umed that it will be utterly annihilated by
the following narration of my first fruitless excavation; and thus one
will be able to continue the story with the relieved consciousness that
nobody is attending.

In the capacity of assistant to Professor Flinders Petrie, I was set,
many years ago, to the task of excavating a supposed royal cemetery in
the desert behind the ancient city of Abydos, in Upper Egypt. Two mounds
were first attacked; and after many weeks of work in digging through the
sand, the superstructure of two great tombs was bared. In the case of
the first of these several fine passages of good masonry were cleared,
and at last the burial-chamber was reached. In the huge sarcophagus
which was there found great hopes were entertained that the body and
funeral-offerings of the dead prince would be discovered; but when at
last the interior was laid bare the solitary article found was a copy of
a French newspaper left behind by the last, and equally disgusted,
excavator. The second tomb defied the most ardent exploration, and
failed to show any traces of a burial. The mystery was at last solved by
Professor Petrie, who, with his usual keen perception, soon came to the
conclusion that the whole tomb was a dummy, built solely to hide an
enormous mass of rock chippings the presence of which had been a puzzle
for some time. These masons' chippings were evidently the output from
some large cutting in the rock, and it became apparent that there must
be a great rock tomb in the neighbourhood. Trial trenches in the
vicinity presently revealed the existence of a long wall, which, being
followed in either direction, proved to be the boundary of a vast court
or enclosure built upon the desert at the foot of a conspicuous cliff. A
ramp led up to the entrance; but as it was slightly askew and pointed
to the southern end of the enclosure, it was supposed that the rock
tomb, which presumably ran into the cliff from somewhere inside this
area, was situated at that end. The next few weeks were occupied in the
tedious task of probing the sand hereabouts, and at length in clearing
it away altogether down to the surface of the underlying rock. Nothing
was found, however; and sadly we turned to the exact middle of the
court, and began to work slowly to the foot of the cliff. Here, in the
very middle of the back wall, a pillared chamber was found, and it
seemed certain that the entrance to the tomb would now be discovered.

The bes