Remembering that no mummy of a king had been found down to the date of the journey of our friends in Egypt, and that all the royal tombs when opened were found to have been previously visited by vandals as free-handed as those of modern days, we can appreciate the importance of the announcement, toward the end of 1881, that a new tomb had been opened and found to contain the mummies of several kings, together with those of other royal personages. The following description is taken from a recent publication, the details having been derived from the reports of M. Maspero, the able successor of Mariette Pasha: "For the last ten years or more it had been suspected that the Theban Arabs (whose main occupation is tomb-pillage and mummy-snatching) had found a royal sepulchre. Objects of great rarity and antiquity were being brought to Europe every season by travellers who had purchased them from native dealers living on the spot; and many of these objects were historically traceable to certain royal dynasties which made Thebes their capital city. At length suspicion became certainty. An English tourist, passing through Paris, presented Professor Maspero with some photographs from a superb papyrus which he had then lately bought at Thebes from an Arab named Abd-er-Ranoul. This papyrus proved to be the Ritual, or funereal sacred book, written for Pinotem I., third priest-king of the twenty-first dynasty. Evidently, then, the tomb of this sovereign had been discovered and pillaged. In January, 1881, the late lamented Mariette Pasha died at Cairo, and was succeeded by Professor Maspero, the present Conservator of Antiquities to H.H. the Khedive. Professor Maspero at once resolved to get to the bottom of the Theban mystery; and, with that object chiefly in view, proceeded last April to Upper Egypt upon his first official trip of inspection. Arriving at Luxor he straightway arrested the said Abd-er-Ranoul. Threats, bribery, persuasion were, however, tried in vain, and Abd-er-Ranoul was consigned to the district prison at Keneh, the chief town of the province. Here for two months he maintained an obstinate silence. In the mean while Professor Maspero offered a reward of £500 for the discovery of the secret, and returned to Europe. Scarcely had he embarked when the elder brother of Abd-er-Ranoul went privately before the Governor of Keneh, offered to betray the secret, and claimed the reward. [Illustration: SECTION OF PAPYRUS.]