The Nile steamers did not arrive for three days, and during that time Messrs. Brugsch and Kemal, and a few trustworthy Arabs, kept constant guard over their treasure amid a hostile fanatical people who regarded tomb-breaking as the legitimate trade of the neighbourhood. On the fourth morning the steamers arrived, and having received on board the royal mummies, steamed down the stream _en route_ for the Boolak Museum. Meanwhile the news of the discovery had spread far and wide, and for fifty miles below Luxor, the villagers lined the river banks, not merely to catch a glimpse of the mummies on deck as the steamers passed by, but also to show respect for the mighty dead. Women with dishevelled hair ran along the banks shrieking the death-wail; while men stood in solemn silence, and fired guns into the air to greet the mighty Pharaohs as they passed. Thus, to the mummified bodies of Thothmes the Great, and Rameses the Great, and their illustrious compeers, the funeral honours paid to them three thousand years ago were, in a measure, repeated as the mortal remains of these ancient heroes sailed down the Nile on their way to Boolak. The principal personages found either as mummies, or represented by their mummy cases, include a king and queen of the XVIIth dynasty, five kings and four queens of the XVIIIth dynasty, and three successive kings of the XIXth dynasty, namely, Rameses the Great, his father, and his grandfather. The XXth dynasty, strange to say, is not represented; but belonging to the XXIst dynasty of royal priests are four queens, two kings, a prince, and a princess. These royal mummies belong to four dynasties, and between the earliest and the latest there intervenes a period of above seven centuries,--a space of time as long as that which divides the Norman Conquest from the accession of George III. Under the dynasties above mentioned ancient Egypt reached the summit of her fame, through the expulsion of the Hykshos invaders, and the extensive conquests of Thothmes III. and Rameses the Great. The oppression of Israel in Egypt and the Exodus of the Hebrews, the colossal temples of Thebes, the royal sepulchres of the Valley of the Tombs of the Kings, the greater part of the Pharaonic obelisks, and the rock-cut temples of the Nile Valley, belong to the same period. It would be beyond the scope of this brief account to describe each royal personage, and therefore there can only be given a short description of the two kings connected with the London Obelisk, namely, Thothmes III. and Rameses the Great, the mightiest of the Pharaohs.