Chapter 4 Summary

Amelia and Evelyn leave early the next morning on their trip up the Nile with Lucas wishing them bon voyage with an armload of flowers. Once on the water, Peters describes the sight as it truly may have been in 1884, the first day's excursion is a memory Amelia holds dear for years. Their first stop is at Beni Hassan to visit the tombs from the time of Usertsen of the Twelfth Dynasty. The accompanying village is typical, with its mud huts and filthy living conditions and the ubiquitous begging and attempts to sell antiquities, both real and manufactured. Amelia begins to see why Emerson's tirade against the practice was so passionate. Unconsciously, Amelia takes up the cause and becomes a rabid protector of the priceless objects destined to be lost to science and scholarship for years. "Some years later these same splendid tombs...