The other is a geographical papyrus, forestalling Brugsch’s great work on the geography and the nome divisions of Egypt; though defective in part all through, it is of the greatest value. Most of the other papyri are in demotic, and still await reading, while some are in Greek. Of course, being carbonized, the whole mass is black, and it is only by reflected light that it is possible to read anything; when the illumination is properly arranged, the duller surface of the ink can be seen on the brighter face of the papyrus. It is seldom such a treasure as this basketful of knowledge is so narrowly saved from destruction; a little more air in the burning, a little less care in the unearthing, the separation, the packing, or the opening, and these documents would have disappeared. Of course, under the usual system of leaving Arab overseers to manage excavations, all such discoveries are utterly destroyed. [Illustration: 22. RUINS OF FORT, WITH ARAB CEMETERY.] CHAPTER III. NAUKRATIS. 1885. Before beginning work in the end of 1883 I visited Gizeh; and, as usual, many small antiquities were offered to me by the Arabs. Among such was the upper part of an alabaster figure of a soldier, wearing a helmet and armlets, which was plainly of archaic Greek or Cypriote work. I at once gave the man what he asked for it (never run risks in important cases), and then enquired where he got it. ‘From Nebireh,’ was his answer, and that was somewhere near Damanhur. So, a month or two later, I took an opportunity of going down to that region, and, after some mistakes and enquiries, I at last reached the place, in course of a twenty mile walk, and having only half-an-hour to spare before going on to the train. There I met a sight which I had never hoped for,--almost too strange to believe. Before me lay a long low mound of town ruins, of which all the core had been dug out by the natives for earth, thus baring the very lowest level of the town all over the middle of it. Wherever I walked in this crater I trod on pieces of archaic Greek pottery; soon I laded my pockets with scraps of vases and of statuettes, and at last tore myself away, longing to resolve the mystery of these Greeks in Egypt. Up to that time no Greek remains earlier than the Ptolemaic age, and Alexander, had been found in the country, and to step back two or three centuries, into the days of black-figured and rosette-ornamented vases, and archaic statuettes, was quite a new departure. [Illustration: 23. CYPRIOTE SOLDIER.] [Illustration: 24. DEDICATION OF STATUE TO HELIODOROS, BY THE NAUKRATITES. 1: 6.]