Waterbury evening Democrat., 1889-10-22
AS SET FORTH BY HIS oWu HAND
By H. RIDER HAGGARD,
illustrated by NICHoLL. after CATION WOOD
 WILLIE and GREIFFENHAGEN.
INTRODUCTION.

k t k5&GEesTNfY tho desolate Libyan
 RA >NSNS[~4 Mountains that lie &.%ESSI6A& behind tho temple k&A&H &HSNIMk& and city of Abydos,
 lSAF 1R supposed burying-
 RE XMA place of the Holy
 >\TA lW[11l Osiris, tomb was
 NNESSasSSNzzw recently discovered,
 N\\NsTVsA% among the contents of fIDNZZ5MyN which were the papyrus FD~IZ~1R rolls on which this history is DSE5f written. The tomb itself is NO) spacious, but otherwise remarkable 0jT only for the depth of the shaft,
 S which doscends vertically from tho
 N rock-hewn cave, that onco served as Q mortuary chapel to the friends and reIa- tives of the departed, to the coffin chamber beneath. This shaft is no less than eighty nine feet in depth. The chamber at it's foot was found to contain three collins only, though it is large enough for many more. Two of these, which in all probability in- cloeed the bodies of the high priest, Am enemhat, and of his wife, father and mother of Harmachls, the hero of this his tory, the shameless Arabs who discovered them there and then broke up.
 The Arabs broke the bodies up. With, unhallowed hands they tore the Holy Amen emhat, and the frame of her who had, as it is written, been filled with the spirit of the Hathors-tore them limb from limb, search. ing for treasure amid their rbones-perhaps, as is their custom, selling the very bonesi for few piastres to the last ignorant tour fst who came their way, seeking what be might destroy. For in Egypt the unhappy, the living find their bread in the tombs of the great mon who were before them.
 But, as it chanced some little while after ward, one who is known to this writer, and doctor by profession, passed up the Nile to Abydos, and became acquainted with the men who had done this thing. They re
 yealed to him the secret of the place, telling him that one coffin yet remained entombed. It seemed to be the coffin of poor person, they said, and therefore, being pressed for time, they had left it unviolated. Moved by curiosity to explore the recesses of tomb as yet unprofancd by tourists, my friend brlbed tho Arabs to reveal its sccrctto him. What ensued I will give in his own words, exactly as he wrote it to me:
 slept that night near tho Temple of Seti, and started before daybreak on the follow ing morning. With me were a cross-eyed | rascal called Ali-Ali Baba I named him the man from whom got the ring which ] am sending you, and a small but choice as- sortment of his fellow-thieves. Within an hour after sunrise we reached the valley where the tomb is. It is desolate place. into which the sun pours his scorching heat all the long day through, till the huge brown powders which arc strewn about be- come so hot that one can scarcely bear to touch them, and the sand scorchcs the feet. We rode on donkeys, for it was already too hot to walk some way up the valley-where l q vulture floating far in the blue overhead | was the only other visitor-till we came to | an enormous powder polished by centuries of tho action of sun and sand. Here Ali halted, saying the tomb was under the stone. Accordingly we dismounted, and, | leaving the donkeys ill charge of g. fellah boy, went up to the rock. Beneath 1t was 9 small hole, barely large enough for man | to creep through; it had been dug by jack | als, for the doorway and some part of the cave were entirely silted up, and it was by means of this jacl1al hole that the tomb had | been discovered. Ali crept in cn his hands
 and knees, and I followed to find myself l in place cold after the hot outside air, 1 and, in contrast with the light, filled with a dazzling darkness. We lit our candles, and, the select body of thieves having arrived, | made an examination. We were in Q cave tho size of a large room and hollowed by hand, the further part of the cave being al- most free from drift dust. On the walls l are religious paintings of the usual Ptole> maic character, and among them one of Q l majestic old man with Q long white beard, l who is seated in carved chair holding a | wand in his hand. Before him is passing a procession of priests bearing sacred tu,-