nt dead, nor does any superstition in this regard
deter him in his work of destruction. Fortunately superstition sometimes
checks other forms of robbery. _Djins_ are believed to guard the hoards
of ancient wealth which some of the tombs are thought to contain, as,
for example, in the case of the tomb in which the family was
asphyxiated, where a fiend of this kind was thought to have throttled
the unfortunate explorers. Twin brothers are thought to have the power
of changing themselves into cats at will; and a certain Huseyn Osman, a
harmless individual enough, and a most expert digger, would turn himself
into a cat at night-time, not only for the purpose of stealing his
brother Muhammed Osman's dinner, but also in order to protect the tombs
which his patron was occupied in excavating. One of the overseers in
some recent excavations was said to have power of detecting all
robberies on his works. The archaeologist, however, is unfortunately
unable to rely upon this form of protection, and many are the schemes
for the prevention of pilfering which are tried.

In some excavations a sum of money is given to the workman for every
antiquity found by him, and these sums are sufficiently high to prevent
any outbidding by the dealers. Work thus becomes very expensive for the
archaeologist, who is sometimes called upon to pay L10 or L20 in a day.
The system has also another disadvantage, namely, that the workmen are
apt to bring antiquities from far and near to "discover" in their
diggings in order to obtain a good price for them. Nevertheless, it
would seem to be the most successful of the systems. In the Government
excavations it is usual to employ a number of overseers to watch for the
small finds, while for only the really valuable discoveries is a reward
given.

For finding the famous gold hawk's head at Hieraconpolis a workman
received L14, and with this princely sum in his pocket he went to a
certain Englishman to ask advice as to the spending of it. He was
troubled, he said, to decide whether to buy a wife or a cow. He admitted
that he had already one wife, and that two of them would be sure to
introduce some friction into what was now a peaceful household; and he
quite realised that a cow would be less apt to quarrel with his first
wife. The Englishman, very properly, voted for the cow, and the peasant
returned home deep in thought. While pondering over the matter during
the next few weeks, he entertained his friends wit