we must let them pass out of the tomb over our heads.  We therefore crouched down, and a few stones were flung into the darkness ahead.  Then, with a roar and a rush of air, they came, bumping into us, entangling themselves in our clothes, slapping our faces and hands with their unwholesome wings, and clinging to our fingers.  At last the thunder died away in the passage behind us, and we were able to advance more easily, though the ground was alive with the bats maimed in the frantic flight which had taken place, floundering out of our way and squeaking shrilly.  The sarcophagus proved to be of no interest, so the encounter with the bats was to no purpose.

The pilfering of antiquities found during the course of authorised excavations is one of the most common forms of robbery.  The overseer cannot always watch the workmen sufficiently closely to prevent them pocketing the small objects which they find, and it is an easy matter to carry off the stolen goods, even though the men are searched at the end of the day.  A little girl minding her father’s sheep and goats in the neighbourhood of the excavations, and apparently occupying her hands with the spinning of flax, is perhaps the receiver of the objects.  Thus it is more profitable to dig for antiquities even in authorised excavations than to work the water-hoist, which is one of the usual occupations of the peasant.  Pulling the hoisting-pole down, and swinging it up again with its load of water many thousands of times in the day, is monotonous work; whereas digging in the ground, with the eyes keenly watching for the appearance of antiquities, is always interesting and exciting.  And why should the digger refrain from appropriating the objects which his pick reveals?  If he does not make use of his opportunities and carry off the antiquities, the western director of the works will take them to his own country and sell them for his own profit.  All natives believe that the archaeologists work for the purpose of making money.  Speaking of Professor Flinders Petrie, a peasant said to me the other day:  “He has worked five-and-twenty years now; he must be very rich.”  He would never believe that the antiquities were given to museums without any payment being made to the finder.

The stealing of fragments broken out of the walls of “show” monuments is almost the only form of robbery which will receive general condemnation.  That this vandalism is also distasteful to the natives themselves is shown by the fact that several better-class Egyptians living in the neighbourhood of Thebes subscribed, at my invitation, the sum of L50 for the protection of certain beautiful tombs.  When they were shown the works undertaken with their money, they expressed themselves as being “pleased with the delicate inscriptions in the tombs, but very awfully angry at the damage which the devils of ignorant people had made.”  A native of moderate intelligence can quite appreciate the argument that whereas the