tion of the cemeteries farther to the south.

Here, then, is the sober fact of the matter. Are the English and
Egyptian officials such vandals who have voted over a hundred thousand
pounds for the safeguarding of the monuments of Lower Nubia? What
country in the whole world has spent such vast sums of money upon the
preservation of the relics of the Past as has Egypt during the last
five-and-twenty years? The Government has treated the question
throughout in a fair and generous manner; and those who rail at the
officials will do well to consider seriously the remarks which I have
dared to make upon the subject of temperate criticism.

CHAPTER XII.

ARCHAEOLOGY IN THE OPEN.

In this chapter I propose to state the case in favour of the
archaeologist who works abroad in the field, in contrast to him who
studies at home in the museum, in the hope that others will follow the
example of that scholar to whom this volume is dedicated, who does both.

I have said in a previous chapter that the archaeologist is generally
considered to be a kind of rag-and-bone man: one who, sitting all his
life in a dusty room, shuns the touch of the wind and takes no pleasure
in the vanities under the sun. Actually, this is not so very often a
true description of him. The ease with which long journeys are now
undertaken, the immunity from insult or peril which the traveller now
enjoys, have made it possible for the archaeologist to seek his
information at its source in almost all the countries of the world; and
he is not obliged, as was his grandfather, to take it at second-hand
from the volumes of mediaeval scholars. Moreover, the necessary
collections of books of reference are now to be found in very diverse
places; and thus it comes about that there are plenty of archaeologists
who are able to leave their own museums and studies for limited periods.

And as regards his supposed untidy habits, the phase of cleanliness
which, like a purifying wind, descended suddenly upon the world in the
second half of the nineteenth century, has penetrated even to libraries
and museums, removing every speck of dust therefrom. The archaeologist,
when engaged in the sedentary side of his profession, lives nowadays in
an atmosphere charged with the odours of furniture-polish and
monkey-brand. A place less dusty than the Victoria and Albert Museum in
South Kensington, or than the Ashmolean Museum a