The glory of the Pharaohs

by Arthur E. P. Brome Weigall

I must here relate the story of a very remarkable “deal” in which I became involved, and which caused quite a sensation in Cairo in the winter of 1912-13.

One of my native inspectors came to me in Cairo one day, and reported that strange events were taking place by night at a certain point upon the Suez Canal. Some Bedouin were camped in the desert upon the far side of the Canal, and were said to be in possession of some fine antique bronzes which were believed to have come from Turkey or Syria; and a certain Bulgarian dealer, named Nikola Yamani, was endeavouring to purchase these and to bring them secretly into Egypt for sale. I therefore gave the inspector the necessary instructions, with the result that as soon as Nikola had made his purchase he was asked to bring the objects to the nearest office of the Department of Antiquities, which happened to be at the town of Zagazig, and there to give me the opportunity of buying them from him for the Cairo museum. Now it so happened that one of the Diplomatic Secretaries at the British Agency was anxious to finance some excavations amongst the ruins of the ancient Bubastis, near Zagazig; and when I went down by train a few days later to look at these bronzes, he came with me to look at the site of his proposed excavations.

This simple fact caused all the trouble which I am about to relate; for destiny moved in the following manner. The coming of the Diplomatic Secretary, shining in the reflected glory of his chief, Lord Kitchener, was telegraphed to the Egyptian provincial Governor, who lived at Zagazig; the Governor met us and took us in semi-state to lunch with him; Nikola Yamani saw the procession, thought the whole might of the British Empire had come to seize his antiquities, dashed off to the Inspector’s office, bribed the native clerk in charge to hide the one and only fine piece in the collection, and then sat down to await our arrival, satisfied that, even if we seized all the pieces, he would still be in possession of the important bronze statuette which now was hidden under a couch in an adjoining room.

Later, when we came to the office, I decided at once that the bronzes which were shown to me were not worth purchasing for the nation; and, when we returned to Cairo, I described them to the head of the Museum, Sir Gaston Maspero, and we officially rejected them. Their owner, therefore, went to the office to claim them; and his rage may be imagined when the rogue of a clerk, whom he had bribed to hide the best piece, looked him in the face and told him that he must have been bewitched, for no bronze had ever been hidden at all. A lie of this kind, which sounds so blatant to our ears, can easily pass muster in Egypt by the introduction of this suggestion that the victim has been bewitched; for it is common knowledge there that persons who have fallen into the power of the djins often believe themselves possessed of imaginary wealth.

Nikola, angry and perplexed, at length decided to come to me in Cairo and to confess the truth; and he arrived, a very tragic figure, with tears pouring from his eyes. “I listened to that wicked clerk,” he said, “who told me that Lord Kitchener’s Secretary would certainly seize the one good bronze for England, or you would seize it for Cairo; and now my deceit has turned upon myself.” He paced about the room, wringing his hands, as he spoke; and I could but forgive him his deception, which had been due to a very natural fear, and promise to do my best to recover the bronze for him, since he had lost it while it had been at the office of my Department.

As a result of the steps which I took, the clerk was arrested, but denied all knowledge of the stolen antiquity; Nikola, meanwhile, more or less burgled the house of the clerk, and was chased out by the inmates at the point of a revolver; and at length, after strange adventures in the native underworld, we traced the bronze to a well-known Arab dealer, who, of course, declared that he knew nothing of the matter.

I then invited the above-mentioned Diplomatic Secretary, and a well-known colleague of his at the British Agency to help me, my idea being that the fear of the redoubtable Lord Kitchener, which had been the cause of the trouble, might now be employed to some purpose; and these two good friends readily joined in the hunt. Space will not allow me to describe the exciting events which followed, and which might have formed the plot of a Sherlock Holmes adventure—our trapping the Arab dealer and holding him prisoner while a certain hiding-place of his was searched; the false scents which he caused us to follow up; our final exasperation with him, and the giving of a time-limit in which he was to confess if he wished to save himself from the deepest and darkest dungeon in Cairo. Suffice it to say that, one minute before the time-limit expired, the man confessed that he had bought the missing bronze from the Zagazig clerk, and had sold it to a well-known Italian dealer.

We then approached this latter dealer, telling him that the object which he had bought had been stolen from Nikola, and must be returned; and, after further adventures, the bronze was at last handed back to its owner, who came to me and, with tears of gratitude, blessed me and my posterity unto the end of the world.

Up to this point I had not seen the object in question; but now my two friends saw it and described it to me, and again I discussed with Sir Gaston Maspero the desirability of purchasing it for the Museum. He objected, however, to spend public money on an antiquity found outside Egypt; and he therefore gave Nikola permission to dispose of it as he pleased. The man promptly offered it to one of these two friends of mine, who as promptly bought it; and I then saw it for the first time. It represented a boy dressed in the ancient costume of Armenia or Media, and wearing the royal crown of Armenia such as that seen on the coins of Tigranes; and it evidently dated from Roman times. It was more interesting than beautiful; but it was certainly immensely valuable; and, having suggested to its new owner that he should give some big museum the opportunity of purchasing it, I introduced him to the representative of the Metropolitan Museum of New York, who, however, did not take the matter up.

My friend later explained to his colleague and myself that he could not think of claiming sole possession of this statuette, since we three together had rescued it and brought it back to its original owner, and that, if it were sold, he would wish us to have a share of the profits. He then placed the figure in the hands of a well-known dealer, and at length it was sold for a rather disappointing sum.