“When I returned to the valley with these Bedouins, I made effort to climb the face of the rock, but failed, it being of one impenetrable smoothness.  The stone, generally flat and smooth by nature, had been chiselled to completeness.  That there had been projecting steps was manifest, for there remained, untouched by the wondrous climate of that strange land, the marks of saw and chisel and mallet where the steps had been cut or broken away.

“Being thus baffled of winning the tomb from below, and being unprovided with ladders to scale, I found a way by much circuitous journeying to the top of the cliff.  Thence I caused myself to be lowered by ropes, till I had investigated that portion of the rock face wherein I expected to find the opening.  I found that there was an entrance, closed however by a great stone slab.  This was cut in the rock more than a hundred feet up, being two-thirds the height of the cliff.  The hieroglyphic and cabalistic symbols cut in the rock were so managed as to disguise it.  The cutting was deep, and was continued through the rock and the portals of the doorway, and through the great slab which formed the door itself.  This was fixed in place with such incredible exactness that no stone chisel or cutting implement which I had with me could find a lodgment in the interstices.  I used much force, however; and by many heavy strokes won a way into the tomb, for such I found it to be.  The stone door having fallen into the entrance I passed over it into the tomb, noting as I went a long iron chain which hung coiled on a bracket close to the doorway.

“The tomb I found to be complete, after the manner of the finest Egyptian tombs, with chamber and shaft leading down to the corridor, ending in the Mummy Pit.  It had the table of pictures, which seems some kind of record—­whose meaning is now for ever lost—­graven in a wondrous colour on a wondrous stone.

“All the walls of the chamber and the passage were carved with strange writings in the uncanny form mentioned.  The huge stone coffin or sarcophagus in the deep pit was marvellously graven throughout with signs.  The Arab chief and two others who ventured into the tomb with me, and who were evidently used to such grim explorations, managed to take the cover from the sarcophagus without breaking it.  At which they wondered; for such good fortune, they said, did not usually attend such efforts.  Indeed they seemed not over careful; and did handle the various furniture of the tomb with such little concern that, only for its great strength and thickness, even the coffin itself might have been injured.  Which gave me much concern, for it was very beautifully wrought of rare stone, such as I had no knowledge of.  Much I grieved that it were not possible to carry it away.  But time and desert journeyings forbade such; I could only take with me such small matters as could be carried on the person.

“Within the sarcophagus was a body, manifestly of a woman, swathed with many wrappings of linen, as is usual with all mummies.  From certain embroiderings thereon, I gathered that she was of high rank.  Across the breast was one hand, unwrapped.  In the mummies which I had seen, the arms and hands are within the wrappings, and certain adornments of wood, shaped and painted to resemble arms and hands, lie outside the enwrapped body.