 In cutting down the length of the story, Hergé removed various isolated scenes that added nothing to the development of the plot, such as those in which Tintin confronts a bat, a crocodile, and snakes. The Arabian city that Tintin and Snowy searched for in the story was no longer identified as Mecca, while the Maharajah's three advisers were removed. New elements were also inserted; Hergé added a depiction of ancient Egyptian pyramids into the background. Hergé also retroactively added the character of Allan into the story; he had originally been introduced in the later, 1941 adventure The Crab with the Golden Claws, where he was Rastapopoulos' henchman. Hergé inserted an allusion to his friend and collaborator Edgar P. Jacobs into the story by including a mummified professor named E.P. Jacobini in the Egyptian tomb.
