Mexico weekly ledger., 1889-10-10

l asih Only say that hope shall never see
such another look as that which was frozen
on this dead mans face. Even the Arabs
reeoiled from it In horror and began to NUT
ter prayers.
For tho rest, the usual opening on tho left
side. through which the emhalmers did
their work, was absent; the finely cut feat
ures were those of q person of middle age,
although the hair was already gray, and the
frame that OF a powerful man, the shonl-
ders being of an extraordinary width.
had not time to examine very closely, how.
ever, for within u few seconds from its un-
covering the unembalmed body, now thet it
was exposed to the action Of the air, began
to crumble. In five OF SIX minutes there
was literally nothing left of it but a wisp Of
hair, the skull, and few of the larger
bones. noticed that one of the tibia,
forgot II it was the right or the left. had
been fractured and very badly set. It must
have been quite an inch shorter than the
other.
Well, there was nothing more to find, and
now that the excitement was over, what
between the heat, the exertion and the
smell Of mummy dust and spices, I felt more
dead than alive.
lam tired of writing, and tho ship rolls.
This letter, OF course, goes overland, and
am coming by "long sea-" but hope to be
in London within ten days after you get it.
Then will tell you Of my pleasing expert
ences in the course Of the ascent from the
tomb chamber, and of how that prince OF
rascals, Ali Baba, and his thieves tried to
frighten me into handing over the papyri,
and how l worsted them. Then, too, We
will get the rolls deciphered. expect that
they only contain the usual thing, copies Of
the Book of the Dead, but there may be
something else in them. Needless to say, I
did not narrate this little adventure in
Egypt, or should have had the Boulac Mu-
scum people on my track. Goodbye
'Mafish Fineesh," Us Ali Baba always said.
In due course my friend, the writer of the
letter from which have quoted, arrived in
London, and on the very next day we paid
visit to an acquaintance well versed in
hieroglyphics and demotic writing With
what anxiety we watched him skillfully
dampening and unfolding one Of the rolls
and peering through his gold-rimmed
glasses at the mysterious characters may
well be imagined.
'Hum!" he said, "whatever it is, this is
not copy Of the Book of the Dead.' By
George, what's thiss Cle-Cleo-Cleopatra
Why, my dear sirs, as am a living man,
the days of Cleopatral Well. there's six
months work before me here-six months,
ct the very leastr" And in that joyful
prospect he fairly lost control Of himself,
and skipped about the room, shaking hands
with US at intervals, and saying: "rn
translate-I'll translate it if it kills me, and
we will publish it; and, by the living
Osiris, it will drive every Egyptologist in
Europe mad with envy! Oh, what fndi
what most glorious fiud!"
And o You whose eyes shall fall upon
these pages. see, they have been trans
lated, and they have been printed, and here
they lie before you-an undiscovered land
wherein you are free to travelI
Harmachis speaks to you from his forgot
ten tomb The walls of Time fall down,
and as at the lightning's leap picture
from the past starts suddenly on your view,
framed in the gathered darkness Of the
ages.
He shows you those two Egypts that the
silent pyramids looked down upon long
centuries ago-the Egypt of the Greek, the
Roman, and the PtolemA and that other
outworn Egypt of the hierophant, hoary
with years, heavy with the legends Of
antiquity and the memory of iong-lost
honorS.
He tells you how the smoldering loyalty
of khem Egypt burnt up before it died,
and how fercely the old me-consecrated
Faith struggled against the conquerin 6
tide Of Change, that, drawn ever by the
mystery of Mind, rose like the Nile at food,
and drowned the ancient gods of Egypt.
Here, in his pages, you shall learn the
glory of Isis the Many-shaped, the Execu-
tor of DEGREES. Here you shall make &C
quaintance with the shade of Cleopatra,
that ''Thing of Flame whose passion
breathing beauty shaped the destiny Of
empires. Here you shall read how the soul
Of Charmion was slain of the sword her
vengeance smithied.
Here Harmachis, the doomed Egyptian,
being about to die, salutes you who follow
On the path he trod. In the story of his
broken years he shows to you what may in
It's own degree be the story of your own.
Crying aloud from that dim Amenti where
to-day he wears out his long atoning time
in the history Of his fall, he tells the fate oi
him who, however sorely tried, forgets his
| God, his honor, and his country.