r, looking kindly at the old man.
"But you, you everlasting scoffer--you look pale. How do you feel?"

"As if I were one of those donkeys there," replied the naturalist. "My
knees shake like theirs, and I think and I wish neither more nor less
than they do; that is to say--I would we were in our stalls."

"If you can think," said Pentaur smiling, "you are not so very bad."

"I had a good thought just now, when you were staring up into the sky.
The intellect, say the priestly sages, is a vivifying breath of the
eternal spirit, and our soul is the mould or core for the mass of matter
which we call a human being. I sought the spirit at first in the heart,
then in the brain; but now I know that it resides in the arms and legs,
for when I have strained them I find thought is impossible. I am too
tired to enter on further evidence, but for the future I shall treat my
legs with the utmost consideration."

"Quarrelling again you two? On again, men!" cried the driver.

The weary wretches rose slowly, the beasts were loaded, and on went the
pitiable procession, so as to reach the mines before sunset.

The destination of the travellers was a wide valley, closed in by two
high and rocky mountain-slopes; it was called Ta Mafka by the Egyptians,
Dophka by the Hebrews. The southern cliff-wall consisted of dark
granite, the northern of red sandstone; in a distant branch of the
valley lay the mines in which copper was found. In the midst of the
valley rose a hill, surrounded by a wall, and crowned with small stone
houses, for the guard, the officers, and the overseers. According to the
old regulations, they were without roofs, but as many deaths and much
sickness had occurred among the workmen in consequence of the cold
nights, they had been slightly sheltered with palm-branches brought from
the oasis of the Alnalckites, at no great distance.

On the uttermost peak of the hill, where it was most exposed to the
wind, were the smelting furnaces, and a manufactory where a peculiar
green glass was prepared, which was brought into the market under the
name of Mafkat, that is to say, emerald. The genuine precious stone was
found farther to the south, on the western shore of the Red Sea, and was
highly prized in Egypt.

Our friends had already for more than a month belonged to the
mining-community of the Mafkat valley, and Pentaur had never learned
how it was that he had been brought hither with his companion Nebsecht,
instead of going