The Last Camel Died at Noon by Elizabeth Peters Page B

hair. The vault of heaven blazed with stars that cast a mystical glow along the sides of the pyramid. Feeling like a queen enthroned, surrounded by kneeling courtiers, I sipped my whiskey and opened my senses to the allure of the desert wastes. And when Emerson sighed deeply and remarked, 'Ah, my dear Peabody; life cannot hold any greater charm than this,' I was forced to agree that he was right.

    We began next morning to make key plans of the pyramids. A certain amount of excavation was necessary to establish, as far as was possible, the original dimensions, but our main focus, as Emerson insisted, was that of recording. Since my dear Emerson's real passion is digging things up, this was a sign of his genuine concern for scholarship over treasure-hunting. After comparing the plans of Lepsius, drawn in 1845, with what remained, I was shocked to find how much the monuments had deteriorated in half a century. Finding traces of recent and hasty, excavation at the base of the best preserved of the pyramids, Emerson blamed all of the depredation on Budge, but as I pointed out, even Budge could not have done so much damage in a few hours. Time, and the treasure-hunting instincts of the local villagers, must be partially responsible.

    From these villages, scattered along the riverbank, we procured our workers, and being old hands at organising excavations, we soon had a routine worked out. The men were divided into three groups, under the command of Emerson, myself, and Ramses. I must admit that Ramses was a great help, though I soon got tired of hearing Emerson congratulate himself on insisting the boy come with us. Ramses, of course, was in his element, and it was rather amusing to hear his shrill voice shouting out orders in his extremely colloquial Arabic and increasingly fluent Nubian. His linguistic abilities impressed the men, who had been inclined at first to treat him with the same amused tolerance they showed their own progeny.

    By the end of the work week we had a pretty fair idea of the general plan of the site. A pyramid of considerable size must once have dominated the area; it had completely collapsed, and additional work would be necessary to determine its original dimensions. In front of it, in a rough semicircle, were four smaller pyramids, with another row of ten pyramids to the southeast. Lepsius's original plan showed a number of smaller, shapeless masses of stone clustered west and north of the great(!) pyramid and scattered at random among the others. We found ten such mounds not shown on his map. At that point we were forced to break off work for the inevitable day of rest. Our men were Moslems, most of the Hanafi sect; their holy day was, of course, Friday. Emerson was all for continuing the work without them, pointing out, with perfect truth, that the surveying itself required no more than three people. However, I persuaded him that we also deserved, if not a day of rest, at least a brief period spent at the camp and the nearby market. We needed supplies, more camels, and, if possible, more workers.

    We had offered to let our men leave on the Thursday evening, but they refused with thanks and with a great shuffling of feet and sidelong glances. They were afraid of jinn and ghosts, which as all men knew came out in the dusk. So the following morning they all scattered to their villages and we set out for the camp. In the relative cool of the morning the ride was pleasant enough, and as we drew near Sanam Abu Dom, the view of the great mountain across the river became increasingly impressive. I was particularly struck by several oddly shaped rock formations that resembled the great statues of Ramses II at Abu Simbel. Emerson, who had been staring at the mountain with greed writ clearly across his handsome countenance, muttered, 'That is the greatest temple of Nubia, Peabody. Excavation there would undoubtedly produce invaluable historical material. Since we are at loose ends today - '

    'We are not at