Barton County democrat. [volume] (Great Bend, Kan.) 1885-1915, 1890-02-06

TX EESSNlMEH behind the temple
xxx SENSEMSN and city of AbydOs,
E fMaB supposed burying-
SE&Sz G3&A place Of the Holy
NNNR J. EEl1IN Osiris, o tomb was
IN\\NfTNA2 among the contents of
iii N2MZm$.m which were the papyrus
t<~~>>~IN rolls on which this history is
OS " written. The tomb itself is
lEO) spacious, but otherwise remarkable
tOlD only for the depth of the shaft,
II which dcscends vertically from the
rocli-hewn cave, that once served as a
mortuary chapel to the friends and rea-
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 coffins only,
though it is large enough for many more
Two of these, which in all probability in
closed the bodies of the high priest, Am
enemhat, and Of his wife, father and
mother of Harmachls, the hero of this his
cory, 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 bones-perhaps,
is their custom, selling the very bones
for a few piastres to the last ignorant tour
ist 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 men who were before them.
But, as it CHANGED 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-
vealed to him the secret of the place, telling
him a coffin ri I'M he'd
1t seemed to be the coffin of a 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 unprofaned by tourists, my friend
bribed the Arabs to reveal its secret to him.
What ensued will give in his own words.
exactly as he wrote it to me:
slept that night near the Temple of Seti,
AMI started before daybreak on the follow
ing morning. With me were cross-eyed
rascal called Ali-Ali Bahia named him
the man from whom l got the ring which I
am sending you, and a small but choice as
sortment of his felow-thieves. Within an
hour after sunrise reached the valley
where tho tomb is. 1t is a desolate place,
into which the sun pours his scorching heat
all the long day through, till the huge
brown powders which are strewn about be-
come so hot that one can scarcely bear to
touch them, and the sand Scorches the feet.
We rode on dOnkeys, for it was already too
hot to walk some way up the valley-where
vulture floating far in the blue overhead
was the only other visitor-till we came to
an enormous bowlder polished by centuries
of the action of sun and sand. Here Ali
halted, saying the tomb was under the
stone. Accordingly we dismounted, and,
leaving the donkeys in charge of fellah
boy, went up to the rock. Beneath it was q
small hole, barely large enough for a man
to creep through; it had been dug by jack
ais, for the doorway and some part of the
cave were entirely silted up, and it was by
means of this jackal hole that tho tomb had
been discovered. Ali crcpt in on his hands
and knees, and I followed to find myself