Behind the ruins of the Ramesseum is a terrace of rock-hewn tombs, occupied by the families of four brothers named Abd-er-Rasoul. The brothers professed to be guides and donkey-masters, but in reality they made their livelihood by tomb-breaking and mummy-snatching. Suspicion at once fell upon them, and a mass of concurrent testimony pointed to the four brothers as the possessors of the secret. With the approval of the district governor, one of the brothers, Ahmed-Abd-er-Rasoul, was arrested and sent to prison at Keneh, the chief town of the district. Here he remained in confinement for two months, and preserved an obstinate silence. At length Mohammed, the eldest brother, fearing that Ahmed's constancy might give way, and fearing lest the family might lose the reward offered by M. Maspero, came to the governor and volunteered to divulge the secret. Having made his depositions, the governor telegraphed to Cairo, whither the Professor had returned. It was felt that no time should be lost. Accordingly M. Maspero empowered Herr Emil Brugsch, keeper of the Boolak Museum, and Ahmed Effendi Kemal, also of the Museum service, to proceed without delay to Upper Egypt. In a few hours from the arrival of the telegram the Boolak officials were on their way to Thebes. The distance of the journey is about five hundred miles; and as a great part had to be undertaken by the Nile steamer, four days elapsed before they reached their destination, which they did on Wednesday, 6th July, 1881. On the western side of the Theban plain rises a high mass of limestone rock, enclosing two desolate valleys. One runs up behind the ridge into the very heart of the hills, and being entirely shut in by the limestone cliffs, is a picture of wild desolation. The other valley runs up from the plain, and its mouth opens out towards the city of Thebes. "The former is the Valley of the Tombs of the Kings--the Westminster Abbey of Thebes; the latter, of the Tombs of the Priests and Princes--its Canterbury Cathedral." High up among the limestone cliffs, and near the plateau overlooking the plain of Thebes, is the site of an old temple, known as "Deir-el-Bahari." At this last-named place, according to agreement, the Boolak officials met Mohammed Abd-er-Rasoul, a spare, sullen fellow, who simply from love of gold had agreed to divulge the grand secret. Pursuing his way among desecrated tombs, and under the shadow of precipitous cliffs, he led his anxious followers to a spot described as "unparalleled, even in the desert, for its gaunt solemnity." Here, behind a huge fragment of fallen rock, perhaps dislodged for that purpose from the cliffs overhead, they were shown the entrance to a pit so ingeniously hidden that, to use their own words, "one might have passed it twenty times without observing it." The shaft of the pit proved to be six and a-half feet square; and on being lowered by means of a rope, they touched the ground at a depth of about forty feet.