[Letters of Rev. Dr. Thomas McHutchin Cunningham] Page: 390 of 414

                                
Cairo, Egypt,
Friday Aug. 12
Yesterday morning we visited the museum with
all its Egyptian antiquities, and believe me,
they are antique. Naturally the most interesting
thing we saw there was the collection
from King Tut's tomb, and I was never more
surprised than when we learned that he became
king at the age of 12 and died of T.B. at 18.
All the statues of'hi show hi, to be a good
looking youth of that age. Was also impressed
deeply eith the fact that his kingly glory
was a great big swindle by which he just superimposed
his name over the works of former kings
and/ took 1ll the !glory to himself.
I
the afternoon we took autos out to .earnhis
ruins, where the ancient capitol of r;y-ot was
located, and saw the two huge statues of
Raimeses II. FroL there we drove tdreo the tomb
of a nobleman, which the  Tulde said was just
W  like all the tdomrs of the kinis inside the
pyramids. Allo the tomb of the 24 sacred
bulls which in some
respects is the most interesting
thing we have seen for the very fact
that animals could coxlmmand the worship Ci a
nation to the extent of building such enormous
and expensive burial places for them,  Theyp
are undex ground and you go thru great corridors
from one sarcophagus to another. Each
bull has a huge hollowed out stone with a lid
of the same material made of the finest st one
to be found and t transported over 600 miles
from the upper Nile and placed within great
pains and loss' of life in these subterranean
channel s
Frocl there we went across some desert land
to I^ena at the foot of the pyramids and 36
r  camels were waiting or us to carry us to our
caaup out beyond the pyramids.  Now, that
camel rite is something worth remembering.
Hilda had prepared ior it, accordin  V to the advice
of an English officer on the Lotus, and
tiea a towel securely around her waist; but I