so in truth did I, for, like Memphis, it attracted me so much that
I used to laugh and say I believed that once I had something to do
with it.
“Now near to our villa that we called ‘Ragnall’ after this house,
are the remains of a temple which were almost buried in the sand.
This temple George obtained permission to excavate. It proved to
be a long and costly business, but as he did not mind spending the
money, that was no obstacle. For four winters we worked at it,
employing several hundred men. As we went on we discovered that
although not one of the largest, the temple, owing to its having
been buried by the sand during, or shortly after the Roman epoch,
remained much more perfect than we had expected, because the early
Christians had never got at it with their chisels and hammers.
Before long I hope to show you pictures and photographs of the
various courts, etc., so I will not attempt to describe them now.
“It is a temple to Isis — built, or rather rebuilt over the remains
of an older temple on a site that seems to have been called Amada,
at any rate in the later days, and so named after a city in Nubia,
apparently by one of the Amen-hetep Pharaohs who had conquered it.
Its style is beautiful, being of the best period of the Egyptian
Renaissance under the last native dynasties.
“At the beginning of the fifth winter, at length we approached the
sanctuary, a difficult business because of the retaining walls
that had to be built to keep the sand from flowing down as fast as
it was removed, and the great quantities of stuff that must be
carried off by the tramway. In so doing we came upon a shallow
grave which appeared to have been hastily filled in and roughly
covered over with paving stones like the rest of the court, as
though to conceal its existence. In this grave lay the skeleton of
a large man, together with the rusted blade of an iron sword and
some fragments of armour. Evidently he had never been mummified,
for there were no wrappings, canopic jars, ushapti figures or
funeral offerings. The state of the bones showed us why, for the
right forearm was cut through and the skull smashed in; also an
iron arrow-head lay among the ribs. The man had been buried
hurriedly after a battle in which he had met his death. Searching
in the dust beneath the bones we found a gold ring still on one of
the fingers. On its bezel was engraved the cartouche of ‘Peroa,
beloved of Ra.’ Now Peroa probably means Pharaoh and perhaps he
was Khabasha who revolted against the Persians and ruled for a
year or two, after which he is supposed to have been defeated and
killed, though of his end and place of burial there is no record.
Whether these were the remnants of Khabasha himself, or of one of
his high ministers or generals who wore the King’s cartouche upon
his ring in token of his office, of course I cannot say.
“When George had read the cartouche he handed me the ring which I
slipped upon the first finger of my left hand, where I still wear
it. Then leaving the grave open for further examination, we went
on with the work, for we were greatly excited. At length, this was
towards evening, we had cleared enough of the sanctuary, which was
small, to uncover the shrine that, if not a monolith, was made of
four pieces of granite so wonderfully put together that one could
not see the joints. On the curved architrave as I think it is
called, was carved the symbol of a winged disc, and beneath in
hieroglyphics as fresh as though they had only been cut yesterday,
an inscription to the effect that Peroa, Royal Son of the Sun,
gave this shrine as an ‘excellent eternal work,’ together with the
statues of the Holy Mother and the Holy Child to the ‘emanations
of the great Goddess Isis and the god Horus,’ Amada, Royal Lady,
being votaress or high-priestess.
“We only read the hieroglyphics very hurriedly, being anxious to
see what was within the shrine that, the cedar door having rotted
away, was filled with fine, drifted sand. Basketful by basketful
we got it out and then, my friend, there appeared the most
beautiful life-sized statue of Isis carved in alabaster that ever
I have seen. She was seated on a throne-like chair and wore the
vulture cap on which traces of colour remained. Her arms were held
forward as though to support a child, which perhaps she was
suckling as one of the breasts was bare. But if so, the child had
gone. The execution of the statue was exquisite and its tender and
mystic face extraordinarily beautiful, so life-like also that I
think it must have been copied from a living model. Oh! my friend,
when I looked upon it, which we did by the light of the candles,
for the sun was sinking and shadows gathered in that excavated
hole, I felt — never mind what I felt — perhaps you can guess who
know my history.
“While we stared and stared, I longing to go upon my knees, I knew
not why, suddenly I felt a faint trembling of the ground. At the
same moment, the head overseer of the works, a man called Achmet,
rushed up to us, shouting out—‘Back! Back! The wall has burst.
The sand runs!’
“He seized me by the arm and dragged me away beside of and behind
the grave, George turning to follow. Next instant I saw a kind of
wave of sand, on the crest of which appeared the stones of the
wall, curl over and break. It struck the shrine, overturned and
shattered it, which makes me think it was made of four pieces, and
shattered also the alabaster statue within, for I saw its head
strike George upon the back and throw him forward. He reeled and
fell into the open grave which in another moment was filled and
covered with the débris that seemed to grip me to my middle in its
flow. After this I remembered nothing more until hours later I