DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.548#0161
138
THE EXODUS PAPYRI.
mine how much of primitive truth may, for a while,
have savingly remained in solution among the
fabulous additions soon made to it.
I have alluded more than once to the existence of
a different college from that of Amen-ra-Heb, and
it now becomes time to explain that the Bek-n-Ptah
here mentioned, was a scribe under the wardership
of one Kak-Jephoi, a man of more genius appa-
rently and individuality than any of his contempo-
raries as yet known to us. He ought to have been
loyal to Seti, and apparently was so at heart, but
like the rest of the world he was willing also for
place or profit to sing flattering songs to a usurper.
He may be mentioned here as the author of the
very curious Arabian Nights' tale of which Mr. de
Rouge has been allowed to take a copy by its pre-
sent possessor, an English lady, under the illiberal
condition of shewing it to no one. The object of
this stipulation was presumably to enhance the mer-
cantile value of the article, in which, however, the
proprietor appears to have failed, for it is reported
to have already wandered in search of a purchaser
from Egypt to England, from England to France,
from France to America, and from America to
Australia, and it is much to be hoped that Science
may ultimately be allowed to profit by its existence.
Before Seti came to the throne, he possessed doubt-
less this very copy, as his name is written in full
length at the back. An Arabian Night's tale,
written in the age of Moses himself, would repay
indeed the cost of publishing it in fac-simile—even
as the handsome papyrus of moral precepts written
THE EXODUS PAPYRI.
mine how much of primitive truth may, for a while,
have savingly remained in solution among the
fabulous additions soon made to it.
I have alluded more than once to the existence of
a different college from that of Amen-ra-Heb, and
it now becomes time to explain that the Bek-n-Ptah
here mentioned, was a scribe under the wardership
of one Kak-Jephoi, a man of more genius appa-
rently and individuality than any of his contempo-
raries as yet known to us. He ought to have been
loyal to Seti, and apparently was so at heart, but
like the rest of the world he was willing also for
place or profit to sing flattering songs to a usurper.
He may be mentioned here as the author of the
very curious Arabian Nights' tale of which Mr. de
Rouge has been allowed to take a copy by its pre-
sent possessor, an English lady, under the illiberal
condition of shewing it to no one. The object of
this stipulation was presumably to enhance the mer-
cantile value of the article, in which, however, the
proprietor appears to have failed, for it is reported
to have already wandered in search of a purchaser
from Egypt to England, from England to France,
from France to America, and from America to
Australia, and it is much to be hoped that Science
may ultimately be allowed to profit by its existence.
Before Seti came to the throne, he possessed doubt-
less this very copy, as his name is written in full
length at the back. An Arabian Night's tale,
written in the age of Moses himself, would repay
indeed the cost of publishing it in fac-simile—even
as the handsome papyrus of moral precepts written