address P.O. Cairo

My dear Smyly,
You will probably have been expecting
for some time to hear from me, but I have waited
to write until there was something good to report and
it has taken till now. We are just entering on
the 14th week of our excavations,² the greater part
of the time having been devoted to Ptolemaic cemeteries,
but until the last week with extraordinarily
bad luck. Not that we have failed to find
papyrus mummies; they have turned by the
hundred. At Dimeh there thwo splendid
cemeteries of them, one 3d cent B.C., the other other
second, sometimes 10 or 15 in a tomb, but
practically all had completely decayed__
as seems inevitable save when the tombs are
very shallow, the mummification very good and
the desert of a particular kind.³ Down to a
a week ago the cemeteries of 3 different
sites (Kom Ushim, Dimeh and Rubayyat)
had proved almost a blank. The last week

however we have been digging a fourth
Ptolemaic cemetery which has got papyrus
mummies, and though here too much has
decayed we have raised about 20 out of it
in good or very fair condition.⁴ So at least there
is something solid, and, as we have still two
more cemeteries near here (Rubayyat where we are
camped) to dig, we are, I hope, far from the end yet.⁵
But it will take a good deal to compensate us for
the reallly herculean efforts we have made. It
has been an exhausting season. While on the
north side of Birket el Ḳurûn for two months
we had to have everything, even fresh water, brought
over by boat from the south side (1 1/2 hours)
and owing to gales were occasionally left
in the lurch, though we never actually had a
water famine.⁶ The scene of the work varied
from 2 to 7 miles [sic] distance from the camp
which had to be pitched on the edge of the
lake in a swamp.⁷ Hunt got a touch of
malaria in January, but a week in Cairo
set him all right again.⁸ The last month since
we have been at Rubayyat has been much

more comfortable; we are on the edge of the
cultivation and civilisation instead of 16
or miles or more from it by land.⁹ The cemetery
we are digging at present is however 4 miles
off¹⁰ which makes a fatiguing day of it. I start
off at 6.30 a.m. and dont return till 6.30. p.m.
In order to get on fast, I have 130 workmen now
partly Arabs, partly fellahîn, who tend to
quarrel a good bit.¹¹ One of the periodical fights occurred
the other day, and I descended into the arena to part
them with the result that my shoulder is still stiff
from the vigour with which I belaboured the
heads of both parties!¹²
Despite the heat which will soon be rather
excessive, we expect to go on digging till
April 20,¹³ so it will be May by the time
I am back probably.¹⁴ I hope the Press sent
you ^or Mahaffy proofs of the Amherst vol. (the Ptolemaic
portion).¹⁵ Could you kindly return them
to Oxford by the end of April. We have to
finish the vol. was soon as we get back, so
it will be June before we can start

the crocodiles.¹⁶ Has anything good turned up
in the papyri you have?¹⁷
The bad luck which has attended us this year
will partly be made up by other discoveries.
Jouguet has been digging at Medinet Madi
and though he didnt find anything there, the
natives got hold of a good ^Ptolemaic cemetery about
6 miles away, so he was able to cut in
and find some papyrus mummies.¹⁸ He came
to pay us a visit in Dec. and we became great
friends.¹⁹ But nature did not design a Frenchman
of the Midi for either a scholar or an excavator²⁰
At Illahun also last autumn one of the Museum inspectors
(a native) dug up a few papyrus mummies,
mostly in rather bad condition and late (I noticed
one dated in the 50th year of Euerg. II).²¹ Jouguet
had when we were in Cairo got hold of these, but
now that he has found some of his own, he may be
less keen, and I will try and arrange with the
Museum people that they should be sent over for
Mahaffy and you.²² But of course I can promise
nothing He (M.) will have to restrain his
impatience again about our finds of this year

for they wont get published till 1903— if then.²³
Returning to England so late this year, we
shall be more pressed for time than ever
this summer, and there is I fear little chance of
our visit to Dublin coming off. But you
will I hope come to Oxford.²⁴ It is a great pity
you cant visit us out here. To get up at 5.30
ad be out 12 hours every day would do you
a lot of good.