I may here mention--in order to have done with this subject--that besides being buried outside to a depth of about eight feet, the adytum had been partially filled inside by a gradual infiltration of sand from above. This can only have accumulated at the time when the old sand-drift was at its highest. That drift, sweeping in one unbroken line across the front of the great temple, must at one time have risen here to a height of twenty feet above the present level. From thence the sand had found its way down the perpendicular fissure already mentioned. In the corner behind the door, the sand-pile rose to the ceiling, in shape just like the deposit at the bottom of an hour-glass. I am informed by the painter that when the top of the doorway was found and an opening first effected, the sand poured out _from within_, like water escaping from an opened sluice. Here, then, is positive proof (if proof were needed) that we were first to enter the place, at all events since the time when the great sand-drift rose as high as the top of the fissure. The painter wrote his name and ours, with the date (February 10, 1874), on a space of blank wall over the inside of the doorway; and this was the only occasion upon which any of us left our names upon an Egyptian monument. On arriving at Korosko, where there is a postoffice, he also dispatched a letter to the “Times,” briefly recording the facts here related. That letter, which appeared on the 18th of March following, is reprinted in the appendix at the end of this book. I am told that our names are partially effaced and that the wall-paintings which we had the happiness of admiring in all their beauty and freshness are already much injured. Such is the fate of every Egyptian monument, great or small. The tourist carves it all over with names and dates and in some instances with caricatures. The student of Egyptology, by taking wet-paper “squeezes,” sponges away every vestige of the original color. The “collector” buys and carries off everything of value that he can get; and the Arab steals for him. The work of destruction, meanwhile, goes on apace. There is no one to prevent it; there is no one to discourage it. Every day, more inscriptions are mutilated--more tombs are rifled--more paintings and sculptures are defaced. The Louvre contains a full-length portrait of Seti I, cut out bodily from the walls of his sepulcher in the Valley of the Tombs of the Kings. The museums of Berlin, of Turin, of Florence, are rich in spoils which tell their own lamentable tale. When science leads the way, is it wonderful that ignorance should follow? CHAPTER XIX. BACK THROUGH NUBIA.