380 EGYPTIAN ROCK-CUT TOMBS. 



Eternal Abode, " for according to the historian Diodorus 

 Siculus the house of the living was regarded by the 

 Egyptians merely as "an hostelry." It mattered little 

 in their opinions what became of it * ; but the tomb, 

 on which they lavished all their powers of ornamenta- 

 tion, was the place of permanent abode. Then came 

 the drifting sand, which blew in from the desert, and 

 covered everything over, so that for thousands of years 

 it has hermetically sealed up these wonderful places 

 of sepulture, so that many of them have been thus 

 preserved inviolate, not only from desecration by 

 human plunderers, but from the effects of atmospheric 

 changes, to the present day, with all their ornamenta- 

 tion, paintings and inscriptions still existing as clearly 

 cut and as bright and fresh as upon the day when 

 the mummy was placed there. 



As regards the wonderful completeness of this 

 process of preservation through the exclusion of the atmo- 

 sphere by the sand drift, we may mention a remarkable 

 instance of the way in which even the most unstable 

 impressions may be preserved, when undisturbed. It 

 was noticed by some of the explorers, on entering for 

 the first time into some of these ancient sepulchral 

 chambers, hitherto unviolated, that the footprints of 

 the slaves who had carried in the mummies, thousands 

 of years before, still remained visible upon the sand 

 which covered the floors, f 



It would be beyond the scope of this work to enter 



*" The Koran has very beautifully expressed its views upon the future 

 state as follows towards the close of Sura xix : " Verily this present 

 life is no other than a toy or a plaything, but the future mansion of 

 paradise that shall be life indeed." (See Sale's Koran, and other 

 English translations). 



t See Nile Gleanings, by Villiers Stuart, M.P., 1880, p. 31. 



