Free De Potter's Grand Tour by Joanna Scott Page B

would say in their letters home, the group embarked up the Nile aboard a Cook’s steamer. They sat on a deck shaded by a large awning and spread with rugs, and while a dragoman in attendance poured filtered Nile water for those who were thirsty, Armand described the sights they passed: the white-winged dahabeahs moored under a bridge, the wooded island of Rhoda and its ancient Nilometer, clusters of mud huts, sugar factories, and white-domed mosques. They watched fellahin scoop water from the river and empty the buckets into tiny canals that laced the fields. Sometimes the villagers stood on the shore saluting them. At night, a stake was driven into the riverbank to moor the boat. The silence of the desert was unbroken, except when the captain chose to tie up the steamer near a sakiyeh, a wooden irrigation wheel turned by oxen. Then the passengers would have to try to fall asleep to the sound of the slimy wheel creaking for hours.

    On each stop—in Bedreshayn, Bellianah, Assioot, Denderah—they were met by a crowd of shouting, barefoot boys and braying donkeys. Using saddles Armand had rented in Cairo, the men and women of the De Potter party would mount the donkeys, the boys would brandish sticks, and the party would set off at a gallop, passing through palm groves and mud villages, along the edge of the desert marked by a stark line of yellow sand that bordered the green fields, between deep pits lined with shreds of mummy cloth, all in order to see the ruins of ancient temples, broken pieces of colossal statues, and tombs half-buried in the sand.
    Always at the Coptic monastery at Gebel-el-Ter, a naked monk would swim out to the steamer, begging for alms, and the passengers would make a game of dropping coins over the rail into his bucket. At Beni-Hassan, farther up the river, there would be more donkey boys waiting for the steamer, along with an especially large group of villagers. As they rode through the village, naked children would run alongside their caravan, offering dusty little bundles for sale that Armand explained were the mummies of cats dug up from an ancient cemetery in the neighborhood. He liked to surprise the Americans, who were easily disgusted, by purchasing a bundle for five piastres. Over the years he’d collected more mummified cats than he could count.
    But the tourists had to hurry if they wanted to keep up with their guide, especially once they’d disembarked at Luxor. Even Aimée was left behind when her husband dashed off through the maze of halls and chambers dug out of the solid rock of the mountains. Up the stone steps, down the sloping corridor, across enclosed terraces, and into the temple that had supplied Armand with the bulk of his collection: Deir-el-Bahari.
    Wait for your party, Prof. de Potter! But he couldn’t wait. He had to go ahead of the group to allow himself a minute alone. Since 1881, when the Abd-er-Rasoul brothers had finally been caught, archaeologists appointed by the Egyptian authorities had been hard at work. The first time Armand had visited Deir-el-Bahari, the one chamber that was open to the public still had a floor of rubble. Through the years, the ancient cenotaph became increasingly tidy, until Armand hardly recognized it. But each time he arrived there, he would stand in calculating silence, wondering if any new treasures had been found.
    The travelers never suspected that their guide was concerned with something more important than their interests as he led them through Deir-el-Bahari. Only Aimée knew the extent of his appetite for antiquities. And the next day, while they picnicked among the ruins of the Temple of Isis on the sacred island of Philae, only Aimée knew where he was going when he disappeared.
    On the rooftop terrace of the Temple of Isis was a small temple dedicated to Osiris, where Armand would retreat, leaving his wife to preside over the picnic and make up excuses for her husband while he indulged in a rare spell of