E'en though in words I nor describe nor name,
Alike for me and you its rays aye glow--
Maternal love, by day and night the same.

This light within your youthful hearts has beamed,
Ripening the germs of all things good and fair;
I also fostered them, and joyous dreamed
Of future progress to repay our care.

Thus guarded, unto manhood you have grown;
Still upward, step by step, you steadfast rise
The oldest, healing's noble art has won;
The second, to his country's call replies;

The third, his mind to form is toiling still;
And as this book to you I dedicate,
I see the highest wish life could fulfil
In you, my trinity, now incarnate.

To pay it homage meet, my sons I'll guide
As I revere it, 'mid the world's turmoil,
Love for mankind, which putteth self aside,
In love for native land and blessed toil.

GEORG EBERS.

TOTZING ON THE STARNBERGER SEE,
October 1, 1892.

INTRODUCTION.

In this volume, which has all the literary charm and deftness of
character drawing that distinguish his novels, Dr. Ebers has told the
story of his growth from childhood to maturity, when the loss of
his health forced the turbulent student to lead a quieter life, and
inclination led him to begin his Egyptian studies, which resulted, first
of all, in the writing of An Egyptian Princess, then in his travels in
the land of the Pharaohs and the discovery of the Ebers Papyrus (the
treatise on medicine dating from the second century B.C.), and finally
in the series of brilliant historical novels that has borne his name to
the corners of the earth and promises to keep it green forever.

This autobiography carries the reader from 1837, the year of Dr. Ebers's
birth in Berlin, to 1863, when An Egyptian Princess was finished.
The subsequent events of his life were outwardly calm, as befits the
existence of a great scientist and busy romancer, whose fecund fancy was
based upon a groundwork of minute historical research.

Dr. Ebers attracted the attention of the learned world by his treatise
on Egypt and the Book of Moses, which brought him a professorship at
his university, Gottingen, in 1864, the year following the close of this
autobiography. His marriage to the daughter of a burgomaster of Riga
took place soon afterward. During the long years of t