Page:H. D. Traill - From Cairo to the Soudan Frontier.djvu/233

 world. There must be many and many a counterpart of the exquisite little tomb of the "Temple servant Nekht," lying hidden under the wind-blown sands of the Libyan desert, in the vast Necropolis of Thebes.

At present, however, this singular and most touching relic of an infinitely remote civilisation is practically unique. The only tombs which approach it in purely human interest are those of Ameni and Chnemu-Hetep, on the hill of Beni Hassan, for in the long autobiographical inscription with which the tomb of the former is decorated, there is something which comes much closer home to the common sympathies of mankind in every age than in all the monotonous boastings on the temple-wall of the king. It is in the same complacent vein, it is true, but it awakens a response in hearts which the epic of Pentaur leaves utterly cold. "I have done all that I have said," wrote this provincial governor 2400 years before Christ. "I am a gracious and a compassionate man,