THE EGYPTIAN SUDAN " had not found the gold rings in the sepulchral chambers with "the mummies, where they alone might reasonably have been "searched for with any hope of success, but walled up in the " stone, in which place they had been concealed by a whim of "the owner. I endeavoured to convince Osman Bey of this also, " who even offered me the aid of his companies of soldiers to "conduct the work of destruction. I naturally declined this, " though perhaps I should have accepted it for the sake of laying " open to view the sepulchral chambers, which necessarily must " have their entrance in front of the Pyramids in the natural rock, " had I not feared that here also we might not arrive at any " brilliant result, and even if our own expectations were not so, " yet those of the credulous general might be bitterly disappointed.

" I succeeded in diverting him from his idea, and thus for the "present, at least, the existing Pyramids have been saved. The "soldiers have departed without having made war on the " Pyramids."

Now besides the scientific interest which Sir Reginald Wingate took in the pyramids of Bagrawiya, he wished, if possible, to make them and their chapels accessible to the visitors to the Sudan, and this could only be done by clearing away the sand which had drifted up the sides of several of them, and by making roads, with side-paths between the most important of the pyramids. In fact, he decided to do for the chief pyramid-field in the Sudan what Mariette and Maspero have done with such conspicuous success for so many of the great temples of Egypt. When I first went to Meroe in 1898-1899 only three of the chapels could be entered, and even these were half filled with sand ; all the rest were choked with stones which had fallen from the pyramids, or had formed the roofs and walls of the chapels, and with drift-sand, and to reach any one of them was a tedious piece' of work. The artillerymen started by making a good broad path, several feet wide, along the west sides of the pyramids, and then, having cleared away the masses of stones which lay round the most northerly pyramids, they turned round and made a road in front of the chapels, on the east side, from north to south. Paths were then made between the pyramids to join these roads, and thus the men were enabled to save much time in getting to their work. Paths were 340 i