It
is always his concern. Meantime, prices will rise for all things.'
'Why?'
'Because the land is the chief security in Egypt. If a man cannot borrow
on that security, the rates of interest will increase on whatever other
security he offers. That will affect all work and wages and Government
contracts.'
He put it so convincingly and with so many historical illustrations
that I saw whole perspectives of the old energetic Pharaohs, masters of
life and death along the River, checked in mid-career by cold-blooded
accountants chanting that not even the Gods themselves can make two plus
two more than four. And the vision ran down through the ages to one
little earnest head on a Cook's steamer, bent sideways over the vital
problem of rearranging 'our National Flag' so that it should be 'easier
to count the stars.'
For the thousandth time: Praised be Allah for the diversity of His
creatures!
V
DEAD KINGS
The Swiss are the only people who have taken the trouble to master the
art of hotel-keeping. Consequently, in the things that really
matter - beds, baths, and victuals - they control Egypt; and since every
land always throws back to its aboriginal life (which is why the United
States delight in telling aged stories), any ancient Egyptian would at
once understand and join in with the life that roars through the
nickel-plumbed tourist-barracks on the river, where all the world
frolics in the sunshine. At first sight, the show lends itself to cheap
moralising, till one recalls that one only sees busy folk when they are
idle, and rich folk when they have made their money. A citizen of the
United States - his first trip abroad - pointed out a middle-aged
Anglo-Saxon who was relaxing after the manner of several school-boys.
'There's a sample!' said the Son of Hustle scornfully. 'Tell me, he
ever did anything in his life?' Unluckily he had pitched upon one who,
when he is in collar, reckons thirteen and a half hours a fairish day's
work.
Among this assembly were men and women burned to an even blue-black
tint - civilised people with bleached hair and sparkling eyes. They
explained themselves as 'diggers' - just diggers - and opened me a new
world. Granted that all Egypt is one big undertaker's emporium, what
could be more fascinating than to get Government leave to rummage in a
corner of it, to form a little company and spend the cold weather trying
to pay dividends in the shape of amethyst necklaces, lapis-lazuli
scarabs, pots of pure gold, and priceless bits of statuary? Or, if one
is rich, what better fun than to grub-stake an expedition on the
supposed site of a dead city and see what turns up? There was a big-game
hunter who had used most of the Continent, quite carried away by this
sport.
'I'm going to take shares in a city next year, and watch the digging
myself,' he said. 'It beats elephants to pieces. In this game you're
digging up dead things and making them alive. Aren't you going to have a
flutter?'
He showed me a seductive little prospectus. Myself, I would sooner not
lay hands on a dead man's kit or equipment, especially when he has gone
to his grave in the belief that the trinkets guarantee salvation. Of
course, there is the other argument, put forward by sceptics, that the
Egyptian was a blatant self-advertiser, and that nothing would please
him more than the thought that he was being looked at and admired after
all these years. Still, one might rob some shrinking soul who didn't see
it in that light.
At the end of spring the diggers flock back out of the Desert and
exchange chaff and flews in the gorgeous verandahs. For example, A's
company has made a find of priceless stuff, Heaven knows how old, and
is - not too meek about it. Company B, less fortunate, hints that if only
A knew to what extent their native diggers had been stealing and
disposing of the thefts, under their very archaeological noses, they
would not be so happy.
'Nonsense,' says Company A. 'Our diggers are above suspicion. Besides,
we watched 'em.'
'Are they?' is the reply. 'Well, next time you are in Berlin, go to
the Museum and you'll see what the Germans have got hold of. It must
have come out of your ground. The Dynasty proves it.' So A's cup is
poisoned - till next year.
No collector or curator of a museum should have any moral scruples
whatever; and I have never met one who had; though I have been informed
by deeply-shocked informants of four nationalities that the Germans are
the most flagrant pirates of all.
The business of exploration is about as romantic as earth-work on Indian
railways. There are the same narrow-gauge trams and donkeys, the same
shining gangs in the borrow-pits and the same skirling dark-blue crowds
of women and children with the little earth-baskets. But the hoes are
not driven in, nor the clods jerked aside at random, and when the work
fringes along the base of some mighty wall, men use their hands
carefully. A white man - or he was white at breakfast-time - patrols
through the continually renewed dust-haze. Weeks may pass without a
single bead, but anything may turn up at any moment, and it is his to
answer the shout of discovery.
We had the good fortune to stay a while at the Headquarters of the
Metropolitan Museum (New York) in a valley riddled like a rabbit-warren
with tombs. Their stables, store-houses, and servants' quarters are old
tombs; their talk is of tombs, and their dream (the diggers' dream
always) is to discover a virgin tomb where the untouched dead lie with
their jewels upon them.
