you, if Mr. Trelawny does not explain it
himself, or if he does not forbid me to, what it means in that
particular place. I think it will be better for you to know what
followed Van Huyn's narrative; for with the description of the stone,
and the account of his bringing it to Holland at the termination of his
travels, the episode ends. Ends so far as his book is concerned. The
chief thing about the book is that it sets others thinking--and acting.
Amongst them were Mr. Trelawny and myself. Mr. Trelawny is a good
linguist of the Orient, but he does not know Northern tongues. As for
me I have a faculty for learning languages; and when I was pursuing my
studies in Leyden I learned Dutch so that I might more easily make
references in the library there. Thus it was, that at the very time
when Mr. Trelawny, who, in making his great collection of works on
Egypt, had, through a booksellers' catalogue, acquired this volume with
the manuscript translation, was studying it, I was reading another
copy, in original Dutch, in Leyden. We were both struck by the
description of the lonely tomb in the rock; cut so high up as to be
inaccessible to ordinary seekers: with all means of reaching it
carefully obliterated; and yet with such an elaborate ornamentation of
the smoothed surface of the cliff as Van Huyn has described. It also
struck us both as an odd thing--for in the years between Van Huyn's
time and our own the general knowledge of Egyptian curios and records
has increased marvellously--that in the case of such a tomb, made in
such a place, and which must have cost an immense sum of money, there
was no seeming record or effigy to point out who lay within. Moreover,
the very name of the place, 'the Valley of the Sorcerer', had, in a
prosaic age, attractions of its own. When we met, which we did through
his seeking the assistance of other Egyptologists in his work, we
talked over this as we did over many other things; and we determined to
make search for the mysterious valley. Whilst we were waiting to start
on the travel, for many things were required which Mr. Trelawny
undertook to see to himself, I went to Holland to try if I could by any
traces verify Van Huyn's narrative. I went straight to Hoorn, and set
patiently to work to find the house of the traveller and his
descendants, if any. I need not trouble you with details of my
seeking--and finding. Hoorn is a place that has not changed much since
Van Huyn's time, exc