Note 3 — LETTER II.

Previous to my departure from Alexandria, the firman of the Viceroy was presented to me, with unlimited permission to make all the excavations which I might think desirable, and with instructions to the local authorities to render me assistance. All the workmen and aid necessary for forming and transporting our collection of antiquities, were demanded in return for money, through virtue of our firman, from the Sheikhs of the neighbouring villages, or the Mudhirs of the provinces, by the Kawass, who had been given us by the government, and they were never refused. The monuments from the southern regions were transported from Mount Barkal to Alexandria on government boats, and three sepulchral chambers near the great Pyramids of Gizeh were also added, which were carefully taken to pieces by the aid of four workmen, sent expressly for the purpose from Berlin, and were put on board a vessel opposite Old Cairo. I also received, before my departure from Egypt, a written permit for the exportation of the collection; and the objects themselves were presented from the Viceroy to H. M. the King of Prussia.

These peculiar favours, at a time when all private travellers, antiquarian speculators, and even diplomatic persons, were expressly forbidden by the Egyptian Government to make any collection, or to export antiquities, have caused many unfavourable judgments to be passed on our expedition. We have been chiefly accused of a thirst for destruction, which, under the given circumstances, would presuppose a peculiarly barbarous feeling to have existed in our party; for as we did not, like many of our rivals, excavate and transport the monuments, the greater part of which had previously been invisible, hurriedly and by night, and with bribed assistance, but leisurely, and with open aid from the authorities, and before the eyes of numerous travellers, all disregard in our treatment of the remaining monuments, of which perhaps they formed a part, would certainly have been so much the more blameable, since it was so easy to avoid it. We might, however, trust to a more correct judgment than what is usually possessed by the greater proportion of ordinary travellers or collectors, with regard to the value of the individual monuments; besides, we were not, after all, in danger of being deceived in this matter by personal self-interest, as we made our selection of the monuments not for ourselves, but commissioned by our government, for the Royal Museum in Berlin, therefore for the benefit of science, and a public eager after knowledge.

The collection, which chiefly on account of its historical value, may be placed on an equal footing with the most important European museums, was incorporated immediately on its arrival with the Royal collections, without my remaining myself officially connected with it; and it is already arranged and exhibited to the public. A more accurate examination is best fitted to place the inconsiderate accusations of more recent, and even German tourists, in their proper light, some of whom have gone so far, for example, very recently, Herr Julius Braun, in the Algemeiner Augsburg Gazette, as to charge us with the mutilation of the gods, which happened more than 3000 years ago, in the temple of El Kab. Besides, it would prove an entire ignorance of Egyptian affairs at the present time, or of that which chiefly lends the monuments of antiquity their real interest to us, if all were not desirous to preserve in the public museums of Europe, as many as possible of the treasures of those countries, which are really as valuable, as they are undervalued in their own home, and numbers of which are still daily destroyed.