o requite him in some small degree in Egypt for
the kindness and unselfishness he had shown me in Berlin.

Bopp's lectures, where I tried to increase my meagre knowledge of
Sanscrit, I attended, unfortunately, only a few hours.

The lectures of the African traveller Heinrich Earth supplied rich
sources of material, but whoever expected to hear bewitching narratives
from him would have been disappointed. Even in more intimate intercourse
he rarely warmed up sufficiently to let others share the rich treasure of
his knowledge and experience. It seemed as if, during his lonely life in
Africa, he had lost the necessity of exchanging thoughts with his
fellow-men. During this late period Heinrich Brugsch developed in the
linguistic department of Egyptology what I had gained from Lepsius and by
my own industry, and I gladly term myself his pupil.

I have cause to be grateful for the fresh and helpful way in which this
great and tireless investigator gave me a private lecture; but Lepsius
had opened the door of our science, and though he could carry me only to
a certain stage in the grammar of the ancient Egyptians, in other
departments I owe him more than any other of my intellectual guides. I am
most indebted to him for the direction to use historical and
archaeological authorities critically, and his correction of the tasks he
set me; but our conversations on archaeological subjects have also been
of the greatest interest.

After his death I tried to return in some small degree what his unselfish
kindness had bestowed by accepting the invitation to become his
biographer. In "Richard Lepsius," I describe reverently but without
deviating one step from the truth, this wonderful scholar, who was a
faithful and always affectionate friend.

I can scarcely believe it possible that the dignified man, with the
grave, stern, clear-cut, scholarly face and snow-white hair, was but
forty-five years old when he began to direct my studies; for, spite of
his erect bearing and alert, movements, he seemed to me at that time a
venerable old man. There was something in the aristocratic reserve of his
nature and the cool, penetrating sharpness of his criticism, which is
usually found only in men of more mature years. I should have supposed
him incapable of any heedless word, any warm emotion, until I afterwards
met him under his own roof and enjoyed the warm-hearted cheerfulness of
the father of the family and the graciousness of the host.