I will not delay to describe the ceremonies of preparation, nor the embalmment and burial of the august lady whose demise has cast a pall over Egypt. Your assurance that it would take you five months to get ready your war-fleet against Cyprus, and the desire of Remeses that I delay until the eighty days' mourning for the queen were over, induced me to remain. It is now four days since her burial in the centre of her stately pyramid, with the most imposing and gorgeous rites ever known at the entombment of a monarch. Prince Mœris was chief mourner! I have omitted to state that he readily acceded to the conditions proposed in the letter of Remeses, and when the courier followed, conveying to him the fact that he had been adopted and declared her heir by the queen, he addressed a frank and friendly letter to Remeses; for it is easy for him to assume any character his interest prompts. As soon as the intelligence of the death of the queen reached him, he hastened to Memphis. Here he had an interview with Remeses, whom he treated with courtesy, and offered the supervision of that part of Egypt where the Hebrew shepherds dwell; for I have learned that in a valley, which leads from Raamses to the Sea of Arabia, there are hundreds of Hebrews who, like their ancestors, keep vast flocks and herds belonging to the crown, but out of which they are allowed a tenth for their subsistence. Over this pastoral domain, embracing about twenty thousand shepherds, the prospective Pharaoh proposed to place Remeses. I felt that it was intended as an insult; but Remeses viewed it as an evidence of kindness on the part of one who knows not how to be noble or great. The interment of the queen past, there is nothing to detain either Remeses or myself longer in Egypt. By her bounty he is rich, and has given to his parents a large treasure, which will enable them to be at ease; and besides, the queen gave to them and to Aaron (this is the name of the elder brother of Remeses), and his sister, the right of citizenship. Mœris, the day of the queen's burial, virtually ascended the throne. His coronation, however, will not take place until after he has passed through the forty days' novitiate. And now, my dear mother, you will be surprised to learn that, the information of the Hebrew birth of Remeses (who has modestly dropped his first Egyptian name and adheres only to the second, which is Mosis, or Moses, as the Hebrews pronounce it), was wickedly conveyed, with large bribes, to the magicians by Prince Mœris himself; and that, upon this information and influence, they recalled from the past, which, like the future, is open to their magical art, the scenes of his life, and presented them before his vision.