HEXAMETERS TO DATE; AND A PREHISTORIC PEEP.
[Mr. Flinders Petrie has just excavated the city of Ombi on the Nile, and vindicated Juvenal's geographical reputation.]
Ecce novi'st aliquid (per Flinders Petrie Magistrum)
Ex Africâ semper! Quite like some arch-humourist rum,
Playing with tombs and skulls, he unearths fresh funny surprises,
Scandals of Athor's "past," or long-veiled secrets of Isis.
Now this gravedigger-Yorick, this Egypt's new Abercromby,
Scores yet another conquest—he's found out Juvenal's Ombi,
Found out the next-door neighbours of Nile-washed Tentyra (you will
See in the Fifteenth Satire their truceless, truculent duel).
Thus they lived some ages B.C. (in the thirtieth cent'ry),
Cannibals, six feet high, and long-legged Libyan gentry,
Buried à la trussed fowl, with heads on which wavy brown hair rose;
These were the folk who once made things pretty hot for the Pharaohs.
Dig then, Petrie, away 'mid potsherds, mummies, and cinders,
Delve on, and add fresh towns to the underground kingdom of Flinders!
