Series 03: John Brady Nash letters, January 1914-December 1915 - Page 134
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[Page 134]
today 'mongst the Chinese, in that the ambition of every young Chinaman is to be in a position to give to his parent a suitable coffin in which at death he may be buried.
In a place called Sakaraha [also spelt Saqqara], which was the burrying ground of Memphis, – this being the name of the City, which existed, on the banks of the Nile near here, before Cairo was, – under one of the ancient dynasties, 'twas the custom to encasket sacred bulls. Each of these had for himself a toomb magnificent in its proportions & grand in its decorations. "My Commedian" who nine times out of ten is wrong in his statements & opinions, said at breakfast that the bulls had been removed from the toombs to the Egyptian Museum. I therefore asked the Curator during my visit:- Where are the sacred bulls from Sakaraha? He replied:/ "I know but of the existence of two of them, and they are in New York. When Mr. Roosefelt [Roosevelt] was here he asked me the same question & when I told him that the two were in New York he nearly fell against the wall, & on recovering said, "Oh! I must look them up on my return to the United States, that they may be set out in some public place for general inspection" there are none of them here. – I do not know whether the bulls were buried in the flesh or by representation, probably in the flesh, becoming in due course mummified.
Some of the mummy figures of Rameses and other Kings of Egypt, were interesting to the student of anatomy, & had my leisure been more ample and my health better I would have learned more about them, but the place closed at 4-30 p.m., and I was wretchedly sick while wandering round, reading & listening to the curator.