continuous warfare between the agents of the Department of Antiquities and the illegal excavators of small graves is what might be called an honourable game, the smashing of public monuments cannot be called fair-play from whatever point of view the matter is approached.  Often revenge or spite is the cause of this damage.  It is sometimes necessary to act with severity to the peasants who infringe the rules of the Department, but a serious danger lies in such action, for it is the nature of the Thebans to revenge themselves not on the official directly but on the monuments which he is known to love.  Two years ago a native illegally built himself a house on Government ground, and I was obliged to go through the formality of pulling it down, which I did by obliging him to remove a few layers of brickwork around the walls.  A short time afterwards a famous tomb was broken into and a part of the paintings destroyed; and there was enough evidence to show that the owner of this house was the culprit, though unfortunately he could not be convicted.  One man actually had the audacity to warn me that any severity on my part would be met by destruction of monuments.  Under these circumstances an official finds himself in a dilemma.  If he maintains the dignity and prestige of his Department by punishing any offences against it, he endangers the very objects for the care of which he is responsible; and it is hard to say whether under a lax or a severe administration the more damage would be done.

[Illustration:  PL.  XXIV.  A modern Gournawi beggar.]

[Photo by E. Bird.

The produce of these various forms of robbery is easily disposed of.  When once the antiquities have passed into the hands of the dealers there is little chance of further trouble.  The dealer can always say that he came into possession of an object years ago, before the antiquity laws were made, and it is almost impossible to prove that he did not.  You may have the body of a statue and he the head:  he can always damage the line of the breakage, and say that the head does not belong to that statue, or, if the connection is too obvious, he can say that he found the head while excavating twenty years ago on the site where now you have found the body.  Nor is it desirable to bring an action against the man in a case of this kind, for it might go against the official.  Dealing in antiquities is regarded as a perfectly honourable business.  The official, crawling about the desert on his stomach in the bitter cold of a winter’s night in order to hold up a convoy of stolen antiquities, may use hard language in regard to the trade, but he cannot say that it is pernicious as long as it is confined to minor objects.  How many objects of value to science would be destroyed by their finders if there was no market to take them to!  One of the Theban dealers leads so holy a life that he will assuredly be regarded as a saint by future generations.