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As a cold matter of fact, I discovered this manuscript by proxy. That is, I bought it from the man who said he had found it concealed in the funeral vestments of a mummy uprooted near Thebes in the month of February. I cannot give the name of this Egyptian for the reason that all valuable antiquities discovered in Egypt are supposed to belong to the government, and anyone concealing an art treasure or some document of rare value may be severely punished. I can say this much, however – the native from whom I bought the papyrus assured me that he was an honourable and truthful guide, and he gave me his personal guarantee that he had removed the document from the mummy's undergarment with his own hands and had been waiting an opportunity to offer it to a traveller who was really a connoisseur of antiquities and a reverent student of ancient languages. All this he told me while we were out on the desert together, and after looking apprehensively in all directions to make sure that no human being was within three miles of us, he pulled a tin cylinder from under his robe and carefully removed from it the time-stained but still intact roll of papyrus. I must say that I never saw a more convincing document. The hieroglyphs looked as Egyptian as anything could be, and as soon as I saw them I had a burning curiosity to know what message to future generations this poor mummy had been hugging in his bosom through all these centuries. I asked regarding the mummy on which the papyrus had been found and learned that the inscription on his outer coffin indicated that he had been an officer assigned to the royal palace of Rameses II., the type of courtier who must bend the supple knee and wear the smiling face, at all times concealing his real opinion of things in general.
The guarantee which accompanied the papyrus was so heartfelt and altogether emphatic that I made the purchase. The price was large, but I felt justified in paying it, for the native assured me that I could sell it to the British Museum at any time for twice as much. I promised faithfully that I would never mention his name in connection with the deal, and this promise was easily kept, because he had a name that no one could have remembered for two minutes.
For obvious reasons I did not show the document to my travelling companions. I knew that if people heard of my discovery and got to talking about it I might not be permitted to take it out of the country. When we arrived at Cairo I went to Mr. Ralph Blanchard, an American who is noted as an antiquarian, Egyptologist, and mummy collector, and after a few cautious preliminaries told him that I had a document in hieroglyphics of which I desired a translation. I begged him not to inquire where or how I had obtained the papyrus. All I wanted him to do was to tell me what the fool thing meant.
Blanchard was startled as soon as he looked at the document. I could see that. He said he had deciphered a good many acres of hieroglyphics, but this record was unique and the most interesting that had ever come under his observation. He spent two days on the translation, so as to be absolutely accurate regarding every fine point and get not only the cold words but also the literary style and the real spirit of the original communication.
Let the translation speak for itself. I must confess that when it was completed I was overwhelmed. Not only had a flood of light been let in upon a most important epoch, but there were also surprising revelations as to the origin of valued words and phrases. Here is the translation: —
Rameses Second is a Smooth Citizen. His Foxy Scheme is to bunko Posterity. His Soldiers go out and put up a hard Scrap and do up the enemy and he hires a Stonecutter to give an Account of it on a Granite Rock and hand all the Bouquets to Rameses. He is building many Temples. The Architects draw the Plans. The Labourers do the Work. The Public foots the Bill. Rameses and the Local Deities are the only ones who butt into the Inscriptions. He has the future doped out as follows: – Three thousand years from now, when Cook's Tourists see my Pictures all over the Shop, they will conclude that I must have been the real Works and they will call me Rameses the Great.
This revelation in regard to the self-advertising proclivities of the great monarch, coming, as it did, from one who had been intimately associated with him, was so vastly important that Mr. Blanchard thought it better to verify the translation. He took a copy of the document to several eminent Egyptologists, and they agreed with him on every point. They said there was no getting away from "scraps" and "butt in" and "dope out" and other characters which seemed to me to have somewhat of a modern flavour.
After a man has been universally respected for nearly three thousand two hundred years it does seem a low down trick to show him up. And, possibly, the anonymous writer was prejudiced because he had failed to secure an appointment. Did the papyrus really come from the bosom of the mummy? Who knows? Sometimes it is the duty of the traveller to record facts as they come under his observation and not to draw hasty conclusions.
The documentary evidence is submitted herewith – first a copy of the original papyrus and then the translation, word for word and phrase by phrase. The testimony should convince any who are disposed to be sceptical. My only hope is that it will not entirely blast the reputation of Rameses.
CHAPTER XVIII
THE ORDINARY HUMAN FAILINGS OF THE ANCIENT MOGULS
Taken by themselves, as mere mouldering chunks of antiquity that have been preserved to us because they happened to be dropped down in a dry climate, the fragmentary remains of old Egypt are not very inspiring. They were big, but seldom beautiful. As records proving that humanity – old-fashioned, unreliable humanity, with its fears, jealousies, hatreds, and aching ambitions – is just about the same as it was five thousand years ago, the temples and the decorated tombs seem to bring us direct and heartfelt messages from our brethren of the long ago.
For instance, from the beginning of time probably the most maddening and unbearable persecution that can be visited upon a sensitive human being is to have some other human being always held up before him as a shining moral example.
Do you recall, O male reader, how you writhed in humiliation and laid plans for assault and battery when the good little Rollo of your native town was constantly dangled before your depraved soul as the paragon of juvenile virtues? "Rollo never smokes corn silk." "Rollo never puts tick-tacks on teacher's bedroom window." "Rollo never carries craw dabbers in his Sunday clothes." "Rollo never runs away to go swimming and then comes back with his ears full of gravel."
No, indeed, Rollo never showed any of the traits that have been the essence of boyhood since Adam and Eve started the original brood. And do you remember how bright and sunshiny that day seemed when Rollo, having grown to pale and sidewhiskered manhood, was arrested for stealing money from the Building and Loan Association?
Take the story of Queen Hatasoo. She was the Victoria of the eighteenth dynasty, and was on the throne just about 1500 B.C. The lineal male descendant of that period had a blot on the 'scutcheon or a bar sinister across his pedigree or something wrong with his registry certificate – anyway, he could not qualify as king, and so his sister Hatasoo was made ruler and he was permitted to hang around the palace as a kind of shawl holder and cab opener. He led the cotillons and attended public dinners and wore decorations, but Hatasoo ran Egypt and Thutmes Second was merely a trailer. When he dropped off there did not seem to be any considerable vacancy in court circles. Queen Hatasoo continued as chief monarch, although her step-nephew, Thutmes Third, carried the honourary title of co-regent. Hatasoo was energetic and ambitious. She put nephew into a remote back seat and ran things to suit herself, waging wars, building temples, and organising expeditions to far distant lands. Also, according to ancient custom, she had her portrait and the record of her accomplishments carved on the obelisks and painted all over the walls of her private temple, which is still standing, about three miles west of the present city of Luxor.
She reigned for thirty-five years, and then Thutmes Third, gray bearded and worn with much waiting, emerged from the nursery and took up the reins of government. According to the judgment of later historians, his reign was about the most glorious in the whole history of Egypt. He was possessed of military genius, and under his direction Syria was recaptured, and the influence of Egypt was firmly established in Western Asia. But no matter how many battles he won or how many captives he brought back to Thebes to exhibit in the courthouse square, the old-timers around the court wagged their heads and said, "Yes, he's doing fairly well for a beginner, but he'll never come up to the mark set by his Aunt Hattie." Hatasoo was her full name, but those who had known her for a long time called her "Hattie," and to a few of her intimates she was known as "Hat."
Thutmes was merely human. For years his domineering aunt had kept him out of the running, and now that he was on the throne the glory of her achievements was constantly being dinged into him. Every time he rode out in his chariot, standing up and sawing away at four horses, just as they do in Ringling's circus at the present time, he saw her name and picture on all the public buildings, and, of course, two or three years after her departure, everybody bragged about her a good deal harder than they had while she was alive. Even the English newspapers speak in kindly terms of an American statesman who is safely deceased.
Thutmes stood it as long as he could, and then he broke over. He ordered the stonecutters to go forth and gouge out all the inscriptions relating to his superior aunt. The temple which she had built as a special memorial he appropriated to himself, and put his name over the main entrance. It may have been pretty spiteful, but the whole proceeding somehow seems to establish a sympathetic link between those remote heathen days and the unselfish Utopian civilisation that we now enjoy in Chicago, Omaha, West Superior, and other centres of brotherly love.
After Thutmes had put in years erasing and chiselling out all complimentary references to Hatasoo, he passed away and was carried to a winding subterranean tomb in the valley to the west. For two hundred years the great monuments which he had erected in his own honour, or quietly borrowed from his aunt, remained intact. Then along came Rameses Second, to whom we have already referred as the best little advertiser of ancient times. He had the name of Thutmes removed from all the temples, obelisks, and public buildings, and put his own glaring label on everything in sight. In the language of Mr. Peasley, the Kings seemed to spend most of their time in "knocking their predecessors" and "boosting" themselves.
Nearly every ancient structure has been defaced or altered to gratify a private jealousy or some prejudice founded on religious belief. The Romans tried to obliterate the old Egyptian deities. The early Christians hacked away at anything that failed to strike them as being orthodox. Then the Turks capped the climax by coming in and burning everything non-Mohammedan that was at all combustible. A few ancient records remain because they are carved in huge characters on very hard stone. The theologians wanted to batter them down, but it would have meant a lot of hard work and they had been leading sedentary lives. So they merely criss-crossed them and wrote the equivalent for "Rats" underneath, and let it go at that.
Even the modern circus bill is not more exuberant and given to joyful hyperbole than the inscriptions and paintings of the Egyptian temples. A few of them are reproduced herewith. Take No. 1, for example. This represents our old friend Rameses the Great in the act of overcoming his enemies. It was designed by Rameses himself. Now we know where Kaiser Wilhelm got all of his tips.
Some warriors are content with overcoming one man at a time, but Rameses is seen holding ten of them by the hair, getting ready to clout them into insensibility. The picture is an artistic success, but is somewhat shy anatomically. The ten enemies have a total of only three legs for the whole crowd. They are better supplied with arms, the total being thirteen, or about one and one-third to the man. Notice also the relative size of Rameses and his foes. There we have the real, unchanging spirit of autobiography – the great I triumphant and the petty antagonists all coming about knee high to him.
No. 2 is also very characteristic. One of the kings is represented as defeating two burly warriors. He is walking on one and pushing his spear through the other. Undoubtedly a glorious achievement. It would be still more glorious if the two gentlemen putting up the fight against the King had carried weapons of some sort. The one on the ground, who is lifting his hands in mild protest against being used as a rug, has nothing on his person to indicate that he is a soldier. The one who is being harpooned carries in his left hand what appears to be a box of handkerchiefs. The raised right arm would suggest that he attempted to slap the King, who caught him by the arm and held him until he could select a good vital spot in which to prong him. Attention is called to the fact that both of the victims wear the long and protuberant chin whisker, which would indicate that the honest farmer was getting the worst of it even four thousand years ago.
The carvings and paintings which do not depict warlike scenes usually show the monarchs receiving homage from terrified subjects or else mingling on terms of equality with the principal deities of the period. Illustration No. 3 is a very good specimen. King Amenophis and his wife are seen seated on their square-built Roycroft thrones, while two head priests of Ammon burn incense before them and sing their praises and tell them that the people are with the administration, no matter how the Senate may carry on. There was no race prejudice in those days. The Queen is shown to be a coal-black Nubian. In one hand she carries what seems to be a fly brush of the very kind that we used all the time we were up the Nile, and if the article in her other hand is not a cocktail glass then the artist has wilfully libelled her.
No. 4 is interesting as a fashion plate. Ptolemeus and Cleopatra are making offers to the hawk-headed god and the goddess Hathor. This picture will appeal to women inasmuch as it gives us a correct likeness of Cleopatra, the man trapper. No one can dispute the fact that she is beautiful, but how about the combination of an Empress gown with a habit back? Is it not a trifle daring? And the hat. Would you call it altogether subdued?
Another well-preserved painting to be found in the temple at Edfou reveals the innate modesty of the Ptolemies. The King (No. 5) is represented as being crowned by the goddesses of the south and the north – that is, of Upper and Lower Egypt. These divinities seem to be overcome with admiration of the athletic monarch. One has her hand resting on his shoulder, as if she hated to see him go. The other, having just fitted him with his new gourd-shaped hat, has both hands in the air, and you can almost hear her say, "Oh, my! It looks just fine!"
Seti I. was another shrinking violet. In one of his private three-sheet advertisements (No. 6) he has the sublime effrontery to represent the great goddess Hathor as holding his hand tenderly and offering him the jewelled collar which she is wearing. Notice the uplifted hand. He is supposed to be saying, "This is all very sudden, and besides, would it be proper for me to accept jewelry from one of your sex?" Of course, there never was any Hathor, and if there had been she wouldn't have hob-nobbed with a man who had his private interviews done into oil paintings. But this painting and one thousand others that we have seen in Egypt help to give us a line on the ancient Kings. If there was any one of them that failed to get the swelled head soon after mounting the throne, the hieroglyphs are strangely silent regarding his case. They were a vain, self-laudatory lot, and all of them had that craving for the centre of the stage and the hot glare of the spot-light which is still to be found in isolated cases.
After all is said and done can we blame them? Rameses wanted to be remembered and talked about and he laid his plans accordingly. He carved the record of his long and successful reign on the unyielding granite and distributed his pictures with the careful prodigality of a footlight favourite. What has been the result? His name is a household joke all over the world. People who never heard of Professor Harry Thurston Peck or Marie Corelli or the present Khedive of Egypt know all about Rameses the Great, although no two of them pronounce it the same.
CHAPTER XIX
ROYAL TOMBS AND OTHER PLACES OF AMUSEMENT
One morning we rode across the Nile from Luxor in a broad and buxom sailboat, climbed on our donkeys, and rode to the west. We followed the narrow road through the fresh fields of wheat and alfalfa until we struck the desert, and then we took to a dusty trail which leads to a winding valley, where the kings of the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth dynasties are being dug up.
This narrow valley, with the steep hills rising on either side, is the sure-enough utterness of desolation; not a tree, not a shrub, not a blade of grass, not even a stingy little cactus. No wonder the old kings picked out this valley for a cemetery. Life has no charm in this dreary region. Eternal sleep would seem to offer peculiar advantages. After winding through the sun-baked gravel for about a mile we came to a settlement of houses and a high fence thrown across the roadway. Also there was an electric light plant buzzing away merrily. The tombs of the kings are now strung with incandescent lights. Can you beat that for sacrilegious enterprise?
There are forty-one of these royal tombs that have been discovered and opened to date. The less important are not lighted, and are mere tunnels leading back to one or two bare chambers. Those really worth visiting are dug far back into the hills. The halls are spacious and brilliantly decorated, and before you get through exploring one of them you think that you are pretty well down toward the centre of the earth.
Mr. Peasley had read up on the Tomb of Amenhotep Third and when we entered it he pushed the regular guide out of the way and gave us one of his own vivid lectures. The native guide lacks imagination. His idea of showing the traveller a frolicksome time is to point out a lot of paintings in which the deceased is seen travelling across the Nile in a funeral barge. Mr. Peasley, on the other hand, gave us an insight into the character of the wily Amenhotep.
"Now, look at the entrance to this tomb," he said, as we started down the new wooden steps. "It looks as if someone had been blasting for limestone. The walls are rough and unfinished. Old Amenhotep figured that if anyone ever came across the opening to the tomb he would size up this ordinary hole in the ground and conclude that it was either a cave used as a storehouse or the last resting place of some cheap two-dollar official."
After descending some twenty feet we came to a small chamber which was rudely frescoed about half of the way around.
"Do you know why he left this job unfinished?" asked Mr. Peasley. "He knew that some day or other an inquisitive foreigner would be prowling around here trying to uncover ancient treasures, and he put this measly little antechamber here to throw Mr. Archæologist off the scent. He wanted it to appear that the man who was buried here had been so poor that he couldn't complete the decorations. And now I'll show you something more foxy still. Come with me down this long flight of steps to the second chamber."
He led us down another flight to a tall chamber about the size of a freight car stood on end.
"When the French explorers opened this place in 1898 the chamber which you are now inspecting seemed to be the end of the tunnel," continued Mr. Peasley. "The four side walls were perfectly smooth and unbroken, but down at the bottom they found a pit which had been filled with heavy stones. They supposed, of course, that this was the mummy pit, and that if they removed the stones they would find some royal remains at the other end of the hole. So they worked day after day, lifting out the boulders, and finally they came to the end of the pit and found that they had drawn a blank. Naturally they were stumped. They thought they had been exploring a tomb, but it was only an April fool joke. One of the professors was not satisfied. He felt sure that there must be a royal mummy tucked in somewhere about the premises, so he took a ladder and climbed around and began tapping all over the walls of this second chamber. What do you think? He discovered that the wall had a hollow sound just opposite the tunnel at which they had entered. So he used a battering ram and broke through into the real tomb. Yes, sir; these two outer chambers, with their cheap stencil frescoes and fake mummy pit, had been a blind."
We passed over a narrow wooden bridge and entered the tunnel beyond the second chamber. The whole place was brightly illuminated and one could readily believe that he was in a modern hallway decorated in the most gorgeous Egyptian style. The bordering frescoes and the historical paintings were as fresh in tone as if they had been put on only yesterday. One of the larger chambers looked exactly like the gaudy "Oriental apartment" of a Paris or New York hotel, and we shouldn't have been surprised or displeased to see a waiter come in with a tray full of cool drinks.
At last we came to the tomb chamber, and there in a deep hollow, with a modern wooden railing around it, reclined the great King Amenhotep, with the incandescent lamps dangling above him and flooding him in a radiant light. The original granite cover of the outer case has been removed and plate glass substituted. We leaned on the rail and gazed down at the serene countenance of the once mighty monarch who had been lying there for 3300 years. The funeral garlands which had been laid on his breast were still undisturbed, and the shrunken face was illumined by that calm smile of triumph which Amenhotep wore when he passed away confident in the belief that the Nile tourist would never discover his hiding place.
We visited the tomb in company with a bustling swarm of American excursionists of the happy, irreverent kind. The fact that they were strolling about in a private and highly aristocratic sarcophagus did not seem to repress their natural gush of spirits or induce any solemn reflections. They were all steaming hot, but very happy and having a lot of fun with the King. One enterprising Yankee, who carried his coat and vest on his arm, started to climb over the wooden railing in order to make a close inspection of the mortuary remains, but was restrained by the guards.
After leaving the valley of tombs we made a short cut over a very hot and a very high hill to the "rest house" which has been erected far out on the desert by one of the tourist agencies. We collapsed on the shady side of the building, dusty and short of breath, and immediately we were attacked by a most vociferous horde of native peddlers. And what do you suppose they were selling? We landed there on Friday, and the remnant sale of mummies was in full blast. Here are some of the cut prices: —
Head of adult ......... 4 shillings.Foot of adult ......... 1 shilling.Hand of adult ......... 1 shilling.Two feet and two hands (warranted mates) ........... 3 shillings.Arm and head ......... 6 shillings.Special reduction for juvenile sizes.
Can you imagine anything more disquieting to the nerves, when you are resting and getting ready for luncheon, than to have a villainous child of the desert rush up and lay a petrified human head in your lap and beg you to make an offer? Within two minutes after we arrived we had fragments of former humanity stacked all around us. And they were unmistakably genuine. The native swindlers can make imitation scarabs and potteries, or else import them by the gross from Germany and Connecticut, but the mummy heads which they offer for sale are horribly bona fide. It would not pay to manufacture an imitation article, inasmuch as the whole desert region to the west of ancient Thebes is a vast cemetery. If the merchant's stock runs low he can go out with a spade and dig up a new supply, just as a farmer would go after artichokes.
Our guide co-operated with the ghouls. He rushed about hunting up strange and grisly specimens and brought them to us and begged us to examine them and then pick out a few for the loved ones at home. I regret to say that we did purchase a few of these preserved extremities. The guide said we could use them as paper weights.
This same dragoman, or guide, or highbinder, or whatever you may choose to call him – and Mr. Peasley called him nearly everything – gave us a lot of cheerful entertainment during our four days in Luxor. Mr. Peasley was in hot pursuit of guaranteed antiquities. He said he had an old bookcase at home which he was going to convert into a curio cabinet. There is one dealer in Luxor who is said to be absolutely trustworthy. He supplies museums and private collections throughout the world, and if you buy a scarab or a carved image from him you know that you have something genuine and worth keeping. Mr. Peasley in a thoughtless moment requested the dragoman to conduct us to this shop. We went in and burrowed through the heaps of tempting rubbish and began to dicker for a job lot of little images, tear jars, amulets, etc., that are found in the mummy cases. That dragoman saw the covetous gleam in the Peasley eye and he knew that the man from Iowa intended loading up with antiques, and he also knew that Mr. Peasley wished to do this purchasing single-handed and without the assistance of a dragoman, who would come in for a ten per cent. commission. We told the dealer we would drop around later. So we went to the hotel and dismissed the dragoman – told him to go home and get a good night's rest and be on hand at nine o'clock the next morning.
After we were safely in the hotel Mr. Peasley confided his plans to us.
"I don't want to buy the stuff while that infernal Mahmoud is along," he said. "Why should he get a rake-off? We didn't go to the shop on his recommendation. Now, I'll go over there by myself, pick out what I want, and strike a bargain."
We offered to go along and assist, so we started up a side street, and after we had gone a block Mahmoud stepped out from a doorway and said, "Come, I will show you the way." We told him we had just sauntered out for a breath of air, so we walked aimlessly around a block and were escorted back to the hotel.
"I'll go over the first thing in the morning," said Mr. Peasley. "I'll be there at eight o'clock, because he isn't due here until nine."
When he arrived at the shop early next morning Mahmoud was standing in the doorway wearing a grin of devilish triumph. Mr. Peasley kept on walking and pretending not to see him, but he came back to the hotel mad all the way through.
"We're up against an Oriental mind-reader, but I'll fool him yet," he declared. "When we come back to the hotel for luncheon and he is waiting for us with the donkey boys on the east side of the hotel we will go out the west door to the river bank and cut south around the Presbyterian Mission and come back to the shop."
Mr. Peasley did not know that Mahmoud had organised all the hotel servants into a private detective agency. He must have known of our escape on the river side before we had gone a hundred feet from the hotel, for when, after executing our brilliant flank movement, we arrived at the shop of the antiquarian, Mahmoud and the proprietor were sitting in the front room drinking Turkish coffee and waiting for the prey to wander into the trap. Mahmoud did not seem surprised to see us. He bade us welcome and said that his friend the dealer was an Egyptologist whose guarantee was accepted by every museum in the world, and if we were in the market for antiques he would earnestly advise us to seek no further. After this evidence of a close and friendly understanding between the dragoman and the dealer we had a feeling that Mahmoud would get his ten per cent, even if we succeeded in eluding him and buying on our own hook.
But we hated to acknowledge ourselves beaten. At dusk that evening we started toward the shop, in a half-hearted and experimental spirit, and presently we observed Mahmoud following along fifty feet behind us. We went to the garden of a neighbouring hotel and sat there until eleven o'clock. When we came out Mahmoud was at the gateway. He said it was not always safe for travellers to be about the streets at night, so he would protect us and show us the way back to our hotel.
We found it impossible to get away from him. No Siberian bloodhound ever followed a convict's trail more closely. If we ventured forth, early or late, we found ourselves shadowed by that smiling reprobate. When it came to the last day in Luxor Mr. Peasley did the bold thing. He permitted Mahmoud to escort him to the shop, and then he said to the dealer: – "This man is our guide, but he is not entitled to any commission because he did not bring us to your shop. If he had recommended your shop in the first place we would not have come here at all. He is a bluff. He is trying to ring in. I want to buy a few things here, with the understanding that he doesn't get anything out of it. We have already paid him two salaries for guiding us and he isn't a guide at all – he's a night watchman."
