DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.4393#0318
300 A THOUSAND MILES UP THE NILE.
seeing all that it contained in the way of sculptures and
inscriptions.
This was accordingly done; but we worked again next
morning just the same, till midday. Our native con-
tingent, numbering about forty men, then made their
appearance in a rickety old boat, the bottom of which was
half-full of water.
They had been told to bring implements ; and they did
bring such as they had—two broken oars to dig with, some
baskets, and a number of little slips of planking which,
being tied between two pieces of rope and drawn along the
surface, acted as scrapers and were useful as far as they
went. Squatting in double file from the entrance of the
speos to the edge of the cliff, and to the burden of a rudo
chant propelling these improvised scrapers, the men began
by clearing a path to the doorway. This gave them work
enough for the afternoon. At sunset, when they dis-
persed, the path was scooped out to a depth of four feet,
like a miniature railway cutting between embankments of
sand.
Next morning came the sheik in person with his two
sons and a following of a hundred men. This was so
many more than we had bargained for that we at once
foresaw a scheme to extort money. The sheik, however,
proved to be that same Rash wan Ebn Hassan el Kashef,
by whom the happy couple had been so hospitably enter-
tained about a fortnignt before; we therefore received him
with honor, invited him to luncheon, and, hoping to get
the work done quickly, set the men on in gangs under the
superintendence of Reis Hassan and the head sailor.
By noon the,door was cleared down to the threshold,
and the whole south and west walls were laid bare to the
floor.
We now found that the debris which blocked the north
wall and the center of the floor was not, as we had at
first supposed, a pile of fallen fragments, but one solid
bowlder which had come down bodily from above. To
remove this was impossible. Wo had no tools to cut or
break it and it was both wider and higher than the doorway.
Even to clear away the sand which rose behind it to the
ceiling would have taken a long time and have caused in-
evitable injury to the paintings around. Already the brill-
seeing all that it contained in the way of sculptures and
inscriptions.
This was accordingly done; but we worked again next
morning just the same, till midday. Our native con-
tingent, numbering about forty men, then made their
appearance in a rickety old boat, the bottom of which was
half-full of water.
They had been told to bring implements ; and they did
bring such as they had—two broken oars to dig with, some
baskets, and a number of little slips of planking which,
being tied between two pieces of rope and drawn along the
surface, acted as scrapers and were useful as far as they
went. Squatting in double file from the entrance of the
speos to the edge of the cliff, and to the burden of a rudo
chant propelling these improvised scrapers, the men began
by clearing a path to the doorway. This gave them work
enough for the afternoon. At sunset, when they dis-
persed, the path was scooped out to a depth of four feet,
like a miniature railway cutting between embankments of
sand.
Next morning came the sheik in person with his two
sons and a following of a hundred men. This was so
many more than we had bargained for that we at once
foresaw a scheme to extort money. The sheik, however,
proved to be that same Rash wan Ebn Hassan el Kashef,
by whom the happy couple had been so hospitably enter-
tained about a fortnignt before; we therefore received him
with honor, invited him to luncheon, and, hoping to get
the work done quickly, set the men on in gangs under the
superintendence of Reis Hassan and the head sailor.
By noon the,door was cleared down to the threshold,
and the whole south and west walls were laid bare to the
floor.
We now found that the debris which blocked the north
wall and the center of the floor was not, as we had at
first supposed, a pile of fallen fragments, but one solid
bowlder which had come down bodily from above. To
remove this was impossible. Wo had no tools to cut or
break it and it was both wider and higher than the doorway.
Even to clear away the sand which rose behind it to the
ceiling would have taken a long time and have caused in-
evitable injury to the paintings around. Already the brill-