I took my way in the contrary direction. The early morning and bright moonlight was very refreshing; the birds woke up with the grey dawn; a fresh wind arose, and we trotted lustily along through the alleys of prickly sont-trees. Soon after sunrise we met a stately procession of well-dressed men and servants with camels and donkeys. It was King Mahmûd Welled Shauish, whose father, the warlike Shauish, King of Shaiqie, is known from the history of the conquering campaigns of Ismael Pasha, to whom he succumbed at a late period, and at whose house at Hellet e’ Solimân, near Messelemieh, we had stayed some weeks before. He had gone with Ahmed Pasha Menekle to Taka, and followed the army to Halfaï, where he now resides. At half-past nine, we again came to the pyramids, after my camel, yet young and very difficult to manage, had galloped round in a circle with me, and finally stumbling over a high mound of grass, fell down on one knee, and sent me far away over his head, fortunately without doing me any damage. After my return I employed myself continually on the pyramids and their inscriptions, had several chambers excavated, and drew out a careful description of each pyramid. Altogether I had found nearly thirty different names of Ethiopian kings and queens. I have not as yet brought them into any chronological order, but have in the comparison of the inscriptions learned much on the kind of succession and the form of government. The King of Meroë[83] (which is written Meru or Merua in one of the southernmost pyramids) was at the same time High Priest of Ammon: if his wife outlived him she followed him in the government, and the male heir of the crown only occupied a second place by her; under other circumstances, it seems, the son succeeded to the crown, having already, during his father’s lifetime, borne the royal cartouche and title, and held the post of second priest of Ammon. Thus we see here the priest government of which Diodorus and Strabo speak, and the precedence of the worship of Ammon already mentioned by Herodotus.