of the very basis of orderly society and the weakening of the foundations upon which the peace of the world is to be built. The mind which can regard with equanimity the deliberate destruction of a glorious relic of bygone activities can have little love for the human race, and can hold in no esteem the traditional codes from which the goodness and the balance of mankind are mainly derived. It is ridiculous to suppose that common sense and natural morality will direct our lives upon the true course. If we have no traditions, if the past experiences of our race be obliterated, we may stray from the road as the Germans strayed, and be utterly lost in the howling wilderness of materialism, where the qualities long-loved and endeared to us by time are forgotten, and the soul of mankind is shed.

Though we do not always realise the fact, it is the consciousness of history which gives us individually that natural discipline discarded by the Germans in place of an artificial obedience. It is the inherent sense of history that is the source of the strength and the sweetness of liberalism and democracy, for it gives to every individual a feeling of responsibility which causes him to act with a kind of reasonable sobriety on all occasions. I do not mean to say that a man is more decorous because he has learnt that William the Conqueror landed in England in 1066; I am not referring to a knowledge of the details of historical events, but rather to a consciousness of history in its widest aspect, a consciousness not necessarily derived at all from the study of books. And it is the presence around us of ancient buildings and other relics of the past which prevents this consciousness from becoming dimmed in the hurly-burly of to-day’s activities.

Let us ask ourselves this question: Are acquired knowledge and established custom, or is a vacuum the better base for human advancement? If organising energy, creative faculty, and orderliness be so strong in us that we need no foundation for our efforts; if, in the divine manner, we are prepared to create something out of nothing; then, I suppose, we may reply that vacuum, with its freedom from impurities and useless habits, has its advantages. But if we have no pretension to divinity or to super-manhood, then it is clear that we cannot hope to improve the lot of humanity unless we set out upon our task of progress girt with the accumulated experience of former generations, that is to say, girt with history. Moreover, history hands down to us that most precious of human assets—our conscience. It is history that arms us individually with the sword and buckler of instinctive orderliness; and every antiquity or ancient work of art serves as a reminder to us of our responsibilities to God and man. History is the silver thread which passes from a man back to his Creator; and woe be to him who breaks that thread.

In the above remarks antiquities have been regarded simply as the relics of an earlier epoch; but let us now ask ourselves what is the value of antiquities regarded as works of art. In this aspect we must note that the value does not merely lie in the age of the object; for no distinction can be made artistically between an ancient and a modern piece of work. The splendours of art transcend time, their manifestations appearing sporadically in all periods; and therefore, when we ask what is the value from this point of view of an ancient work of art we are in reality questioning what is the value of such a work, of any period, ancient or modern. It is obvious that we cannot simply reply that these works are to be safeguarded because they are beautiful, or because they are finely inspired. That would lead only to the question as to what is beauty or what is inspiration; and the answer would vary according to the taste of the individual. A more practical, a more concrete, reason must be given for the need of preserving these things.

Works of art, no matter what may be the material or the medium employed, are primarily expressions of a point of view which cannot be communicated by the written or the spoken word. A painting, a piece of sculpture, an edifice, or any other work of art, is essentially a statement. The creative impulse felt by the artist, the inspiration which impels him to set to work, is actually his desire to communicate some aspect of his thought to his fellow-men. He has something to say, a message to deliver, an angle of vision to represent, a sensation or an emotion to express, which can be conveyed by no other means. Words are not the only method of intellectual communication between individuals; and upon certain planes of thought they entirely fail to effect a sympathetic juncture. The artist must make use of other methods of intercourse. Rhythm, symmetry, the composition of lines, the grouping of colours and forms, go to make up his language; and in this manner he unburdens his heart to his fellow-men. Thus the greatest value of a work of art lies in its action as a medium of high intercourse by means of vision and aspect in place of language.

When we look at the works of a master in this art of spiritual expression we are stirred and stimulated by the sensations which he himself has experienced, we read off the message which he has put before us, we see things from his point of view; and a bond of emotional and intellectual sympathy is created between us which could have been established by no other means. In most cases the message thus conveyed is of an ideal nature, telling of emotions which are exalted altogether above the common incidents of the day, and placing us in touch with those beauties of life which are usually regarded as being in some manner God-given. The galleries of pictures and statuary which the Germans ransacked, the groups of splendid monuments and edifices which they blew to pieces, are the libraries of men’s souls, where, through our eyes, we may receive the spiritual communications of the masters, and may be linked one to another by sympathy and understanding. In this manner works of art constitute the most powerful bond between the nations; for they connect man to man without regard to nationality. Where a babel of languages leads to confusion and misunderstanding, Art speaks with a voice that men of all races can comprehend; it speaks through the senses, and the language of the senses is common to all mankind.

The writer in the Dresden Nachrichten told his readers that the destruction of Italian works of art would be Italy’s just punishment; and evidently he had no belief that the loss would also be felt by his own nation. In his warlike frenzy he had no wish to come into touch with the point of view of other people; and, moreover, his war-dedicated mind regarded with mistrust all consideration of what may be called a spiritual subject. His stern philosophy dulled his brains and blunted his wits; and he refused to admit either the possibility or the desirability of receiving any stimulation from the work of foreign hands. A picture for him was simply paint and canvas, and Italian paint and canvas were enemy goods. Similarly in regard to the French cathedrals which he shot nearly to pieces he admitted the sanctity of neither the art nor the religion of France. Or if there were a glimmering in his mind that such works were the medium for the expression of a point of view, and as such were the cherished vehicles of international sympathy, he shunned with so much the more decision the contamination of non-Germanic ideals. The essence of his system was anti-democratic: it was entirely opposed to internationalisation or to any tolerant and benevolent understanding between the peoples of the world; and anything that led to such a condition was scorned by him as being incompatible with those tyrannical doctrines of the mailed fist, to which in his frenzy he clung.

It is not necessary here to discuss the many arguments of an idealistic kind which can be advanced in favour of the preservation of antiquities. I have stated simply two practical lines of thought: namely, that antiquities regarded as relics of a past age have the same value as documentary records, and illustrate the story of the development of the soul of mankind; and that, regarded as works of art, they serve as an international bond, putting us in touch with the aspirations and the high endeavour of all races and of all periods. In either case, antiquities are seen to be of untold value to the world. On the one hand, they put the people of to-day au fait with the movement of the intellect of other ages; they keep us in touch with past experience, and give us the benefit of earlier effort. On the other hand, they enlarge the breadth of our outlook and put the thought of the different races of the world before us in its spiritual aspect more clearly than written records could put it. In either case they perform a function which is essential to that unity of mankind and that international tolerance upon which the future peace of the earth must be based. We fought for the maintenance of what may be termed the soul of the world; and to destroy antiquities is to destroy the record and the manifestation of that soul. We fought, or so we believed, for the cessation of international misunderstanding, and to destroy works of art is to destroy a vital bond of sympathy between the nations. We fought for the happiness and well-being of our children’s children; and we must hand on to them intact the good things that we receive from the past and the present: not only the things that we, in our own phase of thought, consider good but all those which the past has cherished and the future may find of value. To obliterate now anything which may be the inspiration of our descendants is against the principles for which we should strive. The Germans of the old régime deliberately destroyed the records of early ideals as worthless to their materialistic civilisation. We fought, and toiled, and poured out our blood and our treasure, that idealism, sympathy, tolerance, understanding, and good will might be established on this earth for ever. The dream has not been realised after all, but a right appreciation of the value of the records of the past will assuredly help towards its attainment.

CHAPTER V
THE MORALITY OF EXCAVATION

I am asked with great frequency by travellers in Egypt and persons interested in Egyptology why it is that the excavation of ancient tombs is permitted. Surely, they say, the dead ought to be left to rest in peace. How would we like it were foreigners to come to England and ransack our graveyards? Is it not a sacrilege to expose to view once more the sepulchres and the mummies of the Pharaohs?

Questions of this kind, suggesting disapprobation of the primary actions of archæology, were at first inclined to take the breath away; but it soon became clear that in every case they were asked in all sincerity and were deserving of a studied reply. Moreover, there is no doubt that the whole subject of the morality of excavation, and the circumstances under which it is justifiable or unjustifiable, has been much neglected, and is liable to considerable misapprehension. I therefore venture here to play the part of an apologist and to explain the attitude assumed towards excavation by the small group of Egyptologists of what may be called the modern school, that it may serve as a response, halting but sincere, to this recurrent inquiry.

The main argument in favour of the excavation of tombs by archæologists is easily stated. The careful opening of an ancient Egyptian sepulchre saves for science information and antiquities which otherwise would inevitably be scattered to the four winds of heaven by native plunderers. In spite of the strenuous efforts of the Department of Antiquities, a considerable amount of robbery takes place in the ancient cemeteries. Tombs are rifled, coffins are broken open, mummies torn to pieces in the search for gold, heavy objects smashed into portable fragments, and valuable papyri ripped into several parts to be apportioned among the thieves. It will not be easy for the reader to picture in his mind the disorder of a plundered tomb. There lies the overturned sarcophagus, there sprawls the dead body with the head rent from the shoulders, there are the shattered remains of priceless vases believed by the robbers to have been of no great value. It is as though the place had been visited at full moon by demented monkeys.

Compare this with scientific excavation. The archæologist records by means of photographs, drawings, plans, and copious notes, everything that there is to be recorded in the tomb. Before he raises the lid of the shell in which the dead man lies he has obtained pictures of the intact coffin at every angle; before he unrolls the bandages from the mummy he has photographed it again and again. There is a rough decency in his dealings with the dead, and a care in handling the contents of the graves which would have been gratifying to their original owner. Every object is taken from the sepulchre in an orderly manner, and the body itself is either buried once more or is sent to the workroom of the archæologist or anthropologist. A tomb which might be thoroughly plundered in half an hour occupies the earnest attention of an archæologist for several days; and the mummy which would have been rapidly torn to pieces in the search for jewels is laboured over for many an hour by men of science.

Which, then, is the better course: to leave the tombs to be rifled by ignorant thieves, or to clear them of their contents in an orderly manner? I do not see how there can be any doubt as to the answer.

But let us assume for the sake of argument that there is no illegal robbery to be feared, and that the question is simply as to whether these ancient tombs should be excavated or left undisturbed. What can be said in favour of the molesting of the dead? What can be brought forward to justify this tampering with oblivion?

Firstly, it is to be remembered that without the excavation of the tombs a large part of the dynastic and industrial history of ancient Egypt could not be reconstructed; and the question thus largely resolves itself into the query as to whether the history of Egypt is worth studying or not. The ancient Egyptians buried in their sepulchres a great quantity of “funeral furniture,” as it is called: beds, chairs, tables, boxes, chests, vases, utensils, weapons, clothing, jewellery, and so forth. Almost all the objects of this kind which are exhibited in our museums have been found in ancient sepulchres, almost all the pictures which give us scenes from the daily life of ancient Egypt have been discovered upon the walls of the mortuary chapels; and if there had been no excavation of the tombs very little would have been known about the manners and customs of this antique race.

It was the discovery of the body of Akhnaton, and the consequent determination of his age at death, that made the writing of his biography possible: it was upon the walls of a tomb that his great hymn was inscribed. The invaluable biographies of the nobles of the various dynasties of Egyptian history were mostly recorded upon the walls of their mortuary chapels and tombs; famous texts such as that upon the “Carnarvon tablet,” which relates a part of the history of the Hyksos wars, were found in the graves of the dead; the beautiful “Song of the Harper” was engraved upon the wall of a tomb; and so on. If a scruple had held the Egyptologist from interfering with the dead, these inscriptions would be unknown, and man would be the less understood.

The complex character of a human being is expounded only by the study of his forefathers. If we would appreciate the value of a race or nation we must of necessity sit down seriously to a detailed examination of its past. It is as futile to attempt to understand the modern Egyptians from a survey of this little moment of their present existence as it would be at a single interview to gauge the character of a butler or groom who brings no testimonials with him. The testimonials, credentials, references, and certificates of the Egyptian race are to be found in her ancient tombs; and, say what you will, those who would leave them unexcavated and unstudied are like the trusting and much deceived young housekeepers who place their confidence in servants whose “characters” are not forthcoming. The study of Egyptology is a political necessity, and for this reason alone the tombs must be opened and their contents recorded. Lord Cromer, in a letter to the present writer, speaks of the “value of archæology, which is really only another name for history, to the practical politician of the present day.” “Incidents in ancient history,” he writes, “frequently brought to my mind the facts with which I had to deal during my tenure of office in Egypt”; while both in his Reports and in his Ancient and Modern Imperialism he enlarges upon this same theme.

Thucydides said that history was philosophy learnt from examples. “To philosophise on mankind,” wrote Taine, “exact observation is not sufficient, but requires to be completed, and knowledge of the present must be supplemented from the history of the past.” “History,” says Seeley, “lies before science as a mass of materials out of which a political doctrine may be deduced.... The ultimate object of all my teaching (of history) is to establish this fundamental connection, to show that politics and history are only different aspects of the same study.... What can be more plainly political than the questions—What ought to be done with India? What ought to be done with our Colonies? But they are questions which need the aid of history. We cannot delude ourselves ... so as to fancy that commonsense or common morality will suffice to lead us to a true opinion.”

These words are especially applicable to Egypt, where there is a complete sequence of many thousands of years of history, and where the historian may watch the Egyptian in his every mood, and may observe his actions under innumerable combinations of circumstances. The race has not changed its character since the days of the Pharaohs, and in order to know of what the nation is capable in the future we must ascertain what it has done in the past. It is our particular business in Egypt to work for the future, to build up a nation out of the wreck which confronted us in 1882; but, as Edmund Burke said, “people will not look forward to posterity who never look backward to their ancestors.” It is an incontestable fact that the contents of the ancient sepulchres do give us the material to form the basis of the only reasonable study of the Egyptian question—the study of the Present in the light of the Past with an eye to the Future. The records which are discovered in the tombs tell us what Egyptian individuals can accomplish ethically, while the antiquities themselves show us of what they are capable artistically, industrially, technically, and scientifically.

It is to obtain this knowledge, and also, of course, to add to our general material for the study of art, religion, literature, and so forth, that the ancient tombs must be excavated and recorded, and the dead disturbed. Moreover, the mummies and bones of the dead men are of considerable value to science. The work of Professor G. Elliot Smith, F.R.S., and his assistants has led to most important discoveries in connection with the history of disease; and his minute examination of thousands of mummies has been most extraordinarily fruitful. Studies in the origin and growth of such diseases as tuberculosis or plague cannot fail to be of importance; but without the excavation of ancient tombs no such work can be undertaken. I venture to think, too, that the fight against disease is invigorated by the knowledge that certain maladies are of modern growth, and that the known world was at one time free of them.

There is, however, a very widespread feeling against any meddling with the dead. A sentiment which has a large part of its origin in the belief that the spirits of the departed have still some use for their bodies forbids one to disturb the bones which have been committed to the earth. There is the fear lest the disturbing of the dead should offend the susceptibilities of the living members of the family to which the deceased belonged. A body from which the life has gone assumes, also, a sanctity derived from the mystery of death. It has passed beyond the sphere of our understanding. The limbs which in life were apparently independent of Heaven have suddenly fallen back upon God, and are become the property of the Infinite. A corpse represents the total collapse of our expediencies, the absolute paralysis of our systems and devices; and thus, as the incitement to the mental search for the permanency which must somewhere exist, the lifeless bones become consecrate.

The question, however, is a somewhat different one in the case of the embalmed bodies of the ancient Egyptians. No modern family traces its descent back to the days of the Pharaohs; and the mummies which are found in the old tombs, although often those of historical characters, and therefore in a special sense the property of the Egyptian nation, compel the family consideration of no particular group of persons. Like other antique objects, they fall under the care of the Department of Antiquities, which acts on behalf of the people of Egypt and the scientists of the world. They have been such æons dead that they no longer suggest the fact of death; like statues, they seem never to have been alive. It is with an effort that in the imagination one puts motion into the stiff limbs, and thoughts into the hard, brown skulls. They have lost to a great extent that awful sanctity which more recent bones possess, for the soul has been so long departed from them that even the recollection of its presence is forgotten. People who would be terrified to pass the night in a churchyard will sleep peacefully in an ancient Egyptian necropolis camped amidst the tombs.

After all, what virtue do our discarded bodies possess that we should dislike to turn them over? What right have we to declare that the mummies must be left undisturbed, when their examination will give us vitally important information regarding the history and early development of diseases—information which is of real, practical value to mankind? Is it just for us to object to the opening of tombs which contain matter and material so illuminating and of such value to Egypt and the world? Those who hold orthodox religious opinions sometimes point out that the dead should not be interfered with, firstly, because the bodies are temples of the spirit, and, secondly, because they will rise again at the call of the last trump. “All that are in the graves shall hear His voice, and shall come forth?” says the Gospel of St. John (v. 28); and the belief in the Second Advent seems, at first sight, to necessitate the preservation of the dead in the tombs. In answer to these contentions, however, one may point out that the mummies of the ancient Egyptians are the notable exception to the general law of total destruction which overtakes the ancient dead in all countries, and which leaves to the present day hardly a trace of the millions of bodies of our remote ancestors. The dissection and scattering of all the mummies in Egypt would add infinitesimally to the number of corpses already reduced to dust and blown about the world. Moreover one may call attention to the words of our Lord: “Let the dead bury their dead,” which seem to indicate that no extreme consideration for them is required.

It is often argued, and with far more justice, that the mummies should not be disturbed or removed from their tombs because it is obvious that the ancients took extreme care to prevent any tampering of this kind, and most passionately desired their bones to be left where they were laid. There are many Churchmen who, tracing an historic growth in religion, maintaining that the consecration ceremony made by the priests of long ago in all sincerity, and accepted by the people in like manner, is of the same eternal value as any Christian committal of the dead body; and that therefore one is actually sacrilegious in touching a body laid to rest in the name of the elder gods.

In stating the answer of the archæologist we must return to the subject of illegal excavation, and must point out that scientific excavation prevents the desecration of the tombs by the inevitable plunderer, and the violent smashing up of the mummies in the crazy search for gold. I have come upon whole cemeteries ransacked by native thieves, the bodies broken and tossed about in all directions. I have seen mummies sticking up out of the sand like the “Aunt Sallies” of a country fair to act as a target for the stone-throwing of Egyptian boys. In the Middle Ages mummies were dragged from their tombs and exported to Europe to be used in the preparation of medicines. “The Egyptian mummies,” says Sir Thomas Browne in Urn Burial, “which Cambyses or time hath spared, avarice now consumeth. Mummy is become merchandise, Mizraim cures wounds, and Pharaoh is sold for balsams.” There is some reason, also, to suppose that Pharaoh was sold for common manure.

The scientific excavator anticipates the robber whenever it is possible to do so; and if, in the cause of science, the mummies, like the bodies of paupers in the dissecting-room, are sometimes exposed to what may appear to be indignities, these are surely not so great as the insults which they might suffer at the hands of the modern Egyptians, who, in this regard, care not a snap of the fingers for sentiment.

Nevertheless, I am of opinion that the ancient dead should be treated with very great respect, and that they should be left in their tombs whenever it is consistent with scientific work to do so. Though the religious point of view may not be accepted, it is usually undesirable to act without regard to inherited sentiment; and as regards the dead, there is a very distinct feeling at the back of all our minds against any form of desecration. It is, no doubt, a survival which cannot be defended, but it should not be lightly dismissed on that account. Certain mummies of necessity must be examined and dissected, and for this purpose it is often necessary to remove them to scientific institutions; others, in certain cases, require to be available for public examination in museums. But there is no reason why the bones of one of the Pharaohs, for example, should now lie jumbled in a dusty old box under the table of a certain museum workroom; nor does there seem to be any particular object served in exposing other bodies, which do not happen to have the protective dignity of the mummies of Rameses the Second and Sethos the First, to the jibes and jests of the vulgar.

It seems reasonable to hold that the mummies of Pharaohs and other historical characters should be available for study at any moment, and should not be buried again beneath the tons of sand and rock from which they have been removed. But most assuredly they should be placed with decency and solemnity in a room set aside for the purpose in the Cairo Museum, and should only be seen by special permission. Certain exceptions might be made to this rule. The mummies of Rameses the Second, Sethos the First, Thutmosis the Fourth, Prince Yuaa, Princess Tuau, and one or two others have such inherent dignity that, in rather more serious and impressive surroundings, they might well remain on regular exhibition in Cairo. It is a pity that they cannot be placed once more in their tombs at Thebes, where they might be visited, as is the tomb and mummy of Amenophis the Second among the hills of the western desert. But there is too grave a danger from the native plunderer, who, in spite of bolts, bars, and police, on one occasion burst into the tomb of this Amenophis and bashed in the breast of the mummy in the vain search for gold. At present there are seven watchmen in the Valley of the Tombs of the Kings, and it would be quite absurd to replace more of the royal mummies there with such inadequate protection. The tomb of Rameses the Second, moreover, is now destroyed, and the alabaster sarcophagus of Sethos the First is in London; thus neither of these two mummies could be properly enshrined.

The public exhibition of the mummies of the ancient Egyptians in the galleries of the museums of the world, where they are generally stuffed into glass

The mummy of Prince Yuaa. The photograph was taken by the Author on the day of its discovery. The mummy is now in the Cairo Museum.

cases amidst dusty collections of pots and pans and sticks and stones, is always objectionable. One does not care to think of the body of a Pharaoh who ruled a mighty empire exposed to the giggling comments of the members of a school treat, or to the hard jests of the American tourist. The only three justifications for the removal of the body from the tomb are that it could not safely be left in its sepulchre, that it is of use to scientists, and that it is of value in the education of the public. Now, the first two of these points do not give reason for its exhibition at all, and the third obviously requires the “setting” to be impressive and conducive to serious and undistracted thought. We are not called upon to amuse the public by means of the earthly remains of a great king: we may leave the business of entertainment to the circus proprietor.

The fact that excavation so often involves the disturbance of the dead makes it a very serious matter, not to be entered into in any but a purely scientific spirit. But there are also other reasons for regarding excavation as in no way a sport.

The archæologist who lays bare an intact burial takes upon himself a grave responsibility. If we admit that the study of the ancient Egyptians is of any value to mankind, then we must also allow that the excavator has a duty to the world to perform when he enters an ancient sepulchre and is confronted by the antiquities which are stored there. The objects which he sees in front of him are not his own: they belong to all men; and it is his business on behalf of the public to get from them as much information as possible. In the present stage of the development of archæology the value of a “find” of antiquities often rests far more in the original arrangement of the objects than in the objects themselves. The sole interest of a scarab, for example, may be in the fact that it rested on the first and not the second finger of the mummy; and the main value of the mummy may be found in the manner of its orientation as it lies in the tomb. Such evidence as this, however trifling it may seem, must of necessity be the basis of all real knowledge of the history of a race; and the excavator who omits to record by means of photographs, drawings, and notes every scrap of evidence with which he meets, commits a far greater crime than he could at once comprehend, and has failed in his duty to the public. An item is for ever lost: and the history of Egypt is built up by means of items.

Some years ago I excavated a few tombs in Lower Nubia which were in danger of robbery. I photographed the contents in situ, recorded the positions of the skeletons and all the objects placed around them, measured and photographed the skulls, and went away believing that my duty to science had been fulfilled. Some months later I showed the photographs of the skulls to a certain savant, who examined them closely.

“I notice in these pictures,” said he, “that some of the front teeth are missing from the jaws. Had they dropped out in the grave, or had they been knocked out during life? You could, of course, tell from the condition of the jawbone.” And it was with considerable shame that I was obliged to admit that I had not made the required observations. The point was an important one. Certain African tribes break out the front teeth for ornamental reasons, and the origin and geographical distribution of this strange custom, which can now be traced back to Pharaonic times, is a matter of far-reaching value to ethnology.

The excavator must be prepared to record everything he sees, and his general knowledge must be such that he will not, by ignorance of what to search for, overlook matters of this kind; for it is a patent fact that, in general, we do not see what we do not look for. The number of tombs in Egypt is limited, and the person who excavates any one of them has an opportunity for observation which can never be exactly repeated. When he has removed the antiquities to the museum he has necessarily obliterated for ever the source of his information, and, unless the contents of the tomb are all duly photographed and recorded in situ, that obliteration is as calamitous as the actual destruction of the antiquities themselves. He may carry off to his museum, let us say, four bronze statuettes of no particular artistic merit or individuality. Their real value to the scholar may have rested almost solely in the fact that they stood at the four corners of the tomb to ward off the evil spirits of the north, south, east, and west; and it is that piece of information rather than the somewhat mediocre objects themselves which must at all costs be preserved.

Thus the responsibility of the excavator is very great, and he must honestly feel capable of meeting the demands which such work makes upon him, and must enter upon his labours in full consciousness of his obligations to the public. It may fall to his lot to dig through the stratified remains of a Roman fortress in order to reach the ruins of an Egyptian temple buried far below. To a large extent the Roman walls and buildings must be destroyed, and scholars will afterwards possess only so much information regarding the fortress as the excavator has had the ability to record. If his notes are incomplete, then he may justly be accused of destroying valuables which can never be replaced; and I can see very little difference between him and the crazy villain who cuts a slice out of a famous painting or smashes the nose off a statue. The rarity of antiquities and ancient remains constitutes their special value. Information once destroyed can never be recovered. A stroke of the spade or pick, made before the necessary records are taken, may nullify the labours of many an ancient Egyptian’s lifetime. An old priest’s philosophy may have been summed up in the burial of a magical figure of Osiris in the earth floor under his bed as a protection against evil, and a too hasty stroke of the pick may lay bare the statuette but at the same time obliterate the traces of the position of the bed, thus rendering the magical little god as meaningless as the thousands of others just like it which line our museum shelves. The point of an arrow lying below the dust of a royal skeleton may be shown by close observation to have been the cause of death, and a fact will thus be added to history which might have been lost had a rough hand scattered the ashes.

Dead men are not useless; and the excavator must not cheat the world of any part of its great perquisite. The dead are the property of the living, and the archæologist is the world’s agent for the estate of the grave. The fact that the world does not yet realise the value of its possessions in this respect is no justification for bad stewardship. A dilettante can no more amuse himself by excavating carelessly because the world is not looking than the agent can play the fool with property which is neglected by its owner. Excavation is only moral when it is conducted on the strictest scientific lines for the benefit of mankind. Bad excavating, that is to say, digging for antiquities and not for information, is not the less dishonest because it happens to break no law. It cheats the living men of their rightful possessions which, believe me, are of real practical value to them. It cheats the dead of their utility, and gives in very truth a sting to death and the victory to the grave.

In past years professed archæologists have been surprisingly remiss in regard to the moral principles of excavation. The work of such famous men as Mariette can only be described as legalised plundering, and there are not a few diggers at the present day who have no possible right to touch ancient ground. Mariette made practically no useful records during the course of his work. For example, we do not know with certainty from what tomb came the famous statue of Shêkh-el-beled, perhaps the greatest art treasure in Egypt; we do not know how it was found; we do not know whether it was the ka-statue of the deceased standing behind the altar, or whether it had some other function in the sepulchre; we do not even know its exact date. It was Mariette’s custom to send a native overseer to conduct the work for him, and it was his boast that numerous excavations under his direction were being carried on throughout Egypt at one and the same time. The antiquities were dug out at a terrific rate, and were hurled pell-mell into the museum in cart-loads. In more recent years European gentlemen, and even native antiquity-dealers, have been given excavating concessions, and have ransacked the ancient tombs and temples in a mad search for loot, no records being made and no scientific information being gleaned.

All antiquities found in Egypt, except those discovered on private property, belong by law to the Egyptian Government; and it has been the custom for many years to allow natives to excavate, should they so desire, on the understanding that they pay all expenses and receive in return one half of the objects found, the work being conducted under the supervision of a native ghaffir, or watchman, employed by the Department. The antiquities handed over to the native promoter of the work (not to mention those which he has retained illicitly) are sold by him to dealers and merchants, and the enterprise is often a very profitable one. No records whatsoever are made, and there is a total loss of every scrap of interesting information. Of course, since this is a long-established custom, it is perhaps a difficult one to stop; and, doubtless, there are arguments to be recorded in its favour. I was permitted, however, to put an end to it in my own district of Upper Egypt; and, whilst I was there, no person, native or European, who was not a competent archæologist, or who did not employ a competent archæologist to do the work for him, was allowed to excavate for antiquities or new material. Nor was any person permitted to excavate who desired to do so simply for pecuniary gain and who intended to sell on the open market the objects which fell to his share.

For many years European or American millionaires bored with life’s mild adventure, have obtained excavating concessions in Egypt, and have dallied with the relics of bygone ages in the hope of receiving some thrill to stimulate their sluggard imagination. They call it “treasure hunting,” and their hope is to find a king lying in state with his jewelled crown upon his head. With this romantic desire for excitement one feels a kind of sympathy; but, nevertheless, it is a tendency which requires to be checked. The records of the past are not ours to play with: in the manner of big game in Uganda, they have to be carefully preserved; and the tombs, like elephants, should only be disturbed by those provided with a strictly worded licence. That licence should prohibit merchandise in the relics of the dead, all foolery with the things of the past, and all pseudo-archæological endeavours. None but the honest and disinterested expert can get full value out of a “find,” and excavation is not moral unless full value is obtained. What would have happened to the fragile objects found recently by Lord Carnarvon and Mr. Carter in the tomb of Tutankhamen if those two gentlemen had not been trained archæologists working for science and not for loot?

Another aspect of the subject must now be examined. Archæologists whose intentions are perfectly honest often dig out monuments, sepulchres, and temples which require to be protected as soon as exposed; but they do not first consider whether such protection is available. They are overwhelmed by the desire to make discoveries, and they go on digging and digging without any regard for the immovable but frangible objects which are left exposed to destruction in their wake. “Oh, the Government will look after them,” say they, not realising that the Government is already straining every nerve and expending every available penny upon such works of preservation, and can do no more. People sometimes believe that the British are vandals; and I must therefore observe in passing that under British direction more money has been spent upon antiquities in Egypt in proportion to the budget of the country than in any other part of the world. During the four or five years previous to the war nearly £300,000 was spent by the Egyptian Government on archæological works; and surely no more can be asked.

In archæological work there is nothing more harmful than the craze for discovery. The archæologist often thinks that it is his business to find antiquities with which to fill the museum which he represents; or, again, he thinks it is necessary to make some startling discovery which will redound to his credit and to that of his institution. This attitude is generally forced upon him by the fact that the persons or societies who have financed his work desire to see a tangible return for their money, and are not satisfied with the heavy records of a dull piece of work such as the planning and clearing up of an empty fortress of Roman date. They insist on their representative going for the plums; and they do not seem to realise that in so doing they are encouraging him to excavate in an unprincipled manner. An archæologist cannot accomplish his duty to the world unless he digs out the unfruitful site as conscientiously and diligently as he would the plenteous one, and records everything minutely, whether it happens to thrill him or leave him cold. This is the first principle of honest work, based upon the quite obvious truth that at the present time we cannot always tell exactly which of our records of the past are going to be considered of value to the future.

In digging thus for the plums, it is the excavator’s object to obtain as large a concession from the Government as possible, and to tap as many sites as he may. The result is that far more ruins are left exposed to the scant mercies of the weather, the native robber, and the unscrupulous tourist than would be the case were he to confine himself to working thoroughly over one set of remains. The excavator has no right to expose any immovable monument unless and until he can secure its protection—at his own expense if need be. Being responsible, as I was, for the preservation of hundreds of ancient remains, I felt with peculiar bitterness the callous behaviour of certain archæologists who in past years have opened up ruins which could in no way be protected, and which have now been smashed up and defaced. The peasants will hack out pieces of bas-reliefs from stone walls to sell to the dealers, or sometimes for superstitious reasons, or again from sheer maliciousness, will break up the most precious treasures of art. No ancient monument in Egypt is safe unless it is walled in, or placed under lock and key in the charge of a custodian; and I do not hesitate to say that it is the bounden duty of the excavator to make full arrangements for such protective measures or ever he puts pick in the ground.

Excavation is being carried on in Egypt on a scale wholly disproportionate to the number of trained field-workers available. Yet it would not be easy for the Government to refuse the desired concessions, since they are generally presented in the name of institutions of high standing; but at the same time the would-be excavator should remember that the Government ought not to give a licence to anybody through a sort of generosity or desire to show magnanimity. It sometimes happens that ancient cemeteries or ruins are situated so far from the nearest police outpost that they are in real danger of illegal plundering by native robbers; and in such cases it is desirable that they should be excavated as quickly as possible even though the persons who conduct the work are not absolutely first-class men. But it should be clearly understood that such danger from unauthorised diggers is the only possible justification for excavations which are not conducted on the strictest scientific lines and under the close supervision of first-rate men. By a first-rate man I mean an archæologist who has been trained in his work; who is imbued with the highest principles, and is aware of his responsibility to the world; who subordinates personal interests and the interests of the institutions which he serves to those of science in general; who works for the benefit of his fellow-men, desiring only to give them in complete measure the full value of the property they possess in the regions of the dead; whose general knowledge is such that he will not overlook any item of evidence in the “finds” which he makes; who is prepared to sit or stand over his work all day long no matter how trying the conditions; who is deft with his fingers as well as with his brain, being able to photograph, draw, plan, mend, and write fluently; and who can organise and control his men. There is no harm in allowing a wealthy amateur to excavate provided that he employs a trained archæologist to do the work for him and does not interfere in it himself, and also provided that he intends to make available to the public the antiquities which fall to his share and all the information which has been gleaned. But there is very real harm done in giving concessions without the most strictly-worded licences, in which are clauses precluding all unscientific work and frustrating all enterprises undertaken entirely for personal gain. The exploiting of the ancient tombs simply for mercenary purposes gives the excavator far too much the appearance and character of a ghoul.

The archæologist, so eager to add to his knowledge by new discoveries, should remember that there is already quite enough material on hand to keep him busy for the rest of his life, material which urgently requires his attention and his protection. The standing monuments of Egypt are still unstudied in any degree of completeness; and if only the various antiquarian societies would send out their scholars to make careful records of the remains which are already accessible, instead of urging them to unearth something new, Egyptology would be established on a much more solid basis. What scholars are thoroughly acquainted with the vast stores of Egyptological material in the museums of the world, or with the wonderful paintings and reliefs upon the walls of the temples, tombs, and mortuary chapels now in view throughout Egypt? Why excavate more remains until these are studied, unless the desired sites are in danger, or unless some special information is required? Why fill up our museums with antiquities before public opinion has been sufficiently educated to authorise the employment of larger numbers of curators? Why add to the burden of Egypt by increasing the number of monuments which have to be protected? It is to be remembered that in some cases the longer an excavation is postponed the better chance there will be of recording the discoveries adequately. Our methods improve steadily, our knowledge grows, the number of expert excavators increases; and each year finds us more fit than formerly we were for the delicate and onerous task of searching the dead.

It will be seen, then, that excavation is not a thing which may be lightly entered upon. It is a very serious business, and involves a grave duty to the public. Even if the arguments in favour of scientific research which I have suggested at the beginning of this paper are considered to be those of a casuist, as no doubt they will be by a certain class of readers, no one will deny that the study of the past has a broadening influence upon our minds, and therefore is not to be trifled with.

In Egypt, where scientific excavations are conducted entirely by Europeans and Americans, one has to consider, finally, one’s duty to the Egyptians, who care not one jot for their history, but who, nevertheless, as the living descendants of the Pharaohs should be the nominal stewards of their ancient possessions. What right have we as foreigners to dig out the graves of the ancient Egyptians?

Our right is a limited one. The Egyptians of the present day have no interest in antiquities except when considered as merchandise. They have no idea of what is called scientific work, and excavations conducted by them have not the slightest similarity to those under the supervision of modern archæologists. Yet neither the activities of the native plunderer nor the pressing need for the study of the history of the Nile Valley permits the Government to refrain altogether from allowing excavation; and therefore the work has to be done by trained archæologists without regard to their nationality. This internationalisation of the work can be justified also on the ground that antiquities of so ancient a kind are in many respects the property of the whole world; and, following out this argument, it will at once be apparent that archæologists must work solely for the benefit of mankind in general, since they are dealing with the property of all men. By admitting the right of non-Egyptian scientists to excavate in Egypt because all the world has the right to hold shares in these mines of information, one admits the existence of the excavator’s duty to the world. That duty must never be overlooked. It consists in getting the greatest possible amount of information out of a discovery with the least possible damage to the things found. Any excavations authorised in Egypt which are not of an absolutely scientific character are injustices to the Egyptians and to all men. It is the business of the Egyptologist to work for the welfare of Egypt as well as for the benefit of the world; and if he fail to make the relics of the Pharaohs yield their full burden and act to their utmost capacity for the purpose of teaching the Egyptians of the future the qualities of their race, and assisting the occupying Power and the world at large to estimate those qualities and their bearing on modern thought, then his excavations are not moral and should not be authorised.

To the few Egyptologists of what one may call the modern scientific school these principles are so obvious that it may seem somewhat absurd to put them into words as I have done here. I am, however, answering repeated inquiries; and, moreover, it is an unfortunate fact that high principles on the subject of excavation are conspicuously absent among all but this small group of Egyptologists. The savant is often possessed only by the joy of discovery and the mad desire to find something new. He rushes into excavation like a fighter into the fray, and the consequence is disastrous. He should realise far more keenly than he sometimes does the seriousness of his undertakings and the great responsibilities which are involved. It is only by this realisation that he can justify his labours in the field. It is only by the most scrupulously conscientious work that he can convince the interested public at all of the morality of excavation.

CHAPTER VI
THE TEMPERAMENT OF THE ANCIENT EGYPTIANS

A certain school geography book, now out of date, condenses its remarks upon the character of our Gallic cousins into the following pregnant sentence: “The French are a gay and frivolous nation, fond of dancing and red wine.” The description would so nearly apply to the ancient inhabitants of Egypt, that its adoption here as a text to this chapter cannot be said to be extravagant. The unbiased enquirer into the affairs of ancient Egypt must discover ultimately, and perhaps to his regret that the dwellers on the Nile were a “gay and frivolous people,” festive, light-hearted, and mirthful, “fond of dancing and red wine,” and pledged to all that is brilliant in life. There are very many people, naturally, who hold to those views which their forefathers held before them, and picture the Egyptians as a sombre, gloomy people; replete with thoughts of Death and of the more melancholy aspect of religion; burdened with the menacing presence of a multitude of horrible gods and demons, whose priests demanded the erection of vast temples for their appeasement; having little joy of this life, and much uneasy conjecture about the next; making entertainment in solemn gatherings and ponderous feasts; and holding merriment in holy contempt. Of the five startling classes into which the dictionary divides the human temperament, namely, the bilious or choleric, the phlegmatic, the sanguine, the melancholic, and the nervous, it is probable that the first, second, and the fourth would be those assigned to the Ancient Egyptians by these people. This view is so entirely false that one will be forgiven if, in the attempt to dissolve it, the gaiety of the race is thrust before the reader with too little qualification. The sanguine, and perhaps the nervous, are the classes of temperament under which the Egyptians must be docketed. It cannot be denied that they were an industrious and even a strenuous people, that they indulged in the most serious thoughts, and attempted to study the most complex problems of life, and that the ceremonial side of their religion occupied a large part of their time. But there is abundant evidence to show that, like their descendants of the present day, they were one of the least gloomy peoples of the world, and that they took their duties in the most buoyant manner, allowing as much sunshine to radiate through their minds as shone from the cloudless Egyptian skies upon their dazzling country.

It is curiously interesting to note how general is the present belief in the solemnity of this ancient race’s attitude towards existence, and how little their real character is appreciated. Already the reader will be protesting, perhaps, that the application of the geographer’s summary of French characteristics to the ancient Egyptians lessens in no wise its ridiculousness, but rather increases it. Let the protest, however, be held back for a while. Even if the Egyptians were not always frivolous, they were always uncommonly gay, and any slight exaggeration will be pardoned in view of the fact that old prejudices have to be violently overturned, and the stigma of melancholy and ponderous sobriety torn from the national name. It would be a matter of little surprise to some good persons if the products of excavations in the Nile Valley consisted largely of antique black gloves.

Like many other nations the ancient Egyptians rendered mortuary service to their ancestors, and solid tomb-chapels had to be constructed in honour of the more important dead. Both for the purpose of preserving the mummy intact, and also in order to keep the ceremonies going for as long a period of time as possible, these chapels were constructed in a most substantial manner, and many of them have withstood successfully the siege of the years. The dwelling-houses, on the other hand, were seldom delivered from father to son; but, as in modern Egypt, each grandee built a palace for himself, designed to last for a lifetime only, and hardly one of these mansions still exists even as a ruin.

Moreover the tombs were constructed in the dry desert or in the solid hillside, whereas the dwelling-houses were situated on the damp earth, where they had little chance of remaining undemolished. And so it is that the main part of our knowledge of the Egyptians is derived from a study of their tombs and mortuary temples. How false would be our estimate of the character of a modern nation were we to glean our information solely from its church-yard inscriptions! We should know absolutely nothing of the frivolous side of the life of those whose bare bones lie beneath the gloomy declaration of their Christian virtues. It will be realised how sincere was the light-heartedness of the Egyptians when it is remembered that almost everything in the following record of their gaieties is derived from a study of the tombs, and of objects found therein.

Light-heartedness is the key-note of the ancient philosophy of the country, and in this assertion the reader will, in most cases, find cause for surprise. The Greek travellers in Egypt, who returned to their native land impressed with the wonderful mysticism of the Egyptians, committed their amazement to paper, and so led off that feeling of awed reverence which is felt for the philosophy of Pharaoh’s subjects. But in their case there was the presence of the priests and wise men eloquently to baffle them into a state of respect, and there were a thousand unwritten arguments, comments, articles of faith, and controverted points of doctrine heard from the mouths of the believers in them, to surprise them into a reverential attitude. But we of the present day have left to us only the more outward and visible remains of the Egyptians. There are only the fundamental doctrines to work on, the more penetrating notes of the harmony to listen to. Thus the outline of the philosophy is able to be studied without any complication, and we have no whirligig of priestly talk to confuse it. Examined in this way, working only from the cold stones and dry papyri, we are confronted with the old “Eat, drink, and be merry,” which is at once the happiest and most dangerous philosophy conceived by man. It is to be noticed that this way of looking at life is to be found in Egypt from the earliest times down to the period of the Greek occupation of the country, and, in fact, until the present day. That is to say, it was a philosophy inborn in the Egyptian—a part of his nature.

Imhotep, the famous philosopher of Dynasty III., about B.C.3000, said to his disciples: “Behold the dwellings of the dead. Their walls fall down, their place is no more; they are as they had never existed”; and he drew from this the lesson that man is soon done with and forgotten, and that therefore his life should be as happy as possible. To Imhotep must be attributed the earliest known exhortation to man to resign himself to his candle-end of a life, and to the inevitable snuffing-out to come, and to be merry while yet he may. There is a poem dating from about B.C.2000, from which the following is taken:—

“Walk after thy heart’s desire so long as thou livest. Put myrrh on thy head, clothe thyself in fine linen, anoint thyself with the true marvels of god.... Let not thy heart concern itself, until there cometh to thee that great day of lamentation. Yet he who is at rest can hear not thy complaint, and he who lies in the tomb can understand not thy weeping. Therefore, with smiling face, let thy days be happy, and rest not therein. For no man carrieth his goods away with him; O, no man returneth again who is gone thither.”

Again we have the same sentiments expressed in a tomb of about B.C.1350, belonging to a certain Neferhotep, a priest of Amon. It is quoted elsewhere in these pages, and here we need only note the ending:

“Come, songs and music are before thee. Set behind thee all cares; think only upon gladness, until that day cometh wherein thou shalt go down to the land which loveth silence.”

A Ptolemaic description quoted more fully towards the end of this chapter reads: “Follow thy desire by night and by day. Put not care within thy heart.”

The ancient Egyptian peasants, like their modern descendants, were fatalists, and a happy carelessness seems to have softened the strenuousness of their daily tasks. The peasants of the present day in Egypt so lack the initiative to develop the scope of their industries that their life cannot be said to be strenuous. In whatever work they undertake, however, they show a wonderful degree of cheerfulness, and a fine disregard for misfortune. Their forefathers, similarly, went through their labours with a song upon their lips. In the tombs at Sakkâra, dating from the Old Empire, there are scenes representing flocks of goats treading in the seed on the newly-sown ground, and the inscriptions give the song which the goat-herds sing:—

“The goat-herd is in the water with the fishes,—
He speaks with the nar-fish, he talks with the pike;
From the west is your goat-herd; your goat-herd is from the west.”

The meaning of the words is not known, of course, but the song seems to have been a popular one. A more comprehensible ditty is that sung to the oxen by their driver, which dates from the New Empire:—

“Thresh out for yourselves, ye oxen, thresh out for yourselves,
Thresh out the straw for your food, and the grain for your masters.
Do not rest yourselves, for it is cool to-day.”

Some of the love-songs have been preserved from destruction, and these throw much light upon the subject of the Egyptian temperament. A number of songs, supposed to have been sung by a girl to her lover, form themselves into a collection entitled “The beautiful and gladsome songs of thy sister, whom thy heart loves, as she walks in the fields.” The girl is supposed to belong to the peasant class, and most of the verses are sung while she is at her daily occupation of snaring wild duck in the marshes. One must imagine the songs warbled without any particular refrain, just as in the case of the modern Egyptians, who pour out their ancient tales of love and adventure in a series of bird-like cadences, full-throated, and often wonderfully melodious. A peculiar sweetness and tenderness will be noted in the following examples, and, though they suffer in translation, their airy lightness and refinement is to be distinguished. One characteristic song, addressed by the girl to her lover, runs:—

“Caught by the worm, the wild-duck cries,
But in the love-light of thine eyes
I, trembling, loose the trap. So flies
The bird into the air.
What will my angry mother say?
With basket full I come each day,
But now thy love hath led me stray,
And I have set no snare.”

Again, in a somewhat similar strain, she sings:—

“The wild duck scatter far, and now
Again they light upon the bough
And cry unto their kind;
Anon they gather on the mere—
But yet unharmed I leave them there,
For love hath filled my mind.”

Another song must be given here in prose form. The girl who sings it is supposed to be making a wreath of flowers, and as she works she cries:—

“I am thy first sister, and to me thou art as a garden which I have planted with flowers and all sweet-smelling herbs. And I have directed a canal into it, that thou mightest dip thy hand into it when the north wind blows cool. The place is beautiful where we walk, because we walk together, thy hand resting in mine, our mind thoughtful and our heart joyful. It is intoxicating to me to hear thy voice, yet my life depends upon hearing it. Whenever I see thee it is better for me than food and drink.”

One more song must be quoted, for it is so artless and so full of human tenderness that I may risk the accusation of straying from the main argument in repeating it. It runs:—

“The breath of thy nostrils alone
Is that which maketh my heart to live:
I found thee:
God grant thee to me
For ever and ever.”

It is really painful to think of these words as having fallen from the lips of what is now a resin-smelling lump of bones and hardened flesh, perhaps still unearthed, perhaps lying in some museum show-case, or perhaps kicked about in fragments over the hot sand of some tourist-crowded necropolis. Mummies are the most lifeless objects one could well imagine. It is impossible even for those whose imaginations are the most powerful to infuse life into a thing so utterly dead as an embalmed body; and this fact is partly responsible for that atmosphere of stark melancholy sobriety and aloofness which surrounds the affairs of ancient Egypt. In reading these verses, it is imperative for their right understanding that the mummies and their resting places should be banished from the thoughts. It is not always a simple matter for the student to rid himself of the atmosphere of the museum, where the beads which should be jangling on a brown neck are lying numbered and labelled on red velvet; where the bird trap, once the centre of such feathered commotion, is propped up in a glass case as “D, 18, 432”; and where even the document in which the verses are written is the lawful booty of the grammarian and philologist in the library. But it is the first duty of an archæologist to do away with that atmosphere.

Let those who are untrammelled, then, pass out into the sunshine of the Egyptian fields and marshes, where the wild duck cry to each other as they scuttle through the tall reeds. Here in the early morning comes our songstress, and one may see her as clearly as one can that Shulamite of King Solomon’s day, who has had the good fortune to belong to a land where stones and bones, being few in number, do not endanger the atmosphere of the literature. One may see her, her hair moving in the breeze “as a flock of goats that appear from Mount Gilead”; her teeth white “as a shorn sheep which came up from the washing”; and her lips “like a thread of scarlet.” Through such imaginings alone can one appreciate the songs, or realise the lightness of the manner in which they were sung.

With such a happy view of life among the upper classes as is indicated by their philosophy, and with that merry disposition amongst the peasants which shows itself in their love of song, it is not surprising to find that asceticism is practically unknown in ancient Egypt before the time of Christ. At first sight, in reflecting on the mysteries and religious ceremonies of the nation, we are apt to endow the priests and other participators with a degree of austerity wholly unjustified by the facts. We picture the priest chanting his formulæ in the dim light of the temple, the atmosphere about him heavy with incense; and we imagine him as an anchorite who has put away the things of this world. But in reality there seems to have been not even such a thing as a celibate amongst the priests. Each man had his wife and his family, his house, and his comforts of food and fine linen. He indulged in the usual pastimes and was present at the merriest of feasts. The famous wise men and magicians, such as Uba-ana of the Westcar Papyrus, had their wives, their parks, their pleasure-pavilions, and their hosts of servants. Great dignitaries of the Amon Church, such as Amenhotepsase, the Second Prophet of Amon in the time of Thutmosis IV., are represented as feasting with their friends, or driving through Thebes in richly-decorated chariots drawn by prancing horses, and attended by an array of servants. A monastic life, or the life of an anchorite, was held by the Egyptians in scorn; and indeed the state of mind which produces the monk and the hermit was almost entirely unknown to the nation in dynastic times. It was only in the Ptolemaic and Roman periods that asceticism came to be practised; and some have thought that its introduction into Egypt is to be attributed to the preachings of the Hindoo missionaries sent from India to the court of the Ptolemies. It is not really an Egyptian characteristic; and its practice did not last for more than a few centuries.

The religious teachings of the Egyptians before the Ptolemaic era do not suggest that the mortification of the flesh was a possible means of purifying the spirit. An appeal to the senses and to the emotions, however, was considered as a legitimate method of reaching the soul. The Egyptians were passionately fond of ceremonial display. Their huge temples, painted as they were with the most brilliant colours, formed the setting of processions and ceremonies in which music, rhythmic motion, and colour were brought to a point of excellence. In honour of some of the gods dances were conducted; while celebrations, such as the fantastic Feast of Lamps, were held on the anniversaries of religious events. In these gorgeously spectacular ceremonies there was no place for anything sombre or austere, nor could they have been conceived by any but the most life-loving temperaments.

As in his religious functions, so in his home, the Egyptian regarded brilliancy and festivity as an edification. When in trouble or distress, he was wont to relieve his mind as readily by an appeal to the vanities of this world as by an invocation of the powers of Heaven. Thus, when King Sneferu, of Dynasty IV., was oppressed with the cares of state, his councillor Zazamankh constructed for him a pleasure boat which was rowed around a lake by the most beautiful damsels obtainable. And again, when Wenamon, the envoy of Herhor of Dynasty XXI., had fallen into trouble with the pirates of the Mediterranean, his depression was banished by the gift of a dancing-girl, two vessels of wine, a young goat of tender flesh, and a message which read—“Eat and drink, and let not thy heart feel apprehension.”

An intense craving for brightness and cheerfulness is to be observed on all sides, and the attempt to cover every action of life with a kind of lustre is perhaps the most apparent characteristic of the race. At all times the Egyptians decked themselves with flowers, and rich and poor alike breathed what they called “the sweet north wind” through a screen of blossoms. At their feasts and festivals each guest was presented with necklaces and crowns of lotus-flowers, and a specially selected bouquet was carried in the hands. Constantly, as the hours passed, fresh flowers were brought in to them, and the guests are shown in the tomb paintings in the act of burying their noses in the delicate petals with an air of luxury which even the conventionalities of the draughtsman cannot hide. In the woman’s hair a flower was pinned which hung down before the forehead; and a cake of ointment, concocted of some sweet-smelling unguent, was so arranged upon the head that, as it slowly melted, it re-perfumed the flower. Complete wreaths of flowers were sometimes worn, and this was the custom as much in the dress of the home as in that of the feast. The common people also arrayed themselves with wreaths of lotuses at all galas and carnivals. The room in which a feast was held was decorated lavishly with flowers. Blossoms crept up the delicate pillars to the roof; garlands twined themselves around the tables and about the jars of wine; and single buds lay in every dish of food. Even the dead were decked in the tombs with a mass of flowers, as though the mourners would hide with the living delights of the earth the misery of the grave.

The Egyptian loved his garden, and filled it with all manner of beautiful flowers. Great parks were laid out by the Pharaohs, and it is recorded of Thutmosis III., that he brought back from his Asiatic campaigns vast quantities of rare plants with which to beautify Thebes. Festivals were held at the season when the flowers were in full bloom, and the light-hearted Egyptian did not fail to make the flowers talk to him, in the imagination, of the delights of life. In one case a fig-tree is made to call to a passing maiden to come into its shade.

“Come,” it says, “and spend this festal day, and to-morrow, and the day after to-morrow, sitting in my shadow. Let thy lover sit at thy side, and let him drink.... Thy servants will come with the dinner things—they will bring drink of every kind, with all manner of cakes, flowers of yesterday and of to-day, and all kinds of refreshing fruit.”

Than this one could hardly find a more convincing indication of the gaiety of the Egyptian temperament. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries A.D., the people were so oppressed that any display of luxury was discouraged, and a happy smile brought the tax-collector to the door to ascertain whether it was due to financial prosperity. But the carrying of flowers, and other indications of a kind of unworried contentment, are now again becoming apparent on all sides.

The affection displayed by the Egyptians for bright colours would alone indicate that their temperament was not melancholic. The houses of the rich were painted with colours which would be regarded as crude had they appeared in the Occident, but which are admissible in Egypt, where the natural brilliancy of the sunshine and the scenery demands a more extreme colour-scheme in decoration. The pavilions in which the nobles “made a happy day,” as they phrased it, were painted with the most brilliant wall-decorations, and the delicately shaped lotus columns supporting the roof were striped with half a dozen colours, and were hung with streamers of linen. The ceilings and pavements seem to have afforded the artists a happy field for a display of their originality and skill, and it is on these stretches of smooth-plastered surface that gems of Egyptian art are often found. A pavement from the palace of Akhnaton at Tell el Amârna shows a scene in which a cow is depicted frisking through the reeds, and birds are represented flying over the marshes. In the palace of Amenophis III. at Gurneh there was a ceiling decoration representing a flight of doves, which, in its delicacy of execution and colouring, is not to be classed with the crude forms of Egyptian decoration, but indicates an equally light-hearted temperament in its creator. It is not probable that either bright colours or daintiness of design would emanate from the brains of a sombre-minded people.

Some of the feminine garments worn in ancient Egypt were exceedingly gaudy, and they made up in colour all that they lacked in variety of design. In the Middle and New Empires the robes of the men were as many-hued as their wall decorations, and as rich in composition. One may take as a typical example the costume of a certain priest who lived at the end of Dynasty XVIII. An elaborate wig covers his head; a richly ornamented necklace surrounds his neck; the upper part of his body is clothed in a tunic of gauze-like linen; as a skirt there is swathed around him the most delicately coloured fine linen, one end of which is brought up and thrown gracefully over his arm; decorated sandals cover his feet and curl up over his toes; and in his hand he carries a jewelled wand surmounted by feathers. It would be an absurdity to state that these folds of fine linen hid a heart set on things higher than this world and its vanities. Nor do the objects of daily use found in the tombs suggest any austerity in the Egyptian character. There is no reflection of the underworld to be looked for in the ornamental bronze mirrors, nor smell of death in the frail perfume pots. Religious abstraction is not to be sought in lotus-formed drinking-cups, and mortification of the body is certainly not practised on golden chairs and soft cushions. These were the objects buried in the tombs of the priests and religious teachers.

The puritanical tendency of a race can generally be discovered by a study of the personal names of the people. The names by which the Egyptians called their children are as gay as they are pretty, and lack entirely the Puritan character. “Eyes-of-love,” “My-lady-is-as-gold,” “Cool-breeze,” “Gold-and-lapis-lazuli,” “Beautiful-morning,” are Egyptian names very far removed from “Through-trials-and-tribulations-we-enter-into-the-Kingdom-of-Heaven-Jones,” which is the actual name of a modern scion of a Puritan family. And the well-known “Praise-God Barebones” has little to do with the Egyptian “Beautiful-Kitten,” “Little-Wild-Lion,” “I-have-wanted-you,” “Sweetheart,” and so on.

The nature of the folk-tales is equally indicative of the temperament of a nation. The stories which have come down to us from ancient Egypt are often as frivolous as they are quaint. Nothing delighted the Egyptians more than listening to a tale told by an expert story-teller; and it is to be supposed that such persons were in as much demand in the old days as they are now. One may still read of the adventures of the Prince who was fated to die by a dog, a snake, or a crocodile; of the magician who made the waters of the lake heap themselves up that he might descend to the bottom dry-shod to recover a lady’s jewel; of the fat old wizard who would cut a man’s head off and join it again to his body; of the fairy godmothers who made presents to a new-born babe; of the shipwrecked sailor who was thrown up on an island inhabited by a serpent with a human nature; of the princess in the tower whose lovers spent their days in attempting to climb to her window—and so on. The stories have no moral, they are not pompous: they are purely amusing, interesting and romantic. As an example one may quote the story which is told of Prince Setna, the son of Rameses II. This Prince was one day sitting in the court of the temple of Ptah, when he saw a woman pass, “beautiful exceedingly, there being no woman of her beauty.” There were wonderful golden ornaments upon her, and she was attended by fifty-two persons, themselves of some rank and much beauty. “The hour that Setna saw her, he knew not the place on earth where he was”; and he called to his servants and told them to “go quickly to the place where she is, and learn what comes under her command.” The beautiful lady proved finally to be named Tabubna, the daughter of a priest of Bast, the Cat. Setna’s acquaintance with her was later of a most disgraceful character; and, from motives which are not clear, she made him murder his own children to please her. At the critical moment, however, when the climax is reached, the old, old joke is played upon the listener, who is told that Setna then woke up, and discovered that the whole affair had been an afternoon dream in the shade of the temple court.

The Egyptians often amused themselves by drawing comic pictures and caricatures, and there is an interesting series still preserved in which animals take the place of human beings, and are shown performing all manner of antics. One sees a cat walking on its hind legs driving a flock of geese, while a wolf carrying a staff and knapsack leads a herd of goats. There is a battle of the mice and cats, and the king of the mice in his chariot drawn by two dogs, is seen attacking the fortress of the cats. A picture which is worthy of Edward Lear shows a ridiculous hippopotamus seated amidst the foliage of a tree, eating from a table, whilst a crow mounts a ladder to wait upon him. There are caricatures showing women of fashion rouging their faces, unshaven and really amusing old tramps, and so forth. Even upon the walls of the tombs there are often comic pictures, in which one may see little girls fighting and tearing each other’s hair, men tumbling one over another as they play, and the like; and one must suppose that these were the scenes which the owner of the tomb wished to perpetuate throughout the eternity of Death.