Experience had taught the Pharaohs that neither granite walls nor the multiplication of barriers could preserve their mummies from profanation:  no sooner was vigilance relaxed, either in the time of civil war or under a feeble administration, than robbers appeared on the scene, and boring passages through the masonry with the ingenuity of moles, they at length, after indefatigable patience, succeeded in reaching the sepulchral vault and despoiling the mummy of its valuables.

[Illustration:  399.jpg THE MOUNTAIN OF SILT WITH THE TOMBS OF THE PRINCES]

     Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Emil Brugsch-Bey,
     taken in 1884.

With a view to further protection, the builders multiplied blind passages and chambers without apparent exit, but in which a portion of the ceiling was movable, and gave access to other equally mysterious rooms and corridors.  Shafts sunk in the corners of the chambers and again carefully closed put the sacrilegious intruder on a false scent, for, after causing him a great loss of time and labour, they only led down to the solid rock.  At the present day the water of the Nile fills the central chamber of the Hawara pyramid and covers the sarcophagus; it is possible that this was foreseen, and that the builders counted on the infiltration as an additional obstacle to depredations from without.*

* Indeed, it should be noted that in the Graeco-Roman period the presence of water in a certain number of the pyramids was a matter of common knowledge, and so frequently was it met with, that it was even supposed to exist in a pyramid into which water had never penetrated, viz. that of Kheops.  Herodotus relates that, according to the testimony of the interpreters who acted as his guides, the waters of the Nile were carried to the sepulchral cavern of the Pharaoh by a subterranean channel, and shut it in on all sides, like an island.

The hardness of the cement, which fastens the lid of the stone coffin to the lower part, protects the body from damp, and the Pharaoh, lying beneath several feet of water, still defies the greed of the robber or the zeal of the archaeologist.

The absolute power of the kings kept their feudal vassals in check:  far from being suppressed, however, the seignorial families continued not only to exist, but to enjoy continued prosperity.  Everywhere, at Elephantine, Koptos, Thinis, in Aphroditopolis, and in most of the cities of the Said and of the Delta, there were ruling princes who were descended from the old feudal lords or even from Pharaohs of the Memphite period, and who were of equal, if not superior rank, to the members of the reigning family.  The princes of Siut no longer en-joyed an authority equal to that exercised by their ancestors under the Heracleopolitan dynasties, but they still possessed considerable influence.  One of them, Hapizaufi I., excavated for himself, in the reign of Usirtasen I., nor far from the burying-place of Khiti and Tefabi, that beautiful tomb, which, though partially destroyed by Coptic monks or Arabs, still attracts visitors and excites their astonishment.