NOTES.

Timaru Herald, Volume XLII, Issue 3410, 1 September 1885, Page 2

NOTES.

New Zealand has received many strange visitors m its time, ard there is about to be addfd to the number probably the most novel importation that has yet come to lianJ. There is shortly expec'.ed to arrive m Wellington an Egyptian priest who has been dead about two thousand years. That is to say the mummy of this gentleman has beeu secured by an old Wiiirarnpa colonist, Mr 0. R. Carter, and presented to the Wellington Museum. Wo have no doubt it will be gladly welcomed by Dr Hector, who probably holds different views on the subject from those entertained by Mark Twain. The latter, it may be remembered, on being shown an Egyptian mummy aroused the ire of the foreign guide by enquiring if it were dead ? " Dead !" indignantly rejoined tlie much-injured cicerone, "It has been dead for two thousand years. l " "Oh," responded the American humorist, holding his nose, " take it away. If yon havo any nice fresh mummies trot them out !" The mummy now on its way to Wellington was fun .id at Akhinim, on the Nile, that strange city <'f tho dead, described m the Timaru I Herald of yesterday. It is enclosed m a Ciise of sycamore wood, and ia of the Ptolemaic period, so that, as tho official information procured by Mr Carter, and sent out with the mummy, shows, it cannot be less than 1914 years old, and may be as old aa 2207 years. We need not stay to moralise on the portentous changes which have taken place m the world's history during that time. Nor need we attempt to imagine what mi>;ht be the feelings of the unfortunate " defunct " if he were able to realise the altered condition of his country, and to know what was being done with his remains. There is an inscription on the case of tlie mummy, which is translated aa follows : — " Priest of tbo C4od Khora, named Petisiris, son of the mistress of tho bouso of Khcm, tho Priestess Kkorn-Nafriou. Ptolemaic period." The cost of embalming the body, according to a calculation made by Herodotus would be about £170 of our money. Whether it has proved to be worth this expenditure to preserve the poor remains to be carried off by sacrilegious strangers, transported 15,000 miles by sea, and placed m a glass case to be gazed at by irreverent colonials is a matter of opinion. After all, the Reverend Mr Petisiris — as one of the Wellington papers satirically calls him — is no worse off than thousands of his fellowc uir.trymen who, if report is to bo believed, have been used for stoking tho engines on the Egyptian railways, a purpose for which their bituminous preparation renders them admirably adapted. If the rumors and innuendoes m the Wellington papers are to be believed there will be some interesting revelations m connection with the recent tarring and feathering case near Wellington. There are most of the. elements m which the i public with questionable taste, seem to take delight. There is said to be a spice of domestic scandal about the affair, it is alleged that there is an attempt m high places to smother it up, and it is further hinted that a Minister of the Crown is likely to appear m connection with the case. Whether he is only a witness or has some closer connection with it is not explicitly stated. Some people have got an idea that tar must be used on the Ministerial Benches, judging from the closeness with which their occupants adhere to them, and it may be that the Minister is to bo called as an expert to epeak as to the adhesiveness of tar. Time will probably show.