S74 Facsimiles of Ancient Inscriptions. [Oct. 



but of a rude workmanship. In the one toward the sea is an Arabic 

 inscription cut on a stone placed in a recess. Around the mosque a 

 great number of monumental stones are placed upright in the ground 

 at the heads of the persons whom they commemorate ; many are 

 well carved, and beautifully adorned with flowers and other ornaments, 

 some in the Cufic, some in the Arabic character. As the stones are in 

 general of a portable size, Mr. Salt was desirous of taking one away, 

 but as he was assured by the priest that this could not be done without 

 express permission from the Nayib of Massowah, he contented himself 

 with taking a copy of one inscription which seemed to be held in the 

 highest veneration, though externally it had nothing to recommend 

 it, being indifferently carved and having a corner broken. The priest 

 informed him that it belonged to the Shekh or Sultan who built the 

 tanks. It is immediately opposite to the principal mosque, and by 

 the natives constantly kept moist with oil." — Vol. II. p. 41. January 

 14, 1805. Dhalac el Kibeer. " At daylight I (Mr. Salt) went with 

 Abdallah and the two Europeans to the northern mosque for the 

 purpose of getting possession of some of the monumental stones 

 mentioned in my former account. The best finished inscriptions 

 were engraved on stones too heavy to carry away. I therefore made 

 choice of two of the most perfect carved in different characters that 

 were portable, and wrapping them up very carefully, proceeded back 

 to our lodgings, not quite satisfied, I own, with the propriety of what 

 I was about." 



Mr. Salt goes on to describe the contentions and dangers he had to 

 encounter, and the bribes he had to pay before he succeeded in 

 packing off his sacred spoils. " When the trouble and expense, adds 

 Mr. (now Sir G.) Haughton, that have attended the procuring this 

 tombstone are considered, it will be matter of regret with every one 

 that these had not the good fortune to be bestowed on some object of 

 greater interest." 



The foregoing extract will serve, mutato loco, to detail the process of 

 abstraction of the gravestone our museum boasts, if its removal be 

 an object to boast of at all : — at any rate it affords us an authentic 

 sample of the genuine Cufic character of eight centuries ago, and as 

 such it is abstractedly worthy of a place among our other palseogra- 

 phic monuments. But it is Mr. Haughton's description of the stone 

 itself which may stand totidem verbis as the descriptive roll in our 

 museum catalogue. " The stone which is an unknown misshapen 

 mass and very hard is of that variety of the trap family of rocks to 

 which the term clinkstone seems the most applicable, from the sound 



