The collection, which, principally by its historical value, may be compared with the most extensive in Europe, was, immediately upon its arrival, incorporated with the royal collections, without my being placed in any official connection with it. It is already opened and accessible to the public. A careful examination of it will conduce more than anything to place the remarks of later tourists,--among whom there are even Germans,--in their true light; who have even gone so far, as in the case of a Herr Julius Braun, in the General Augsburg Journal (_Allgemeine Augsburger Zeitung_), to ascribe to us the mutilation of the gods in the temple at El Kab, done 3,000 years ago! Besides, it would show a total ignorance of present Egyptian relations, or that which gives the actual interest to the monuments of antiquity, if any one did not wish to see the as precious as unestimated and daily destroyed treasures of those lands, preserved in European museums as much as possible. [4] [In the first edition of this work I lamented that due care was not bestowed upon this obelisk, and that “our own property” was abandoned to the wind and the rain, the sand, and--worse than all--the Arab. Now, however, I have the satisfaction to be able to state that the Crystal Palace Company are about to do what our Government, with a surplus of £1,600,000, could not afford.--K. R. H. M. 2nd edit.] [5] The diary of this Nile expedition has since been made public under the title of “Expedition to discover the Sources of the White Nile” (1840-1841), by Ferdinand Werne; with a preface by Carl Ritter. Berlin, 1848. [The work has since been published in English, under the auspices of Mr. Bentley, in two volumes.--K. R. H. M.] [6] Since Ibrahim Pasha’s death, in 1848, viceroy of Egypt. [7] This treatise, “Report of the River Goshop, and the countries of Enarea, Caffa, and Doko, by a native of Enarea,” has been translated by Ritter, read in the Geographical Society of Berlin, on the 7th of January, 1843, and printed in the monthly reports of that institution, in the fourth year, pp. 172-188. [8] At our departure for Upper Egypt we had examined 130 private tombs, and discovered the remains of 67 pyramids. [9] See my essay, “_Sur l’Ordre des Colonnes-piliers en Egypte, et ses rapports avec le second Ordre Egyptien et la Colonne Grecque_ (_avec deux planches_),” in the ninth volume of the _Annales de l’Institut de Corresp. Archéol. Rome_. 1838. [10] See Letter XV., p. 117. [11] [The _Athenæum_, in a late review of this work, questions the word “prince,” and proposes to read “son;” now, in a subsequent letter (p. 39), Lepsius himself conjectures that this Prince Merhet was the son of Cheops, which the reviewer appears to have overlooked in his excellent remarks.--K. R. H. M.]