the archaeologist has to give to the statesman and
politician. It is a story of continual conquest, of foreign occupations
following one upon another, of revolts and massacres, of rapid
retributions and punishments. It is the story of a nation which, however
ably it may govern itself in the future, has only once in four
thousand years successfully done so in the past.

[Illustration: PL. I. The mummy of Rameses II. of Dynasty XIX.
--CAIRO MUSEUM.]

[_Photo by E. Brugsch Pasha._

Such information is of far-reaching value to the politician, and to
those interested, as every Englishman should be, in Imperial politics. A
nation cannot alter by one jot or tittle its fundamental
characteristics; and only those who have studied those characteristics
in the pages of history are competent to foresee the future. A certain
Englishman once asked the Khedive Ismail whether there was any news that
day about Egyptian affairs. "That is so like all you English," replied
his Highness. "You are always expecting something new to happen in Egypt
day by day. To-day is here the same as yesterday, and to-morrow will be
the same as to-day; and so it has been, and so it will be, for thousands
of years."[1] Neither Egypt nor any other nation will ever change; and
to this it is the archaeologist who will bear witness with his stern law
of Precedent.

[Footnote 1: E. Dicey. 'The Story of the Khedivate,' p. 528.]

I will reserve the enlarging of this subject for the next chapter: for
the present we may consider, as a second argument, the efficacy of the
past as a tonic to the present, and its ability to restore the vitality
of any age that is weakened.

In ancient Egypt at the beginning of the XXVIth Dynasty (B.C. 663) the
country was at a very low ebb. Devastated by conquests, its people
humiliated, its government impoverished, a general collapse of the
nation was imminent. At this critical period the Egyptians turned their
minds to the glorious days of old. They remodelled their arts and crafts
upon those of the classical periods, introduced again the obsolete
offices and titles of those early times, and organised the government
upon the old lines. This movement saved the country, and averted its
collapse for a few more centuries. It renewed the pride of workmanship
in a decadent people; and on all sides we see a revival which was the
direct result of an archaeological experiment.

The i