Cleopatra | Page 5

touch them, and the sand
scorches the feet. It was already too hot to walk, so we rode on donkeys,
some way up the valley--where a vulture floating far in the blue
overhead was the only other visitor--till we came to an enormous
boulder polished by centuries of action of sun and sand. Here Ali halted,
saying that the tomb was under the stone. Accordingly, we dismounted,
and, leaving the donkeys in charge of a fellah boy, went up to the rock.
Beneath it was a small hole, barely large enough for a man to creep
through. Indeed it had been dug by jackals, for the doorway and some
part of the cave were entirely silted up, and it was by means of this
jackal hole that the tomb had been discovered. Ali crept in on his hands
and knees, and I followed, to find myself in a place cold after the hot
outside air, and, in contrast with the light, filled with a dazzling
darkness. We lit our candles, and, the select body of thieves having
arrived, I made an examination. We were in a cave the size of a large
room, and hollowed by hand, the further part of the cave being almost
free from drift- dust. On the walls are religious paintings of the usual
Ptolemaic character, and among them one of a majestic old man with a
long white beard, who is seated in a carved chair holding a wand in his
hand.[*] Before him passes a procession of priests bearing sacred
images. In the right hand corner of the tomb is the shaft of the
mummy-pit, a square-mouthed well cut in the black rock. We had
brought a beam of thorn-wood, and this was now laid across the pit and
a rope made fast to it. Then Ali--who, to do him justice, is a courageous
thief--took hold of the rope, and, putting some candles into the breast of
his robe, placed his bare feet against the smooth sides of the well and
began to descent with great rapidity. Very soon he had vanished into
blackness, and the agitation of the cord alone told us that anything was
going on below. At last the rope ceased shaking and a faint shout came
rumbling up the well, announcing Ali's safe arrival. Then, far below, a
tiny star of light appeared. He had lit the candle, thereby disturbing
hundreds of bats that flitted up in an endless stream and as silently as
spirits. The rope was hauled up again, and now it was my turn; but, as I
declined to trust my neck to the hand-over-hand method of descent, the

end of the cord was made fast round my middle and I was lowered
bodily into those sacred depths. Nor was it a pleasant journey, for, if
the masters of the situation above had made any mistake, I should have
been dashed to pieces. Also, the bats continually flew into my face and
clung to my hair, and I have a great dislike of bats. At last, after some
minutes of jerking and dangling, I found myself standing in a narrow
passage by the side of the worthy Ali, covered with bats and
perspiration, and with the skin rubbed off my knees and knuckles. Then
another man came down, hand over hand like a sailor, and as the rest
were told to stop above we were ready to go on. Ali went first with his
candle--of course we each had a candle-- leading the way down a long
passage about five feet high. At length the passage widened out, and we
were in the tomb-chamber: I think the hottest and most silent place that
I ever entered. It was simply stifling. This chamber is a square room cut
in the rock and totally devoid of paintings or sculpture. I held up the
candles and looked round. About the place were strewn the coffin lids
and the mummied remains of the two bodies that the Arabs had
previously violated. The paintings on the former were, I noticed, of
great beauty, though, having no knowledge of hieroglyphics, I could
not decipher them. Beads and spicy wrappings lay around the remains,
which, I saw, were those of a man and a woman.[+] The head had been
broken off the body of the man. I took it up and looked at it. It had been
closely shaved--after death, I should say, from the general
indications--and the features were disfigured with gold leaf. But
notwithstanding this, and the shrinkage of the flesh, I think the face was
one of the most imposing and beautiful that I ever saw. It was that of a
very old man, and his dead countenance still wore so calm and solemn,
indeed, so awful a look, that I grew