W. M. Flinders Petrie

“ When the land was brightened, and the new day began, four men came with a summons for me; and the four men went to lead me to the palace. I saluted with both my hands on the ground; the royal children stood at the courtyard to conduct me: the courtiers who were to lead me to the hall brought me on the way to the royal chamber. I found his Majesty on the great throne in the hall of pale gold. Then I threw myself on my belly; this god, in whose presence I was, knew me not. ”

“ The weepers crouching at the door of thy tomb shall cry aloud the prayers for offerings: they shall slay victims for thee at the door of thy pit; and thy pyramid shall be carved in white stone, in the company of the royal children. Thus thou shalt not die in a strange land, nor be buried by the Amu; thou shalt not be laid in a sheep-skin when thou art buried; all people shall beat the earth, and lament on thy body when thou goest to the tomb." When this order came to me, I was in the midst of my tribe. ”

“ Then it will be fitting to beat this Hemti for a trifle of natron and a trifle of salt; if he is commanded to pay for it, he will pay for it." But the High Steward Meruitensa held his peace; for he would not reply unto these nobles, but would reply unto the Sekhti. Now Sekhti came to appeal to the Lord Steward Meruitensa, and said, " O my Lord Steward, greatest of the great, guide of the needy: When thou embarkest on the lake of truth,— Mayest thou sail upon it with a fair wind; May thy mainsail not fly loose. May there not be lamentation in thy cabin; May not misfortune come after thee. ”

“ The essence of the tale is the difference in social position between the Sekhti, or peasant, and the Hemti, or workman—the fellah and the client of the noble; and the impossibility of getting justice against a client, unless by some extraordinary means of attracting his patron's attention, is the basis of the action. There is not a single point of incident here which might not be true in modern times; every turn of it seems to live, as one reads it in view of country life in Egypt. ”

“ Does a man fear when he sees his own land? Ra spread thy fear over the land, thy terrors in every strange land. Behold me now in the palace, behold me in this place; and lo! thou art he who is over all the horizon; the sun rises at thy pleasure, the water in the rivers is drunk at thy will, the wind in heaven is breathed at thy saying.
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"I who speak to thee shall leave my goods to the generations to follow in this land. And as to this messenger who is come even let thy majesty do as pleaseth him, for one lives by the breath that thou givest. ”

“ The sailor then answered, "Now I shall tell that which has happened to me, to my very self I was going to the mines of Pharaoh, and I went down on the sea on a ship of 150 cubits long and 40 cubits wide, with 150 sailors of the best of Egypt, who had seen heaven and earth, and whose hearts were stronger than lions. They had said that the wind would not be contrary, or that there would be none. But as we approached the land the wind arose, and threw up waves eight cubits high. ”

“ When following a narrative, whether of real events or of fiction, many persons—perhaps most—find themselves unconsciously framing in their minds the scenery and the beings of which they are reading. To give a correct picture of the character of each of the various ages to which these tales belong, has been the aim of the present illustrations. A definite period has been assigned to each tale, in accordance with the indications, or the history, involved in it ”

“ I passed on
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to Sun, and reached the land of Adim (Edom) . When I had dwelt there half a year Amu-an-shi—who is the prince of the Upper Tenu —sent for me and said: "Dwell thou with me that thou mayest hear the speech of Egypt." He said thus for that he knew of my excellence, and had heard tell of my worth, for men of Egypt who were there with him bore witness of me. Behold he said to me, "For what cause hast thou come hither? Has a matter come to pass in the palace? Has the king of the two lands, Sehetep-abra gone to heaven? ”

“ He is fearless, and dashes the heads, and none can stand before him. He is swift of foot, to destroy him who flies; and none who flees from him reaches his home. His heart is strong in his time; he is a lion who strikes with the claw, and never has he turned his back. His heart is closed to pity; and when he sees multitudes, he leaves none to live behind him. He is a valiant one who springs in front when he sees resistance; he is a warrior who rejoices when he flies on the barbarians. He seizes the buckler, he rushes forward, he never needs to strike again, he slays and none can turn his lance ”

“ The great serpent is not of a type usual in Egyptian designs. The human-headed uraeus is seldom bearded; and the best example of such a monster is on an Ethiopian temple, where a great uraeus has human arms and a lion's head. The colours again repeat the favourite combination expressive of splendour—gold and lazuli. Though lazuli is very rare in early times, yet it certainly was known in the XIIth Dynasty, as shown by the forms of some beads of lazuli. The slaughter of asses in sacrifice is a very peculiar offering, and no sign of this is found in any representations or groups of offerings. ”

“ And the king said, 'I have sought in my palace for some delight, but I have found none.' Then said Zazamankh to him, 'Let
BAUFRA'S TALE 17
thy majesty go upon the lake of the palace, and let there be made ready a boat, with all the fair maidens of the harem of thy palace; and the heart of thy majesty shall be refreshed with the sight, in seeing their rowing up and down the water, and seeing the goodly pools of the birds upon the lake, and beholding its sweet fields and grassy shores; thus will thy heart be lightened. ”

“ They call on thee as on the mistress of all. Strong is thy horn, Thou lettest fly thine arrow. Grant the breath to him who is without it; Grant good things to this traveller, Samehit the Pedti,
born in the land of Egypt, Who fled away from fear of thee, And fled this land from thy terrors. Does not the face grow pale, of him who beholds thy countenance; Does not the eye fear, which looks upon thee."
THE SONG OF THE PRINCESSES
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Said his majesty, " Let him not fear, let him be freed from terror. He shall be a Royal Friend amongst the nobles ”

“ As the changes in historical times have been in the direction of men's rights, it is very unlikely that this system of female predominance was invented or introduced, but rather that it descends from primitive times. In this tale we see, then, at the beginning of our knowledge of the country, the clashing of two different social systems. The reciter is strong for men's rights, he brings destruction on the wife, and never even gives her name, but always calls her merely "the wife of Uba-aner." ”

“ To this the king responds by reassuring Sanehat, and promising him position and wealth. The account of Sanehat's renewal of his old national ways can best be appreciated by any one who has lived a rough life for a time and then comes back to civilisation. Doubtless these comforts were all the more grateful to him in his old age, when he was weary of his unsettled life. In the preparation of his tomb it is stated to have been a pyramid, with rock-cut well chamber, and built of bricks above. This just accords with the construction of the pyramids of the XIIth Dynasty. ”

“ The expression for strangeness—"as a man of the Delta sees himself at the cataract, as a man of the plain who sees himself in the deserts"—is true to this day. Nothing upsets an Egyptian's self-reliance like going back a few miles into the desert; and almost any man of the cultivated plain will flee with terror if he finds himself left alone far in the desert, or even taken to the top of the desert hills. .
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We learn incidentally that the Egyptian frontier, even in the later years of Usertesen I., had not been pushed beyond the Wady Tumilat ”

“ The close of the tale is defective, but from the remains it appears to have ended by the gift of the Hemti's property to the oppressed Sekhti and the triumph of the injured peasant.
GOING TO WAWAT
XIITH DYNASTY THE SHIPWRECKED SAILOR THE wise servant said, " Let thy heart be satisfied, O my lord, for that we have come back to the country; after we have long been on board, and rowed much, the prow has at last touched land. All the people rejoice, and embrace us one after another. Moreover, we have come back in good health, and not a man is lacking ”

“ The punishment of burning alive is very
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rarely, if ever, mentioned in Egyptian history, though it occurs in modern Egyptian tales: and it looks as if it were brought in here rather as a dire horror for the climax than as a probable incident. The place of the penalty, in front of the harem, or the private portion of the palace, was evidently for the intimidation of other ladies. At the close of each tale, King Khufu, to whom it is told, orders funerary offerings by the usual formula, to be presented in honour of the king under whom the wonder took place. ”

“ When we shall come, in our return, to the house of Pharaoh, in the second month, according to all that the serpent has said, we shall approach unto the palace. And I shall go in before Pharaoh, I shall bring the gifts which I have brought from this isle into the country. Then he shall thank me before the fulness of all the land. Grant then unto me a follower, and lead me to the courtiers of
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the king. Cast thy eye upon me, after that I am come to land again, after that I have both seen and proved this. Hear my prayer, for it is good to listen to people. ”

“ At the present time the lake of the Fayum is brackish, and the cliffs which border it contain so much salt that rain pools which collect on them are not drinkable. The paths and roads of Egypt are not protected by law as in Western countries. Each person encroaches on a path or diverts it as may suit his purpose, only checked by the liberties taken by passers-by in trespassing if a path be insufficient. Hence, it is very usual to see a house built over half of a path,
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and driving the traffic into the field or almost over the river bank. ”

“ REMARKS The tales or the magicians are only preserved in a single copy, and of that the beginning is entirely lost. The papyrus was brought from Egypt by an English traveller, and was purchased by the Berlin Museum from the property of Lepsius, who had received it from the owner, Miss Westcar: hence it is known as the Westcar papyrus. It was written probably in the XIIth Dynasty, but doubtless embodied tales, which had been floating for generations before, about the names of the early kings. ”

“ Carried over by the west wind, I passed over to the east to the quarries of Aku and the land of the goddess Herit, mistress of the red mountain (Gebel Ahmar) . Then I fled on foot, northward, and reached the walls of the prince, built to repel the Sati. ”

“ But when we compare this tale with those following, we see good ground for its belonging to a time before the XIIth Dynasty The following tale of the peasant and the workman evidently belongs to the IXth or Xth Dynasties, when Herakleopolis was the capital, and Sanehat is certainly of the XIIth Dynasty. Yet in those we see character and incident made the basis of interest, in place of the childish profusion of marvels of the Tales of the Magicians. It seems impossible not to suppose that they belong to very different ages and canons of taste ”

“ A champion of the Tenu came to defy
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me in my tent: a bold man without equal, for he had vanquished the whole country. He said, "Let Sanehat fight with me;" for he desired to overthrow me, he thought to take my cattle for his tribe. The prince counselled with me. I said, "I know him not. I certainly am not of his degree, I hold me far from his place. Have I ever opened his door, or leaped over his fence? It is some envious jealousy from seeing me; does he think that I am like some steer among the cows, whom the bull overthrows? ”

“ The flavour of the ballet thrown in, by the introduction of the damsels of the household clad in fishing nets, is not yet obsolete in modern amusements; and even in this century Muhammed Ali had resource to the same way of killing time, as he was rowed about by his harem, but on an artificial lake. ”

“ The details of the dresses, the architecture, and the utensils, are all in accord with the period of each tale. In the tale of Setnau two different styles are introduced. Ahura is probably of the time of Amenhotep III., whereas Setnau is a son of Ramessu II.; and the change of fashion between the two different dynasties has been followed as distinctive of the two persons, one a ka or double of the deceased, the other a living man. To the reader who starts with the current idea that all Egyptians were alike, this continual change from one period to another may seem almost fanciful. ”

“ In this case the Hemti had taken in as much of the path as he could, and left it but a narrow strip along the top of the canal bank. The frequent use of the public way for drying clothes, or spreading out property, gave the idea of choking the way altogether, and leaving no choice but trespassing on the crops. No sooner does a donkey pause, or even pass, by a field of corn than he snatches a mouthful, and in a delay or altercation such as this the beast is sure to take the advantage. Donkeys carrying loads by cornfields are usually muzzled with rope nets, to prevent their feeding ”