CHAPTER V.

THE MISFORTUNES OF WENAMON.

In the third chapter of this book it has been shown that the archaeologist is, to some extent, enamoured of the Past because it can add to the stock of things which are likely to tickle the fancy.  So humorous a man is he, so fond of the good things of life, so stirred by its adventures, so touched by its sorrows, that he must needs go to the Past to replenish his supplies, as another might go to Paris or Timbuctoo.

Here, then, is the place to give an example of the entertainment which he is likely to find in this province of his; and if the reader can detect any smell of dust or hear any creak of dead bones in the story which follows, it will be a matter of surprise to me.

In the year 1891, at a small village in Upper Egypt named El Hibeh, some natives unearthed a much damaged roll of papyrus which appeared to them to be very ancient.  Since they had heard that antiquities have a market value they did not burn it along with whatever other scraps of inflammable material they had collected for their evening fire, but preserved it, and finally took it to a dealer, who gave them in exchange for it a small sum of money.  From the dealer’s hands it passed into the possession of Monsieur Golenischeff, a Russian Egyptologist, who happened at the time to be travelling in Egypt; and by him it was carried to St Petersburg, where it now rests.  This savant presently published a translation of the document, which at once caused a sensation in the Egyptological world; and during the next few years four amended translations were made by different scholars.  The interest shown in this tattered roll was due to the fact that it had been found to contain the actual report written by an official named Wenamon to his chief, the High Priest of Amon-Ra, relating his adventures in the Mediterranean while procuring cedar-wood from the forests of Lebanon.  The story which Wenamon tells is of the greatest value to Egyptology, giving as it does a vivid account of the political conditions obtaining in Syria and Egypt during the reign of the Pharaoh Rameses XII.; but it also has a very human interest, and the misfortunes of the writer may excite one’s sympathy and amusement, after this lapse of three thousand years, as though they had occurred at the present time.

In the time at which Wenamon wrote his report Egypt had fallen on evil days.  A long line of incapable descendants of the great Rameses II. and Rameses III. had ruled the Nile valley; and now a wretched ghost of a Pharaoh, Rameses XII., sat upon the throne, bereft of all power, a ruler in name only.  The government of the country lay in the hands of two great nobles:  in Upper Egypt, Herhor, High Priest of Amon-Ra, was undisputed master; and in Lower Egypt, Nesubanebded, a prince of the city of Tanis (the Zoan of the Bible), virtually ruled as king of the Delta.  Both these