the de

history of Dr. Ferlini's discoveries, and will presently lay before my readers in a translation, the most important parts of his account. For two reasons this will draw to itself the whole attention of every one, who is not accustomed to stop at the surface of what he sees. First indeed, that in a man who for twenty years had led a very active life as a practising physician in Albania, Greece, and Egypt successively, and might now at length return with a well-earned fortune to his home, termined impulse should at once arise, to seek for curiosities and treasures among these mysterious relics of a grey antiquity, -even risking the loss of his property so laboriously acquired. And in the second place, that this quite irresistible attraction, resting merely upon a dim presentiment, spite of all obstacles, and after it already seemed that all hope must be given up, has yet actually led to a result so splendid, a reward so rich.

It must be allowed that the whole affair is a little disenchanted and brought down, by the circumstance, that Ferlini himself cared little for finding any but particularly costly objects. Not the less does his decided presentiment, and its complete confirmation through this discovery, remain a remarkable psychological fact. Certainly, when a Columbus stakes everything on a like undoubting presentiment of the existence of transatlantic countries, year after year moves high and low to assist in the execution of his plans, at last actually discovers a fourth quarter of the globe, we feel more deeply the meaning of that beautiful saying of Schiller,

"Nature is ever in alliance with Genius;

The one keeps the promise of the other."

And yet with Columbus also it was originally rather instinct, the unconscious presentiment, that the reality must respond to his effort; and if he thought of the advantages of a possible discovery, they were far more material and nearer at hand, rather contemplating his own emolument and that of the crown, than any distinct internal prophecy of the development of European humanity in a transatlantic region. In short, we always come back to this; a presentiment lay in the mind, a possibility of a foreseen future and destiny, through some means, which as yet has no existence, or as yet exists not for us; - and it is the same, which moves strongly in the animal world, leading the bird of passage upon his journey, and guiding with certainty to her young the dove who has been carried more than fifty miles from her nest. But it is interesting, when we meet such facts in the life of man, to consider and preserve them. And as a fact of this kind, we may certainly regard these discoveries of Ferlini. I hope, therefore, that his own communications, which follow, will not fail to excite the interest of our readers.

He tells his story thus.

"Ever since my residence in Greece and Egypt, I had had the idea of making some discovery useful to history. For this end I sought to gain the good opinion of the Governor. After some months an opportunity occurred of asking his permission to undertake excavations in the places where old monuments were found. The Pacha was astonished at my request, and told me of all the dangers to which my undertaking was exposed; he also represented to me that, though he had given me permission, he would only allow me to work, upon my promising to pay the laborers. I also ran the risk of losing my savings for full four years. He advised me to satisfy myself with what I had, and even told me that I exposed myself to certain death by my covetousness, since the blacks, whom I must employ, were so malicious and cruel, that in case I should discover anything of value, I might be certain they would take my life, in order to possess themselves of my treasure. Finally, the Governor told me, that since he had no great authority in the desert, through which the way to Sabdarad lay, he could give me no perfect guarantee of my safety. As the Governor saw meanwhile, that his remarks made no great impression upon me, he promised me, that he would grant my wish, as soon as another physician could be procured to take my place. As soon as I heard that my successor had set out from Cairo, I called upon Sig. Antonio Stefani, an Albanian, and made him a partner in my undertaking, since he knew the country better than I, having already carried on a trade there for fifteen years. I promised him half the fruits of our discoveries, gave him four hundred Spanish dollars, and sent him to Musselamiah to buy camels, ropes, grain, leather bags, and the necessary instruments for excavation. Musselamiah is a large village three days journey from Cartum, in the interior of the peninsula, where a market is held once a week. I bought large stores of meat and cut it in strips, which were dried in the sun, as is the custom of the country.

"I took into my service thirty resolute young men, and promised each of them two Spanish dollars a month, and his food. After fourteen days came Stefani with twenty-seven camels, provisions, and tools. We now only waited for Sig. Gallina, my successor, who arrived the 10th of August, 1834. The next morning I sent forward the camels, the servants, and some slaves by land, and embarked with Sig. Stefani and our families.

At Vod-Benaga, after three days journey, I sent my companion to the Turkish governor of the village, who lived in Sendih, to show him the form of permission which the Pacha had given me. The Governor commanded all the servants of

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the state to let me dig unmolested wherever I would, and guaranteed the reward which I was to give the workmen, since hitherto no enterprise of the kind had been ventured upon in his district. My family and Sig. Stefani's remained in Vod-Benagas. We took servants, provided ourselves with water and food, and set out toward the desert named Galah-Volet-Mamouth, eight hours' distance from the Nile, where stands a very beautiful temple, whose outside is covered with hieroglyphics. We passed the first day in making strong hedges of thorny twigs, to protect us from the lions, which are very numerous in these remote places. The next morning we explored with great care the outside of the temple; and since it was half buried in sand, we tried to clear this away by help of baskets made of ox-skin, which I had had made at Vod-Benaga. We tried particularly to remove the sand from the eastern side, in hope of finding the entrance, but it was without success; then we attempted it at the principal façade, but our efforts were no more fortunate. Afterward, we began on the west side, but as we saw that all our efforts were unsuccessful, we wholly gave up this undertaking. We were indeed constrained to this by many other urgent reasons; five of our camels had died, the others were sick, exhausted, and worn out by the long marches which they must make to the Nile; the water and the food were unhealthy, our people had the colic, and a little negro, the son of a female slave, who prepared our wretched meals, had already died. We journeyed away, therefore, and turned toward Volet-Ahsan, to seek less dangerous places, and thus approached within two hours' journey of the Nile. We found here another temple still smaller than the former. We first made an enclosure of thorns, to protect ourselves from the lions, who, urged by hunger, howled every night in our neighborhood. I began then to examine the temple, but found after three days, that in our want of good nourishment and fresh water, we were in no situation to continue so laborious a life. That we might no longer labor without result, and so lose our money, we set out to return to our families. The day after our return to our tents, we received visits from a great number of the inhabitants of the little neighboring villages, who came to beg for employment. We gave to each the fifteenth of a dollar. Their beasts of burden supplied us with water, while our camels went to the Nile, where they found rich pastures, that they might thus restore their exhausted strength. There are at Vod-Benaga many pillars standing, the remains of an old temple of very rude workmanship. I sought out the part, which had served the ancient inhabitants as a burial place, and began my excavations as soon as I had found it. First, I discovered a large antechamber,

similar to the subterranean galleries of the Roman catacombs. This antechamber was many fathoms in circumference, and contained a number of closely covered Burmes, a sort of vases made of burnt clay, such as the blacks still use in their houses for carrying water.

"The discovery of these vases excited great astonishment among the workmen, who believed that they should find gold in them. To undeceive them, I raised one of the vases in my hand, and dashed it to the ground so that it broke. It contained nothing but earth kneaded with water. I examined this earth in hope of finding in it some amulet or a scarabæus; I found nothing either in this vase or in the others, which I afterward broke. I made a final examination in the depths of the gallery, and saw by the lamplight in a pit several feet deep many corpses, which showed nothing remarkable, except the one which lay in the middle and under a stone. This one had a sabre on the one side, a lance on the other, and a bow and arrows. Hardly had I touched them, when the oxydized weapons broke, with the exception of some arrows, which were covered with a sort of plating. I carried away these relics, which seemed to me to be interesting.

"After some days of unprofitable labor, I determined to have excavations made in the town, where I had found some remains of pillars, and I very soon found at that place a splendid pilaster of red granite and quadrangular form. Each side was three fathoms high, half a fathom broad. At about a third of the height the pilaster was ornamented on every side with a band formed of hieroglyphics, which enclosed various symbolic figures. On one side were two men and a woman, all naked; on the other side two other figures. The two remaining sides were similar, but with different figures. Since it was impossible to transport this large stone on the backs of our camels, I attempted to break off the lower part of it, that I might at least have the hieroglyphics, but the granite was so hard that the attempt failed. I tried to get off a tolerably large piece of it, by cutting with saws and with water, but could only make a superficial impression. I was obliged to give up the undertaking, and gave the pilaster in charge to the chief of the town of Vod-Benaga, with injunctions not to part with it without my orders. I afterwards presented it to M. Minaut, the French consul at Cairo.

"As we continued our excavations, we discovered a place paved with red bricks, in the middle of which stood a pillar. This building had probably served the Egyptians as a dwelling, since it had still the diminutive form of the houses of the present day. I found there a little mask cut in jet, which I took away

with me. Farther on, we discovered a red granite similar to the first, but larger and better carved. I let it be again covered with earth. At last we found a temple in ruins, of which the savages had injured the decorations. With this we ended our examinations, whose insignificant results were neither sufficient to pay the cost, nor to reward us in the least for our labor. We proceeded no farther in our examination of Vod-Benaga, left the town, and turned toward Begaraviah, where the great Pyramids are. In this still region, the seat of ancient greatness, I had already long designed to seek some monuments, which were fitted to throw light upon the history of so interesting a part of the world, which had hitherto been visited only first by Sig. Belzoni, and by me.

"We fixed our tents near the village of Begaraviah, which is not far distant from the Nile, and hired some negro-huts. We employed a part of our people in making baskets of ox-skin, which were designed for the removal of the earth. The rest of the slaves must remain to take care of the camels. We then went to the Pyramids, which we saw at an hour's distance.

"We first passed through the old town of Meröe, which is almost wholly covered with sand, and found there only some sphinxes of black granite, which were injured and partly destroyed. Not far from the town many simple pyramids are to be seen in ruins, and we found a hill in the neighborhood, whose summit was crowned with one-and-twenty pyramids, ruined principally on the top. A single one was yet nearly uninjured. On the east of it we found eight other smaller ones, which were in very good preservation. At the foot of the hill we saw still others, smaller, of which only the Portico or Sanctuarium, covered with hieroglyphic inscriptions, remained uninjured. Here I wished to begin my labors, but my friend Sig. Stefani induced me first to make a trial in the town, which lay near the avenue of the Sphinxes. Four days after our arrival we set up our encampment, and requested laborers from the Sheik, or lord of the village. At first they came unwillingly, fearing that they should not be paid, but afterward so many offered themselves that we had to send them away. We began our digging in a sort of dwelling, which seemed to have been destroyed by the hand of man. We found in it a head of a mace covered with a blue enamelled lacker, and an ichneumon of serpentine. We continued to explore, in the hope of finding something valuable, but in vain. We must go farther. I left Sig. Stefani, and took a hundred men with me to examine the great Pyramids. Some days later my friend discovered another larger dwelling, but there was no advantage from this either, since he found nothing but a little idol of burnt and lackered