PREFACE TO REISSUE 



IN ancient Egypt the gentlemen-farmers of the Fifth and Sixth 

 Dynasties whilst yet alive caused their future sepulchres to be 

 adorned with representations of such scenes of daily life and 

 husbandry as to them were most pleasant and familiar. 



The study of these paintings and reliefs has delighted me 

 much to-day as it did when first I visited them in 1887. Whilst 

 considering them it occurred to me that in this book, by means 

 of the methods of my own age, I have unconsciously attempted 

 to follow the example of the authors of those rock-hewn manu- 

 scripts who lived some fifty centuries ago. 



Perhaps, I thought to myself, in times to be, when all is 

 changed again save the eternal ways of Nature that are the ways of 

 God, the word-pictures of my pages also may thus interest and 

 instruct unborn men of tastes akin to mine. 



Such is my hope. 



H. RIDER HAGGARD. 



( Written near the Pyramids of Gizeh on March 24, 1904, after 

 revisiting the tombs at Sakkara in Egypt.} 



