In order to check pilfering in a certain excavation in which I was assisting we made a rule that the selected workmen should not be allowed to put unselected substitutes in their place.  One day I came upon a man whose appearance did not seem familiar, although his back was turned to me.  I asked him who he was, whereupon he turned upon me a countenance which might have served for the model of a painting of St John, and in a low, sweet-voice he told me of the illness of the real workman, and of how he had taken over the work in order to obtain money for the purchase of medicine for him, they being friends from their youth up.  I sent him away and told him to call for any medicine he might want that evening.  I did not see him again until about a week later, when I happened to meet him in the village with a policeman on either side of him, from one of whom I learned that he was a well-known thief.  Thus is one deceived even in the case of real criminals:  how then can one expect to get at the truth when the crime committed is so light an affair as the stealing of an antiquity?

The following is a letter received from one of the greatest thieves in Thebes, who is now serving a term of imprisonment in the provincial gaol:—­

     “SIR GENERAL INSPECTOR,—­I offer this application stating
     that I am from the natives of Gurneh, saying the
     following:—­

’On Saturday last I came to your office and have been told that my family using the sate to strengthen against the Department.  The result of this talking that all these things which somebody pretends are not the fact.  In fact I am taking great care of the antiquities for the purpose of my living matter.  Accordingly, I wish to be appointed in the vacant of watching to the antiquities in my village and promise myself that if anything happens I do hold myself resposible.’”

I have no idea what “using the sate to strengthen” means.

It is sometimes said that European excavators are committing an offence against the sensibilities of the peasants by digging up the bodies of their ancestors.  Nobody will repeat this remark who has walked over a cemetery plundered by the natives themselves.  Here bodies may be seen lying in all directions, torn limb from limb by the gold-seekers; here beautiful vases may be seen smashed to atoms in order to make more rare the specimens preserved.  The peasant has no regard whatsoever for the sanctity of the ancient dead, nor does any superstition in this regard deter him in his work of destruction.  Fortunately superstition sometimes checks other forms of robbery. Djins are believed to guard the hoards of ancient wealth which some of the tombs are thought to contain, as, for example, in the case of the tomb in which the family was asphyxiated, where a fiend of this kind was thought to have throttled the unfortunate explorers.  Twin brothers are thought to have the power of changing