Thus I have chiefly made use of my sojourn in Paris to acquire a general knowledge of Egyptian science, and am thereby placed in a position to adopt a decided course for the future according to the needs which seem to me most urgent, and to those abilities of my own which I believe to have been best developed by my previous studies. Therefore it now becomes a matter of special importance, in order to arrive at the best possible conclusions of my own, to procure correct copies of the numerous Egyptian monuments scattered about through the various French museums, and especially in Italy.
To undertake a journey to Italy for this purpose must be all the more desirable for me since a corresponding member of the Academy, whose name will always be mentioned beside that of Champollion as one of the most distinguished promoters of Egyptian science, H. P. Rosellini of Pisa, has offered, with the most noble disinterestedness, to reveal to me the rich treasures which he has brought back from Egypt, and, under his own invaluable guidance, to place them at my service.
Since I could not have been able to undertake this journey on my own resources, I have to thank the resolves of the most worshipful Academy alone, if I can directly pursue the object which is the aim of my scientific career. I must appreciate the more profoundly the special encouragement which I have thus received as up to the present time I have been able to present no sort of security on my part to the most worshipful Academy. For this reason I will make all the more conscientious use of the appropriation granted me. I will from time to time lay before the most worshipful Academy an account of the expenditure thereof, and seek to prove myself worthy of the confidence which has been shown me by the greatest zeal in the promotion of this most fruitful science, which has been so little cultivated in our own country.
With the most distinguished esteem and respect.
APPENDIX III.
Extract from the Report addressed to the Ministry, on the Acquisitions and Results of the Expedition to Egypt under R. Lepsius.
Berlin, March 12, 1846.
The antiquarian Expedition to Egypt, Nubia and the Peninsula of Sinai, ordered in the year 1842 by his Majesty, our most gracious and illustrious King Frederick William IV., and committed to my leadership, is completed.
My reports, transmitted to your Excellency from time to time, will have convinced you that it has been executed entirely in accordance with the plans advised by the Royal Academy of Sciences, most graciously approved by his Majesty, and submitted to your Excellency before departure. You will also observe that the annual sum of money appropriated at the beginning has not been exceeded, and that it has also been made to cover the important excavations, transportations and purchases, for which no special appropriation had been made. The journey of two years has, however, extended itself to three and a half. My companions were not able to return before the end of last year, and I myself not till the 27th of January of this year; a possibility which had been already foreseen in the advice of the Royal Academy.