h some freedom, and
soon he found to his dismay that he had not enough money left to buy
either a wife or a cow. Thereupon he set to with a will, and soon spent
the remaining guineas in riotous living. When he was next seen by the
Englishman he was a beggar, and, what was worse, his taste for evil
living had had several weeks of cultivation.

The case of the fortunate finder of a certain great _cache_ of mummies
was different. He received a reward of L400, and this he buried in a
very secret place. When he died his possessions descended to his sons.
After the funeral they sat round the grave of the old man, and very
rightly discussed his virtues until the sun set. Then they returned to
the house and began to dig for the hidden money. For some days they
turned the sand of the floor over; but failing to find what they sought,
they commenced operations on a patch of desert under the shade of some
tamarisks where their father was wont to sit of an afternoon. It is said
that for twelve hours they worked like persons possessed, the men
hacking at the ground, and the boys carrying away the sand in baskets to
a convenient distance. But the money was never found.

It is not often that the finders of antiquities inform the authorities
of their good fortune, but when they do so an attempt is made to give
them a good reward. A letter from the finder of an inscribed statue, who
wished to claim his reward, read as follows: "With all delight I please
inform you that on 8th Jan. was found a headless temple of granite
sitting on a chair and printed on it."

I will end this chapter as I began it, in the defence of the Theban
thieves. In a place where every yard of ground contains antiquities, and
where these antiquities may be so readily converted into golden guineas,
can one wonder that every man, woman, and child makes use of his
opportunities in this respect to better his fortune? The peasant does
not take any interest in the history of mankind, and he cannot be
expected to know that in digging out a grave and scattering its
contents, through the agency of dealers, over the face of the globe, he
loses for ever the facts which the archaeologist is striving so hard to
obtain. The scientific excavator does not think the antiquities
themselves so valuable as the record of the exact arrangement in which
they were found. From such data alone can he obtain his knowledge of the
manners and customs of this wonderful people. When two objects