VALLEY OF THE TOMBS OF THE KINGS.
"The tombs are scattered along a narrow valley of barren mountains at the edge of the Libyan Desert, or, rather, just within its borders; they are excavated in the solid rock, and some of them are very large. Every few years a new discovery is made, and the government allows any explorer to search for tombs under certain conditions: the conditions are now so onerous that few private researches have been undertaken for some time, and none are likely to be till the laws are changed. In the early part of the century several English, French, German, and other explorers were on the ground, and some of their discoveries were of great interest. The tombs they opened are generally known by the names of those who found them, though several have lost that distinction through a system of numbering adopted by Sir Gardner Wilkinson. The guides usually point them out by their numbers. About thirty tombs in all have been opened, and it is certain there are ten or twelve more that have not been discovered. Strabo, the Greek historian, who came here about the beginning of the Christian era, says he saw forty tombs; but some have conjectured that he included those in another valley, and known as the Tombs of the Queens.
VIEW IN BELZONI'S TOMB.
"We didn't have time to see the whole twenty-five, and it would not have been worth while for us to do so, as several of them have no particular interest. We went first to number seventeen, which is also known as Belzoni's tomb; it was discovered by Belzoni, an Italian traveller, and the most of its contents were carried to England, and are now in the British Museum. Perhaps you may wonder why these tombs are so difficult to find, but the reason is this:
"When a king died, and had been properly turned into a mummy, the funeral rites were performed, and he was taken to the excavation in the rock prepared for him. When he was packed away in his stone coffin the entrance to the tomb was sealed up, and the side of the mountain broken away; all trace of the tomb or the entrance of it was destroyed; and there is a rumor that the men who performed the work were killed, in order to prevent any revelations. Doubtless the locality of the tombs was known to a good many people; but the knowledge of it would be gradually lost, especially when the country was devastated by wars, and the whole population, in some instances, swept away. Certainly the most of these tombs were unknown for a thousand years or so previous to the present century, with a few exceptions where the Arabs had accidentally hit upon them, though many of them had been plundered and again closed during the Greek and Roman period. Belzoni was guided in his search by an incident which the Arabs had told him of the sinking of the earth in consequence of a rain, and the disappearance of water at a certain point. This led him to suspect that there might be a tomb there, and by digging away the fallen fragments of rock on the side of the mountain he came upon the entrance.
"There is a general similarity in these tombs, and so we will not weary you with repetitions by describing them all.