Among Mr. Murray’s devoted friends and adherents was Giovanni Belzoni, who, born at Padua in 1778, had, when a young man at Rome, intended to devote himself to the monastic life, but the French invasion of the city altered his purpose, and, instead of being a monk, he became an athlete.  He was a man of gigantic physical power, and went from place to place, gaining his living in England, as elsewhere, as a posture-master, and by exhibiting at shows his great feats of strength.  He made enough by this work to enable him to visit Egypt, where he erected hydraulic machines for the Pasha, and, through the influence of Mr. Salt, the British Consul, was employed to remove from Thebes, and ship for England, the colossal bust commonly called the Young Memnon.  His knowledge of mechanics enabled him to accomplish this with great dexterity, and the head, now in the British Museum, is one of the finest specimens of Egyptian sculpture.

Belzoni, after performing this task, made further investigations among the Egyptian tombs and temples.  He was the first to open the great temple of Ipsambul, cut in the side of a mountain, and at that time shut in by an accumulation of sand.  Encouraged by these successes, he, in 1817, made a second journey to Upper Egypt and Nubia, and brought to light at Carnac several colossal heads of granite, now in the British Museum.  After some further explorations among the tombs and temples, for which he was liberally paid by Mr. Salt, Belzoni returned to England with numerous drawings, casts, and many important works of Egyptian art.  He called upon Mr. Murray, with the view of publishing the results of his investigations, which in due course were issued under the title of “Narrative of the Operations and recent Discoveries within the Pyramids, Temples, Tombs, and Excavations in Egypt and Nubia.”

It was a very expensive book to arrange and publish, but nothing daunted Mr. Murray when a new and original work was brought under his notice.  Although only 1,000 copies were printed, the payments to Belzoni and his translators, as well as for plates and engravings, amounted to over L2,163.  The preparation of the work gave rise to no little difficulty, for Belzoni declined all help beyond that of the individual who was employed to copy out or translate his manuscript and correct the press.  “As I make my discoveries alone,” he said, “I have been anxious to write my book by myself, though in so doing the reader will consider me, with great propriety, guilty of temerity; but the public will, perhaps, gain in the fidelity of my narration what it loses in elegance.”  Lord Byron, to whom Mr. Murray sent a copy of his work, said:  “Belzoni is a grand traveller, and his English is very prettily broken.”