whole series had turned up open, I found that both were private letters addressed in due form to the Honourable Cojhbo Sojaka, ` whose sight is dear to gods and men.' That this worthy officer had resided in the house I had already ascertained, from the address invariably borne by the office orders on the wedge-shaped tablets which had come to light in such numbers during the afternoon from above the floor of the same room. I wondered what the contents of those two letters might have been to induce Cojhbo Sojaka to keep them along with the deeds, etc., as
papers of value.
I felt like a real ` treasure-seeker ' as I extracted in the growing dusk, and later on by the light of a candle, one wooden document after another. But as the operation required much care in order to save the clay sealings from any risk of damage, I realised that my task could not be finished that night. So in order to protect the deposit against any attempt at clandestine digging on the part of the men who might be tempted to look in such a hiding-place for objects of more intrinsic value than mere wooden ` Khats,' I had the excavation in the floor carefully filled up again. Over the opened space I then placed my little camp table topsy-turvy, and by tying its legs with string to the wall posts and sealing the fastenings, I produced a sort of wire entanglement which the . cleverest poacher could not have removed without betraying himself. Honest Ibrahim Beg was made to mount guard over the treasures still left behind for the night. He had to sleep in Sojaka's old office room, and as no fire could be lit from fear of igniting the timber framework so brittle and dry, I fear that my Beg had to pass a cold night. Our minimum temperatures were already ranging about 18 degrees Fahrenheit.
As I put the seals on to the entanglement with my electrotype reproduction of a beautiful gold coin of Diodotos, the first Bactrian Greek king, showing Zeus hurling the thunderbolt, I thought how victoriously the art of the Greek die-cutter had survived all the vicissitudes of the ages. It was true, too, at this distant and strangely desolate site. For when at night I came
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