DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.6551#0309
OPERATIONS CARRIED OX AT GIZEII.
259
quarries. The excavation under the roof of the Queen's
Chamber was resumed. Lady Arbuthnot's Chamber was
minutely examined, and found to contain a great many
quarry-marks. Notwithstanding that the characters in
these chambers were surveyed by Mr. Perring upon a
reduced scale, I considered that facsimiles in their ori-
ginal size would be desirable, as they were of great
importance from their situation, and probably the most
antient inscriptions in existence. I requested therefore
Mr. Hill to copy them. His drawings were compared
with the originals by Sir Robert Arbuthnot, Mr. Brettel
(a civil engineer), Mr. Raven, and myself, and are deposited
in the British Museum.
Sir Robert and Lady Arbuthnot, and her brother, Mr.
Fitzgerald (an officer in the fourth dragoons), arrived.
The weather was exceedingly hot, and the gnats and
other insects, particularly the small sand-flies, were very
troublesome. A number of Bedouins were continually
passing along the sandy plain below the tents, as the
proximity of the cultivated land afforded water and other
resources for their flocks of sheep and goats, and herds
of camels. They had few horses, and those very bad.
The camels travelled at the rate of about two and a half
miles per hour, in a desultory manner, wandering occa-
sionally from the direct path to crop any prickly herbage
that the desert might afford. The women were carried
by them in close howdahs, "or tents, made of blankets
stretched over framework; and were not only exposed, in
this confined situation, to the rough and irregular move-
ments of the camels, but to the intense heat of the sun,
and of the burning sands,—a mode of conveyance which
constant habit could alone make supportable. They feel,
259
quarries. The excavation under the roof of the Queen's
Chamber was resumed. Lady Arbuthnot's Chamber was
minutely examined, and found to contain a great many
quarry-marks. Notwithstanding that the characters in
these chambers were surveyed by Mr. Perring upon a
reduced scale, I considered that facsimiles in their ori-
ginal size would be desirable, as they were of great
importance from their situation, and probably the most
antient inscriptions in existence. I requested therefore
Mr. Hill to copy them. His drawings were compared
with the originals by Sir Robert Arbuthnot, Mr. Brettel
(a civil engineer), Mr. Raven, and myself, and are deposited
in the British Museum.
Sir Robert and Lady Arbuthnot, and her brother, Mr.
Fitzgerald (an officer in the fourth dragoons), arrived.
The weather was exceedingly hot, and the gnats and
other insects, particularly the small sand-flies, were very
troublesome. A number of Bedouins were continually
passing along the sandy plain below the tents, as the
proximity of the cultivated land afforded water and other
resources for their flocks of sheep and goats, and herds
of camels. They had few horses, and those very bad.
The camels travelled at the rate of about two and a half
miles per hour, in a desultory manner, wandering occa-
sionally from the direct path to crop any prickly herbage
that the desert might afford. The women were carried
by them in close howdahs, "or tents, made of blankets
stretched over framework; and were not only exposed, in
this confined situation, to the rough and irregular move-
ments of the camels, but to the intense heat of the sun,
and of the burning sands,—a mode of conveyance which
constant habit could alone make supportable. They feel,