Page:H. D. Traill - From Cairo to the Soudan Frontier.djvu/148

130 the base of the Colossus and see if you can happen upon a cartouche beginning with a hieroglyphic resembling a dicky-bird looking into a stable-bucket. Because that will be the signature of Septimius Severus Autocrator, the Johnny who"

"By Jove! Here's a find!"

"What is it? A scarab? Eh? Of the eighteenth dynasty? A relic of that infinitely dim and distant past which"

"Pooh!" exclaimed his companion, in a tone of withering contempt. "Infinitely dim and distant fiddlestick! Why, the whole show is an affair of yesterday. Late tertiary, every foot of it. You and your scarabs! No, no, my boy! Nothing so beastly modern as that. Look at it," he continued, holding out his treasure-trove. "Do you know what it is? No! Well, then, let me tell you that, from the geologist's point of view, it is the only thing of any decent age in the place. It's Xanthopsis Paulino-Würtembergicus, one of those fossil-crabs which the Arabs offer