CHAPTER XII FOURTH MISSION TO THE SUDAN (1905).

The work connected with my mission to the SOdan in 1903 having been concluded, Sir Reginald Wingate approved of the results, and determined to continue archaeological investigations in that country so soon as funds were available, and the opportunity for making use of them presented itself. During the winter of 1903-4 no actual excavations were carried out by the Government, but the importance of preserving the antiquities which still exist in the Sudan was generally recognized, and the Governor-General and his staff were actively employed in formulating plans on a comprehensive scale, with the view of establishing a central authority having power to excavate ancient sites systematically, and, when possible, to remove all important monuments to a place of safety in Khartum. In fact, besides contemplating the making of excavations. Sir Reginald Wingate determined to found a Museum at Khartum, wherein monuments belonging to all periods of Sudan histor}' might be made available for examination and study by travellers of all kinds.

The idea was an extremely good one, for it is manifestly useless to dig up antiquities until a place exists wherein they can be stored. When Sir Reginald came to England in the summer of 1904 he told me about his plan, and I at once urged him to begin to collect from various sites between Haifa, at the foot of the Second Cataract, and Kerma, at the head of the Third Cataract, the monuments which I had seen lying about when I visited them some years previously, i.e., in 1897 and 1898. It was then quite impossible to remove these monuments to Europe, or even to put them in a place of safety, and as it seemed most unlikely that they had been carried off between 1898 and 1904, it was certainly worth 436 I J