THE EGYPTIAN SUDAN received an intimation that Sir Reginald Wingate was about to visit Kasala on a tour of inspection, and that he would have his train stopped at the point on the line nearest the Pyramids, and that he wished us to come and report to him concerning the work we had done. He was to arrive about six o'clock in the morning, and at dawn on the day he was expected we walked across the desert to the railway, and the special train made its appearance soon after we reached the line. ' Sir Reginald approved of the work which had been done at Sulb and Semna, and of the antiquities which we had collected for the Khartum Museum, and then discussed at length the plans for the preservation of the reliefs in the queen's chapel. In the course of our talk he asked, " What " examples of funerary sculptures from the Island of Meroe have " you in the British Museum ? " and I told him that we had none, for all the stone altars and other objects which had formerly existed at Wad Ba Nagaa and Gebel Barkal, as well as several reliefs from the chapels which we had cleared out, had been taken to Berlin by Lepsius in 1844. To this he replied that he would present to the Trustees of the British Museum all the reliefs from the south wall of the queen's chapel, whilst those from the north wall should go to Khartum, where he would have them built up in the new Museum when it was ready to receive antiquities. Thus the Trustees of the British Museum would be able to fill up a gap in their unrivalled collection with an important example of Meroitic sculpture, the Khartum Museum would receive its counterpart, and make accessible to every visitor to Khartum the finest set of Meroitic funerary reliefs known, and both walls of the chapel would be lodged in places of safety once and for all.

Sir Reginald then gave the Inspector and myself permission to take down the walls stone by stone, and ordered the boxes, in which we were to pack the stones of the wall which he had given to the Trustees of the British Museum, to be sent carriage free so far as the First Cataract (Shellal). A little later his train moved off on its way to Ad-Damar, and we returned to the Pyramids to carry out his instructions.

Taking down the north and south walls of the chapel was not a difficult task, and when all the stones had been carefully 502 J