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By Root 1535 0

grandiose structures did not bother to put their names on them, for humility was not a notable characteristic of Egyptian pharaohs. It is also uncharacteristic of tourists, ancient or modern. As soon as the great art of writing was invented, certain individuals made use of it to deface monuments and works of art. Three thousand years before our time, an Egyptian tourist came to Meidum to visit the “beautiful temple of King Snefru,” and left an inscription, or graffito, to that effect on one of the walls of the temple. Snefru was known to have had two such tombs; we had worked at one of them, the north pyramid of Dahshoor. Petrie, who had discovered the graffito in question, decided that this must be Snefru’s second pyramid.

“Bah,” said Emerson. “One graffito does not constitute proof of ownership. The temple was already a thousand years old when the confounded scribbler visited it; the guides of that remote era were probably as ignorant as those of the present day. Snefru’s two pyramids are the ones at Dahshoor.”

When Emerson speaks in that dogmatic tone, few care to contradict him. I am one of those few; but since I agreed with his views I did not do so on that occasion.

For the next two days we busied ourselves with the private tombs. There were several groups of them north, south and west of the pyramid—for the cultivated land eastward was of course unsuitable for tombs. We had ample help. I had never really expected to be alone with Emerson; the presence of strangers always attracts local villagers demanding baksheesh or asking for work or simply satisfying their curiosity. They began wandering in while we were at breakfast the first day, and after interviewing them Emerson set some to work under Abdullah’s direction.

I always say that if one cannot have a pyramid, a nice deep tomb is the next best thing. All the pyramids had cemeteries around them—tombs of courtiers and princes, nobles and high officials, who were given the privilege of spending eternity in proximity to the god-king they had served in life. These Old Kingdom tombs were called mastabas because the superstructure resembled the flat-topped, sloping-sided benches found outside modern Egyptian houses. The superstructures, built of stone or mud-brick, had often disappeared or collapsed into shapeless mounds; but they were not the parts that interested me. Under the mastabas were shafts and stairs descending deep into the rock beneath and culminating in the burial chamber. Some of the richer tombs had substructures almost as delightfully dark, tortuous and bat-ridden as those of the pyramids.

Emerson very kindly allowed me to go into one such tomb (because he knew I would do it anyway). The steeply sloping entrance ramp was littered with debris and only four feet high. It ended in a shaft, which I was obliged to descend by means of a rope held by Selim, who, at Emerson’s insistence, had followed me down. I usually employed Selim for such work, since he was the youngest and slimmest of the trained men; one was always encountering holes through which a larger body could not easily pass, and of course the low ceilings presented a difficulty for taller individuals. Emerson was not particularly fond of tombs like these; he kept banging his head and getting stuck in holes.

But I must not allow my enthusiasm to lead me to a more detailed description, which might bore my duller readers and which is not really relevant to the tale I am telling. Suffice it to say that when I emerged, gasping for breath (the air in the lowest portions of such tombs is extremely hot and very close) and covered with a sort of paste compounded of perspiration, stone dust, and bat droppings, I could hardly contain my appreciation.

“It was delightful, Emerson! To be sure, the wall paintings are of poor quality, but I saw scraps of wood and linen wrappings among the debris in the burial chamber. I am sure we ought—”

Emerson had been waiting at the entrance to pull me out. Having done so, he hastily backed away, wrinkling his nose.

“Not now, Peabody. This was intended to be a survey;