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- Herausgeber: Booksell-Verlag
- Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
- Sprache: Englisch
Delve into the monumental discovery of King Tutankhamun's tomb through the lens of exploratory narrative and vivid descriptive accounts in 'The Discovery of Tutankhamun's Tomb.' This anthology captures the historical, cultural, and archaeological significance of the excavation, bringing together a range of styles from detailed observational reports to reflective essays. Each piece stands out for its immersive quality, drawing readers into the dynamic world of early 20th-century Egyptology and the groundbreaking journey led by those who unraveled the mysteries of the boy king's resting place. The anthology's contributing authors, notably Howard Carter and Arthur Cruttenden Mace, bring vast expeditions and scholarly expertise to the collection. Their collective work aligns with the rich tradition of archaeological exploration and historical inquiry that defined an era. These narratives not only document the tangible treasures uncovered but also the profound cultural insights gained, showcasing a blend of firsthand experiences and scholarly analysis that illuminate the tomb's historical context and its impact on the understanding of ancient Egypt. Savor this unique volume as an unprecedented opportunity to engage with multiple perspectives on a singular historical event. The expertly curated voices within offer both educational enrichment and inspiring discourse, underscoring the invaluable dialogues sparked among archaeologists, historians, and enthusiasts. 'The Discovery of Tutankhamun's Tomb' enriches readers' appreciation of the intricate tapestry of human history through meticulous documentation and interpretations of one of its most fascinating chapters. In this enriched edition, we have carefully created added value for your reading experience: - A succinct Introduction situates the work's timeless appeal and themes. - The Synopsis outlines the central plot, highlighting key developments without spoiling critical twists. - A detailed Historical Context immerses you in the era's events and influences that shaped the writing. - A thorough Analysis dissects symbols, motifs, and character arcs to unearth underlying meanings. - Reflection questions prompt you to engage personally with the work's messages, connecting them to modern life. - Hand‐picked Memorable Quotes shine a spotlight on moments of literary brilliance. - Interactive footnotes clarify unusual references, historical allusions, and archaic phrases for an effortless, more informed read.
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023
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The Discovery of Tutankhamun's Tomb
Table of Contents
Introduction
At the meeting point of persistence and buried memory, a patient excavation becomes a reckoning with time, method, and the magnetic pull of the past. The Discovery of Tutankhamun’s Tomb by Howard Carter and Arthur Cruttenden Mace presents a firsthand narrative shaped by careful observation and discipline rather than drama. It invites readers into the deliberate pace of fieldwork, where each decision is weighed against the irreversible consequences of disturbing the ancient. The book’s power lies in the authors’ presence at the scene and their commitment to reportage, offering a measured account of a moment that reshaped archaeology and captured worldwide attention.
Situated firmly within historical nonfiction, the work unfolds in the Valley of the Kings in Egypt, focusing on the 1922 breakthrough and the methodical months that followed. Composed by the expedition’s lead excavator, Carter, with contributions by Mace, it draws on contemporary notes, diaries, and official records. First released in the years following the discovery, with material disseminated across multiple volumes, the book stands as a primary-source chronicle. Readers encounter a textured document of its era: field procedures, institutional protocols, and the evolving standards of archaeological practice are framed within the context of early twentieth-century exploration.
The premise is direct and compelling: sustained, systematic searching culminates in the identification of a sealed royal burial, and the authors guide readers through the ensuing steps of investigation. Carter’s voice emphasizes clarity and sequence, explaining how work was planned, executed, and verified; Mace reinforces the practicalities of excavation and conservation. The mood is restrained yet suspenseful, with tension emerging from the stakes of each measured advance rather than from sensational revelation. Stylistically, the prose favors precision, situating observations in time and space so that the reader can follow the logic of procedure and the ethics of restraint.
Themes of perseverance, meticulous documentation, and collective responsibility shape every stage of the story. The book underscores how archaeology depends on patience, record-keeping, and the ability to pause rather than rush. It foregrounds the craft of excavation—survey, stratigraphy, cataloging, conservation—presented as interlocking safeguards against loss. The authors treat the site as an archive to be read, not merely a cache to be opened, and they highlight the necessity of coordinating specialists and resources. In doing so, the narrative elevates process over spectacle, inviting readers to appreciate how rigor turns chance discovery into lasting knowledge.
Without straying into conjecture, the account also signals its historical moment: a high-profile excavation carried out under official oversight and shaped by international attention. The book conveys the logistical and administrative frameworks that governed the work, including permits, security, and the protocols that guided access and documentation. It registers the pressures that public interest can impose on scientific practice, while maintaining a focus on method. This context helps readers understand how the discovery intersected with broader debates about stewardship, ownership, and the responsibilities of researchers working amid cultural heritage of global significance.
For contemporary readers, the book resonates as a study in best practices and their limits—how evidence is gathered, how uncertainty is managed, and how decisions travel from the trench to the historical record. It prompts reflection on conservation ethics, the custodianship of material culture, and the expectations placed on those who interpret the past. By attending closely to what can be observed and verified, Carter and Mace model a disciplined humility that remains relevant to researchers, students, and general readers alike. The work demonstrates how transparency, collaboration, and documentation anchor credibility in the face of extraordinary finds.
Approached as an immersive field narrative, The Discovery of Tutankhamun’s Tomb offers an experience of steady revelation rather than sudden spectacle, guiding readers through preparation, observation, and cautious advance. It rewards those interested in how knowledge is built—incrementally, publicly, and under scrutiny. Without leaning on embellishment, it evokes the atmosphere of the site and the concentration required to work within it. Readers come away with an appreciation for the procedures that protect context and meaning, and for a landmark episode in archaeology presented by those who were there, intent on recording rather than mythologizing what they witnessed.
Synopsis
The book presents Howard Carter and Arthur Cruttenden Mace’s factual account of the search that culminated in the discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb. It opens by outlining the Valley of the Kings after decades of excavation and the prevailing belief that most royal burials had been found. With Lord Carnarvon’s sponsorship, Carter resumed work on a concession long considered exhausted. The narrative establishes the archaeological context, constraints imposed by the Egyptian Antiquities Service, and the disciplined planning behind the project. It emphasizes the objective: to verify whether an overlooked burial, possibly that of the little-known king Tutankhamun, still lay concealed beneath debris near familiar sites.
Carter details the preparatory seasons, explaining survey methods, labor organization, and the careful sifting of spoil heaps. He describes reading the valley’s topography, pottery scatters, and ancient workmen’s traces to guide trenching. The team’s reasoning focused attention on ground near the tomb of Ramesses VI, where huts and rubble might mask earlier features. Interrupted by war and funding pressures, the work proceeded methodically, with measured grids and meticulous recording. Mace’s role in site management and logistics is noted, as are the stringent permit conditions governing finds and publication. The narrative stresses perseverance through unproductive campaigns while preserving a clear strategy for the next season.
The breakthrough arrives with the uncovering of a cut step descending into bedrock in November 1922. Carter recounts the cautious clearing that exposed a sealed doorway stamped with official necropolis seals, indicating a royal context. The team halted, secured the area, and notified Carnarvon, adhering to protocol. Upon the patron’s return, they reopened the staircase, verified the seals, and prepared to penetrate the first blocking. The account emphasizes procedure: witness presence, notes, sketches, and the immediate decision to proceed no further without full documentation. The moment balances excitement with restraint, setting the tone for the methodical approach that follows throughout the excavation.
Entering the outer chamber, the team saw a densely packed assemblage, much of it disordered but largely undisturbed since antiquity. Carter lists major categories: chariots, ceremonial couches, boxes, weapons, and statues, all layered with dust and fragile gilding. He describes the tight quarters and risks to unstable artifacts. The narrative then turns to organization: dividing space into zones, assigning object numbers, and initiating systematic photography under Harry Burton. The authors note the presence of an additional sealed doorway, hinting at the burial chamber beyond. Decisions prioritized stabilization and recording over rapid removal, to preserve context and ensure accurate publication.
The book outlines the site’s practical challenges: crowd control, official oversight, and the need for on-site conservation. Under the Antiquities Service, inventories were checked, seals monitored, and transport procedures agreed with Cairo authorities. Carter and Mace detail the improvised laboratory where conservators, notably Alfred Lucas, consolidated flaking surfaces and softened resins. Media attention intensified, but the narrative keeps focus on technical routines: lighting and exposure for photography, packing protocols, and daily logs. The team coordinated skilled workmen, guards, and specialists to prevent loss or damage. Each step balanced accessibility for inspection with the security necessary to protect a uniquely rich assemblage.
With the antechamber stabilized and recorded, attention shifted to the sealed doorway leading inward. Breaking through revealed the burial chamber and the immense nested shrines that surrounded the sarcophagus. The account catalogs inscriptions, protective symbols, and the arrangement of funerary equipment, noting where ancient intruders had disturbed items without fully plundering them. Measurement, drawing, and photography proceeded in sequence before any component was moved. The authors present this as a staged operation across seasons, constrained by climate, permit schedules, and the fragility of organic materials. The emphasis remains on context, ensuring that each artifact’s original placement was understood before extraction.
Further clearance exposed a treasury side room with a canopic shrine guarded by statues, ritual vessels, and models, amplifying the scale of the find. Carter and Mace recount lifting shrine panels, planning the sarcophagus opening, and assessing challenges posed by hardened unguents binding wrappings and gilded elements. The text details the specialized tools, scaffolding, and lifting gear employed, and the need to pause for chemical treatments. Progress is presented deliberately, with continual reference to checklists, photographs, and cross-referenced notes. The narrative marks milestones without dramatization, underscoring that gains were products of patience, coordination, and adherence to scientific standards.
Beyond the sequence of operations, the book summarizes what the tomb’s contents reveal about Eighteenth Dynasty craftsmanship, court life, and funerary belief. It links inscriptions and iconography to the king’s identity and the restoration of traditional religion following Amarna-period changes. The authors highlight materials and techniques—wood gilding, inlay, textiles, and resins—while connecting objects to their ritual functions. They stress how an intact royal assemblage illuminates relationships between artisans, state ideology, and burial practice. Rather than drawing speculative conclusions, the narrative confines itself to evidence-based observations grounded in provenience, enhancing the scholarly value of each documented piece.
The closing chapters reflect on the discovery’s significance: the rare preservation of a near-intact royal burial and the demonstration of rigorous archaeological method. Carter and Mace credit the collaboration among excavators, conservators, photographers, Egyptian officials, and local workmen, noting that successful clearance depended on their combined expertise. The account ends with the ongoing nature of analysis, conservation, and publication, emphasizing that the tomb’s meaning emerges through sustained study, not a single moment of revelation. The book’s central message is clear: disciplined planning, careful recording, and respect for context turn a remarkable find into enduring historical knowledge.
Historical Context
The book is set chiefly in the Valley of the Kings at Thebes (modern Luxor), where the tomb later cataloged as KV62 was excavated between 1922 and the later 1920s. Its scenes extend to Cairo, especially the Egyptian Museum (opened 1902), where finds were conserved and displayed. The temporal frame spans the late British Protectorate in Egypt (1914–1922) and the early years of the independent Kingdom of Egypt under King Fuad I (from 1922). This was a winter-season world of archaeological camps, desert logistics, and administrative oversight by the Egyptian Antiquities Service, in which Howard Carter, with A. C. Mace, documented methodical excavation, conservation, and cataloging work amid shifting political authority.
British occupation of Egypt began in 1882 after the ‘Urabi revolt, installing a colonial regime that shaped archaeology for decades. Under Consuls-General such as Lord Cromer, British influence over finance and administration enabled aristocratic patrons to fund digs and secure concessions. Lord Carnarvon, Carter’s patron, arrived in this milieu, wintering in Luxor and backing systematic exploration of the Theban west bank. By 1914 Britain declared a Protectorate, deposing the Khedive and tightening control. The book’s narrative unfolds within this imperial framework: British-led teams operate under Egyptian law but with social privilege, access to foreign media, and resources that made long, expensive field seasons possible.
Egyptology’s professionalization and the authority of the Egyptian Antiquities Service profoundly shape the book’s world. Gaston Maspero (Director-General, 1899–1914) and Pierre Lacau (1914–1936) consolidated laws on excavation and partage, promoting scientific methods and state oversight. Carter’s own career followed this institutional arc: trained as a draughtsman for the Egypt Exploration Fund in the 1890s, he became Inspector of Monuments for Upper Egypt (1899–1905) before resigning after the Saqqara incident. When he returned under Carnarvon’s patronage (from 1907), he applied increasingly rigorous recording, conservation, and photography. The book mirrors these reforms through its emphasis on stratigraphy, controlled clearance, numbered object registers, and collaboration with museum specialists.
Theodore M. Davis’s concession (c. 1902–1914) had transformed the Valley of the Kings, revealing tombs such as KV46 (Yuya and Tjuyu, 1905) and KV55 (1907). In 1912 Davis declared the valley “exhausted” and relinquished his rights. Yet clues persisted: an embalming cache (KV54, 1907) bearing Tutankhamun’s name, stray seals, and distribution of workmen’s huts suggested to Carter that a royal burial remained hidden near the tomb of Ramesses VI. In 1914 Carnarvon obtained the Valley concession. The book recounts how Carter’s hypothesis, grounded in prior finds and topographic logic, guided trenching that eventually exposed the stairway to the sealed doorway of KV62.
World War I (1914–1918) halted most large-scale digging as Egypt, under British Protectorate status, became a military base with martial law. Carter maintained staff and equipment but major excavation in the valley paused until 1917. Political turbulence soon followed: the 1919 Revolution led by Saad Zaghlul and the Wafd Party mobilized nationwide strikes and demonstrations against British rule. Britain granted unilateral independence on 28 February 1922, and Fuad I became king; a constitution followed in 1923. The book reflects this conjuncture: work resumed in a nationalizing state, and the discovery in late 1922 occurred amid heightened Egyptian claims over antiquities and symbolic heritage.
The discovery and clearance of Tutankhamun’s tomb (1922–1932) form the core historical event the book documents in granular detail. On 4 November 1922, Carter’s team uncovered the first step of a stair descending toward a sealed doorway; on 26 November, after breaching the second sealed portal, Carter peered in and later reported seeing “wonderful things.” Officials from the Antiquities Service, Lord Carnarvon, and Lady Evelyn Herbert supervised formal openings on 29 November. On 16 February 1923 the burial chamber was revealed, enclosing the stone sarcophagus within four gilded wooden shrines. Carter organized a large Egyptian workforce, while Harry Burton of the Metropolitan Museum produced superb glass-plate photographs, and A. C. Mace led conservation efforts stabilizing fragile wood, textiles, and gilded surfaces. A media storm followed an exclusive agreement with The Times of London; after Carnarvon’s death on 5 April 1923 from an infected mosquito bite, international newspapers fueled “curse” sensationalism. Administrative tensions with Director-General Pierre Lacau over guest access and ownership culminated in the 1924 closure; work resumed in January 1925 under stricter protocols. In 1925 Dr. Douglas Derry conducted the anatomical examination of the mummy; the nested coffins and the gold mask emerged as resins were painstakingly softened and removed over 1925–1926. Systematic cataloging produced 5,398 object numbers, all destined for the Egyptian Museum in Cairo under evolving patrimony rules. The expedition’s interpretive and technical record was embodied in Carter and Mace’s volumes The Tomb of Tut-Ankh-Amen (vol. I, 1923; vol. II, 1927), with Carter completing vol. III in 1933 after prolonged clearance and study.
Egyptian nationalism and the redefinition of cultural patrimony decisively shaped outcomes. Legal reforms before 1914 had regulated partage, but after the 1919 Revolution and 1922 independence, Lacau tightened enforcement so that intact royal burials would remain national property. Disputes in 1924—sparked by a private viewing in the tomb—led to a suspension that signaled Cairo’s resolve. The assassination of Sir Lee Stack (1924) and ensuing diplomatic crises intensified sensitivities, yet the government held firm: the Tutankhamun assemblage would not be divided. The book registers these shifts in its restrained acknowledgments of permits, inspections, and final disposition of finds to Cairo, documenting a turning point in Egypt’s control over its ancient heritage.
As a social and political critique, the book (largely unintentionally) exposes hierarchies of colonial archaeology: European patrons and directors command headlines and scientific authority, while hundreds of Egyptian laborers and foremen sustain the enterprise with limited recognition. Its careful accounts of permits, inspections, and disputes chart the contest over knowledge, media access, and ownership—highlighting exclusive press deals, diplomatic leverage, and bureaucratic checks under a nascent Egyptian state. By foregrounding conservation, controlled method, and state oversight, it implicitly critiques earlier treasure-hunting norms and dramatizes the transition to national stewardship, revealing class divides, imperial privilege, and the emerging claim of Egyptians to define and protect their past.
THE LATE EARL OF CARNARVON.
From a Photograph by F. J. Mortimer, F.R.P.S.
The Discovery of Tutankhamun's Tomb
Dedication
With the full sympathy of my collaborator, Mr. Mace, I dedicate this account of the discovery of the tomb of Tut • ankh • Amen to the memory of my beloved friend and colleague
who died in the hour of his triumph.But for his untiring generosity and constant encouragement our labours could never have been crowned with success. His judgment in ancient art has rarely been equalled. His efforts, which have done so much to extend our knowledge of Egyptology, will ever be honoured in history, and by me his memory will always be cherished.
INTRODUCTION
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF THE LATE LORD CARNARVON
By Lady Burghclere
If it is true that the whole world loves a lover, it is also true that either openly or secretly the world loves Romance. Hence, doubtless, the passionate and farflung interest aroused by the discovery of Tut•ankh•Amen’s tomb, an interest extended to the discoverer, and certainly not lessened by the swift tragedy that waited on his brief hour of triumph. A story that opens like Aladdin’s Cave[2], and ends like a Greek myth of Nemesis[3] cannot fail to capture the imagination of all men and women who, in this workaday existence, can still be moved by tales of high endeavour and unrelenting doom. Let it be gratefully acknowledged by those to whom Carnarvon’s going must remain an ever-enduring sorrow, that the sympathy displayed equalled the excitement evoked by the revelations in The Valley of the Kings[6]. It is in thankful response to that warm-hearted sympathy that this slight sketch of a many-sided personality, around whom such emotions have centred, finds place here as introduction to the history of that discovery to which the discoverer so eagerly devoted his energies and ultimately sacrificed his life.
To those who knew Lord Carnarvon[1], there is a singular fitness in the fact that he should have been the hero of one of the most dramatic episodes of the present day, since under the quiet exterior of this reticent Englishman, beat, in truth, a romantic heart. The circumstances of his life had undoubtedly fostered the natural bent of his character. Bom on June 26th, 1866, George Edward Stanhope Molyneux Herbert, Lord Porchester, enjoyed the inestimable privilege of being reared in an atmosphere coloured by romance and permeated by a fine simplicity. Nor was he less happy in his outward surroundings. Even when matched against the many “stately homes of England[4],” Highclere must rank as a domain of rare beauty. Much of its charm is due to its contrasted scenery. From the close-cropped lawns, shaded by giant cedars of Lebanon, where in a past century Pope sat and discoursed with his friend, Robert Caroline Herbert, the godson and namesake of George II’s queen, the transition is brief to thickets of hawthorn, woods of beech and oak, and lakes, the happy haunts of wildfowl; while all around stand the high downs either densely timbered or as bare and wild as when the Britons built their camp of refuge on Beacon Hill, the great chalk bastion that dominates the country-side. To children nurtured on Arthurian legends it needed little mental effort to translate the woodlands, where they galloped their ponies, into the Forest of Broceliande, or the old monkish fishponds, where they angled for pike and gathered water-lilies, into that magic mere which swallowed up the good blade Excalibur; whilst a mound rising from a distant gravel-pit merely required the drawbridge, erected by the obliging house carpenter across its surrounding trickle of water, to become Tintagel.
If, as any Catholic priest would assure us, the indelible impressions on the human mind are those stamped in the earliest years, Porchester graduated in a school of Romance and Adventure. Moreover, hereditary influences combined with environment to give an individual outlook on life. The son of two high-minded parents who were ever striving to give practical effect to their ideals for the benefit of others, there was nothing to unlearn in the early education. Indeed, it can confidently be asserted that, throughout his childhood, the curly-headed little boy neither heard nor witnessed anything that “common was or mean[1q]” The village, the household, were members of the family. It was the feudal, the patriarchal system at its best, the dreams of “Young England[5]” realized. For the law that governed the community at Highclere was the law of kindness, though kindness that permitted no compromise with moral laxity. An amusing commentary on the standards recognized as governing—or at any rate expected to govern —home life, was furnished on one occasion by the children’s nurse. One of her nurslings, throughly scared by the blood-curdling descriptions of Hell, and Hell-fire, contained in a horrible little religious primer, “The Peep o’ Day” (now mercifully discarded by later generations) administered to her by an injudicious governess, naturally turned to the beloved “Nana” for consolation. She did not seek in vain. “Don’t worry, dearie, over such tales,” said the good old woman, “no one from Highclere Castle will ever go to Hell!”
By common consent, Porchester’s father, the fourth Earl of Carnarvon, was regarded as a statesman who had never allowed ambition to deflect him by a hair’s breadth from the path mapped out by a meticulous conscience. But although he had resigned from the Derby-Disraeli Government rather than support the Franchise Bill of 1867, he was the reverse of a reactionary. Both in imperial and social schemes he was far in advance of most of his contemporaries on both sides in politics. Indeed, it is interesting to speculate how much of blood and treasure would have been spared to this country if the measures and judgment of this truly Conservative statesman had commanded the support of the Cabinets and party with which he was connected. Little boys are not interested in politics—except in lighting bonfires to celebrate successful elections— but whatever are the eventual developments, environment and heredity are the bedrock whence character is hewn. The fifth Earl of Carnarvon— the archaeologist—in his physical and mental “makeup,” to use the modern phrase, did not recall his father. But it was from the latter that he inherited the quality of independent thought, coupled with an extreme pleasure in putting his mind alongside that of other men. Moreover, the power of scholarly concentration which he brought to bear on the many and varied subjects in which he was interested, was certainly part of the paternal heritage, for the fourth Earl was one of the finest classical scholars of his generation. Indeed, there are those still living who can bear witness to his faultless Latin oration as Viceroy at Trinity College, Dublin, and remember his admission, when pressed, that he could as easily have made the speech in Greek.
In 1875 a shadow fell across the boy’s life. His mother died after giving birth to a third daughter. The shadow was destined to be enduring, since Evelyn Stanhope, Lady Carnarvon, was one of those rare women who are in the world and yet not of it, and the want of her clever sympathy was a lifelong loss to Porchester. His whimsical wit and her keen sense of humour were made for mutual understanding. She would have helped him to overcome the ingrained reserve, which it needed the action of years to wear away, at the outset interpreting an unusual character to the world, and the world to her son.
Even when the surviving parent is as devoted a father as was Lord Carnarvon, it is perhaps unavoidable that the mother’s death should bring an element of austerity into children’s lives, though it also tends, as it certainly did in this instance, to tighten the links between brother and sisters. After their mother’s death, Porchester, or “Porchy” as he was then habitually called, and the little girls were, however, unspeakably blessed in the devoted affection lavished upon them by their father’s sisters Lady Gwendolen Herbert and Eveline, Lady Portsmouth. The former was a delicate invalid around whose sofa young and old clustered, secure of sympathy in sorrow or in joy. The fact that an unhappy chance had cheated her of her share of youth’s fun and gaiety made her the more intent on securing these for the motherless children, in whose lives she realized her own life. She was the natural interpreter when vengeance threatened to follow on chemical experiments resulting in semi-asphyxiating and wholly malodorous vapours, or when excursions amongst water-taps sent cataracts of water down the Vandycks. The schoolroom discipline of the ’seventies was not conceived on Montessori lines. The extreme mildness of Lady Gwendolen’s rule did not always commend itself to tutors and governesses. They recalled that a spear, which at his earnest entreaty she had bestowed on Porchy, was fleshed in a valuable engraving; while another of her gifts, a large saw, was regarded as so dangerous that it became “tabu” and hung suspended by a broad blue ribbon, a curious ornament on the schoolroom wall. Nor can it be denied that to present a small boy with half-a-crown to console him for breaking a window is a homœopathic method of education, which would excite protests from pastors and teachers of any age. But despite her unfailing indulgence, her influence was never enervating. It is what we are, not our sayings, and still less our scoldings, that count with those keen-eyed critics,[2q] the younger generation. Naughtiness in Gwendolen’s neighbourhood was unthinkable. In her own person she so endeared the quality of gentleness—not a virtue always popular with the young of the male sex—that Porchy’s sisters and small half brothers never suffered from roughness at his hands. A tease he was, a terrific tease then and to the end of life, in sober middle-age getting the same rapture from a “rise” out of his friends or family as a fifth-form school boy. But the strand of gentleness that ran through his nature was not its least attaching quality, fostered in those early days by the one effectual method of education, the example of those we love.
Long years afterwards when her nephew laid Lady Gwendolen to rest at Highclere, he reverted with grateful tenderness to the memories, the lessons of that selfless love. “What a blank.” he wrote, would the absence of “that little figure in grey” mean to him at the family gatherings, the christenings, the weddings, where her presence carried him back to all the lovely memories of childhood.
Never robust, it is doubtful whether Lord Carnarvon would have accomplished even his brief span of life but for the part played in his boyhood by Lady Portsmouth and her home, Eggesford, which became his second home. The England of the seventies was still an age of hermetically closed windows, overheated rooms, comforters and—worst horror of all—respirators. Fortunately for the boy, Lady Portsmouth, a pioneer in many phases of work and thought, was a strenuous advocate of open air. The delicate, white-faced child, after a couple of months spent in hunting and out-of-door games with the tribe of cousins in North Devon, was transformed into a hardy young sportsman. At Eggesford horses and hounds were as much the foreground of life as politics and books at Highclere. “Mr. Sponge’s Sporting Tour” replaced “Marmion,” though it was “The Talisman” and “Ivanhoe” that Lady Portsmouth read aloud to the family in the cherished evening hour, the climax of the busy, happy day at Eggesford. Different as the two houses might appear, they were, however, alike in essentials. They owned the same ethics, they acknowledged the same standards. Highclere could not be called conventional. But Eggesford, in a country which before the advent of the motor preserved much of the flavour of the past, was distinctly unconventional. The meets brought into the field a motley assembly of men, boys, horses and ponies, such as probably outside Ireland could have been collected in no other comer of the United Kingdom. Of these not the least individual figure was Lord Portsmouth, probably the most popular M.F.H. in England. Seldom, indeed, can goodwill to men of goodwill have been more clearly writ large on a human countenance than on this great gentleman’s, whose very raciness of expression only the more endeared him to the Hunt.
In later life Lord Carnarvon’s friends often noted with amusement his fondness for those they describe as “quaint personalities.” It may be that this taste owed its origin to those holiday hours spent waiting for the fox in spinneys, and by larch woods dappled with the early greenery of the incomparable West Country spring-tide. Perhaps it was there also that he received lessons in a less facile art than the observation of the quaint and curious. The perfect ease of friendship, a friendship that excludes alike patronage and familiarity, was the keynote of the old M.F.H.’s intercourse with man, woman, and child on those mornings. It was much the same keynote that governed Lord Carnarvon’s relations with persons whose circumstances and mentality might seem to set a wide distance between them. Those who travelled with him on his annual journey—or progress rather—from Paddington to Highclere at Christmas can never forget the warmth of greetings his presence called forth in the railway employees of all grades, from inspectors to engine-drivers. The festival gave them and gave him an opportunity of expressing their feeling, their genuine feeling for one another. It is no exaggeration to say that it was a moving scene, singularly appropriate to the celebration of the great family feast of the year.
A private school and Eton are the successive steps which automatically prepare a boy in Porchester’s position for a future career. His private school was not happily chosen. It subsisted on its former reputation, and neither diet nor instruction was up to the mark, but he was at least fortunate in emerging alive from an epidemic of measles, which the boys Created by pouring jugs of cold water on each other when uncomfortably feverish.
To the end Eton retained in his eyes that glamour which marks the true Etonian, and his tutor, Mr. Marindin, shared in that affection. Yet it was something of a misfortune that school did nothing for the formation of methodical habits in a boy endowed with an exceptionally fine memory and unusual quickness. It would, for instance, have been a blessing if an expensive- education had taught him to answer his letters. Thus, on one occasion, literary circles rang with the wrathful denunciations of a distinguished critic, who had vainly applied to Lord Carnarvon, as heir to the eighteenth-century Lord Chesterfield, for information regarding that statesman’s relations with Montesquieu. It was known that the author of “L’Esprit des Lois” had visited either Chesterfield House or Bretby. where it was presumed that some trace of the visit might be found. On inquiry it transpired that Lord Carnarvon had spent hours, if not days, searching the library at Bretby, a library collected entirely by Lord Chesterfield, for any vestiges of Montesquieu. But the search having proved vain, it had not occurred to Carnarvon to send a postcard to that effect—if only to point out how much trouble he had taken on an unknown stranger’s behalf.
Before he left home for school, tutors and governesses had pronounced Porchy to be idle; and probably, as in the case of most active young creatures, it was no easy task to hold his sustained attention. Yet, judged by the less exacting standards of the present day, a child of ten would now scarcely be considered backward who was bilingual—French being the language used with mother and teachers—was possessed of a fair knowledge of German, the Latin Grammar, and the elements of Greek, and sang charmingly to the old tin kettle of a schoolroom piano. Labels are fatal things. Once labelled idle it is the pupil and not the instructor who earns the blame. Perhaps also the perfection of the father’s scholarship was a stumbling-block to the son. It is one of life’s little ironies, on which schoolmasters should ponder, that a man destined to reveal a whole chapter of the Ancient World to the twentieth century, frankly detested the classics as taught at Eton.
The fourth Earl was too sensible to insist on his son pursuing indefinitely studies doomed to failure. Porchester left Eton early to study with a tutor at home and abroad what would now be called the “modern side.” The amount of strenuous scientific work achieved in the little laboratory by the side of the lake at Highclere or during walking tours through the Black Forest was probably small; but at any rate these two wanderjahren left him in possession of a store of miscellaneous information seldom accumulated by Hie average schoolboy— the very material to stimulate his natural versatility. Some months were spent at Embleton under the tuition of the future Bishop of London, Dr. Creighton, to whose memory he remained much attached. Work with crammers in England and at Hanover with a view to entering the army formed the next phase. The project of a military career, however, proved evanescent; and in 1885 Lord Dorchester was entered at Trinity College, Cambridge. It was characteristic that being struck with the beauty of the panelling in his college rooms, he offered the authorities to have the many coats of paint disfiguring the woodwork scraped off and the rooms restored at his own expense—an offer unfortunately refused. Collecting was not then the universal mania it has now become, but the undergraduate was father to the man who was eventually regarded as a court of appeal by the big dealers in London. But long before Cambridge curiosity shops had been his happy hunting grounds. As a little lad, besides the stereotyped properties of the average schoolboy, the inevitable stamp album, and a snake—the latter housed for a whole term at Eton in his desk—when he had a few shillings to spare, blue and white cups, or specimens of cottage china, would be added to his store of treasures. He was still at Cambridge when he began collecting French prints and drawings, notably the Bops drawings, now highly valued by connoisseurs, then bought for a few francs.
Nevertheless, at this period, sport rather than antiquities was the main interest of the young man’s life, and it is to be feared that he was more often seen at Newmarket than at lectures. His father hod recently built a villa on the Italian Riviera, at Porto Fino, a lonely promontory, then absolutely remote from tourists, as a deep chasm in the high road leading to the little seaport formed an effectual barrier to communications, save by sea, with the outer world, As a means of locomotion Porchester acquired a sailing boat, and therewith acquired a passion for the water. The Mediterranean is not the halcyon lake it is sometimes painted by northern imagination. Indeed, Lerici, with its tragic memories of Shelley, is a warning, almost within view of Porto Fino, of the risks that attend on the mariner who neglects to shorten sail when a sudden gust sweeps down from the over-hanging mountains. These squalls more than once nearly brought about the end of the young “milord,” the Italian boatmen having a tiresome habit, at such crises, of falling on their knees to invoke the Madonna, while Porchester and his stolid English servant were left unassisted to bring the boat to harbour.
To the born adventurer the zest of adventure lies in its flavour of danger, and it was the hazards run on these excursions that inoculated him with the love of seafaring. When he left Cambridge in 1887 he at once embarked in a sailing yacht for a cruise round the world, and hence forward it may be 6aid that the lure of adventure never ceased to haunt him. From Vigo he sailed to the Cape Verde Islands, the West Indies, paused at Pernambuco, and then let drive for 42 days on end through the great solitude of the tropical seas till he brought up at Rio. It was on this voyage that he acquired the passion for reading, which was to be the mainstay of his existence, a gain which was cheaply purchased at the cost of those long months spent under the Southern Cross. He was wont to say that, fond as he was of sport and motoring, he would gladly never stir out of his chair if only when he finished one absorbing book, another equally absorbing could drop into his hands. Thus, the curtain being rung down on his academic studies, the once idle undergraduate flung himself with avidity into the pursuit of knowledge, and especially of History, certain periods of which he studied with the meticulous research of a professor preparing a course of lectures.
Life on board the Aphrodite was not, however, solely dedicated to placid readings of successive series of improving tomes. There are bound to be pleasant and unpleasant episodes on a long voyage and the young man had his fill of both. In a high gale, while the captain lay unconscious and delirious. Porchester took command, and luck and u good first mate being with him, brought the yacht safe to land. Again, when one of the crew injured himself, and the ship’s doctor was forced to operate, it was Porchester who, his linger on the man’s pulse, administered the chloroform with the neatness and calm of a professional anaesthetist. At Buenos Aires, then in the floodtide of prosperity, with two Italian Opera companies performing nightly to Argentine millionaires, the young Englishman met with a cordial welcome from all classes of the community, native and foreign alike. In the style of the traditional “milord” he feasted the President on the Aphrodite —the first yacht to cast anchor in Argentine waters —while he also made friends with men of business, the Admiral commanding the British Squadron and the Italian Opera singers. He rather plumed himself on the latter company having once called on him to replace their missing accompanist at a rehearsal; he admitted—for he loved telling a story against himself—that the request was never repeated, as he insisted on taking the artists according to his, rather than according to their, notion of time.
Of all these acquaintances and friendships Admiral Kennedy’s undoubtedly was the most valuable, since it was thanks to his vigorous remonstrances that Porchester finally abandoned his projected journey through the Straits of Magellan, which, at the wrong time of year and in a sailing boat, the admiral declared to be suicidal. The complete tour of the world planned by Porchester therefore failed, but the journey was rich in experiences of all kinds to a young man fresh from college.
From Buenos Aires, Porchester returned in somewhat leisurely manner homewards. Many of the places he visited were terra incognita to the Englishman of that date, and even now are unfamiliar to the average tourist. In the Great War he was one of the few people able to give a first-hand description of the scene of the battle at the Falkland Islands, where he had predicted that the decisive fight for the control of the South Atlantic must take place.
From these early travels he brought back, however, something more than acquaintance with the waste places of the earth, beautiful scenery or strange types of humanity. In these wanderings he also saw something of the elemental conditions of life, where a man’s hand must needs keep his head, an experience too often denied to the rich man of our latter-day civilization. A bibliophile, a collector of china and drawings and, indeed, of all things rare and beautiful, with a fine taste intensified by observation and study, his happiest hours were probably those when the unsought adventure called for rapid decision and prompt action. But it should be understood that the adventure must be unsought, for no one was ever less cast in the mould of a Don Quixote. His courage was of that peculiar calm variety which means a pleasurable quickening of the pulse in the hour of danger.
On one occasion in his youth he hired a boat to take him somewhere off the coast to his ship lying far out to sea. He was alone, steering the little bark rowed by a couple of stalwart fishermen. Suddenly, when far removed from land, and equally distant from his goal, the two ruffians gave him the choice between payment of a large sum or being pitched into the water. He listened quietly, and motioned to them to pass his dressing-bag. They obeyed, already in imagination fingering the English “Lord’s” ransom. The situation was, however, reversed when he extracted, not a well-stuffed pocket-book, but a revolver, and pointing it at the pair sternly bade them row on, or he would shoot. The chuckle with which he recalled what was to him an eminently delectable episode, still remains with his hearer.
Truth compels his biographer to admit that he did not always emerge so triumphantly from his adventures. His next long journey was to South Africa. From Durban he wrote to the present writer, announcing his intention to go elephant hunting; and hunting he went, but the parts of hunter and hunted were reversed. Accompanied by a single black, he lay in wait in the jungle for an elephant, and in due course the beast made his appearance. Porchester, generally an admirable shot, fired and missed him, and after a time, seeing no more of his quarry, slid down the tree where he was perched, intending to amble quietly homewards. To do this, he had to cross a piece of bare veldt which cut the forest in two. He was well in the middle of this shelterless tract, when he perceived that he was being stalked by the elephant, saw’ he had no time to re-load, and took to his heels with a speed he had never imagined he could compass. His rifle, his cartridge pouch, his glasses, his coat were all flung away as he ran for dear life, with the vindictive beast pounding on behind him. To him, as to the Spaniard, haste, on foot at least, had always been of the devil. Yet now, with life as the goal, it was he who won the race. He reached the friendly jungle, again climbed a tree and was saved. To be chased by an elephant and escape, he was afterwards told, was a more unusual feat than to bring one down to his gun. Eventually, he became one of the half-dozen best shots in England, but never again did he go elephant hunting.
The journey to South Africa was followed by another to Australia and Japan, whence Porchester returned in the early summer of 1890, happily just in time to be with his father, during Lord Carnarvon’s last illness mid death.
The new lord was only 23 when he entered on his heritage, and save that his passion for sport kept him at Highclere and Bretby during the shooting season, and his love of the Opera for a few weeks in London during the summer, he remained constant to his love of travel. He would suddenly dash off to Paris or Constantinople, Sweden, Italy or Berlin, for long or short periods, returning home equally unexpectedly, having collected pictures and books and any number of acquaintances and friends, some of whose names, unfamiliar then, have since loomed as large in the world’s history as they did in the young traveller’s tales. Not that at this phase he was unduly communicative. He rather affected the allusive style, as “when I saw the chief of the Mafia in Naples”—a style eminently adapted to whet curiosities which he would then smilingly put by, to the despair of a hearer who naturally wished to know how he came across that mysterious potentate. His sense of fun made him more explicit with regard to his efforts to achieve acquaintance with another lurid character. This was no other than the late Sultan “Abdul the Damned,” with whom during one of his visits to Constantinople, Carnarvon was seized with a desire to obtain an interview. Carnarvon’s wardrobe was never his strong point. He had no uniform, but he furbished up a yacht jacket with extra brass buttons and hoped bis attire would pass muster with the Chamberlain’s department. His name having been submitted through the Embassy to the proper quarters, he was informed that an equerry and a carriage would convey him to the Yildiz Kiosk. On the appointed day the official made his appearance wearing, however, an embarrassed air, for he had to explain that H.M., though profoundly desolated, found himself unable to receive his lordship. “Perhaps another day?”—” No, the Sultan feared no other day was available, but as a slight token of his esteem, he begged Lord Carnarvon’s acceptance of the accompanying high order.” Carnarvon declined the order, which he would certainly never have worn, and was left equally vexed and puzzled. It took some time to arrive at any explanation, but at last this was achieved.
His father, the fourth Earl of Carnarvon, had travelled extensively in Turkey, with the result that he retained a profound horror of the misgovernment of that unhappy country and an equally profound sympathy for the persecuted Christian races. He became the Chairman of the Society for the Protection of the Armenians and was regarded as one of their chief sympathizers. This was known to Abdul, though neither he nor his ministers had realized that this Lord Carnarvon was dead, and that a young man, bearing his name indeed, hut otherwise not having inherited his political views or influence, was the English lord who had requested an audience of the Sultan. Abdul lived in perpetual dread of assassination, and in especial of assassination by one of the race he had so cruelly persecuted. He therefore jumped to the conclusion that Lord Carnarvon had asked for an interview with the purpose of killing him, and firmly declined to allow the supposed desperado to enter his presence. Lovers of history, like Carnarvon, are anxious to come face to face with those who, for good or ill, are the makers of history. Consequently he was genuinely disappointed at the failure to see one of the ablest though most sinister of these latter-day figures. But the notion of his father, of all men, being regarded as a potential murderer was too ludicrous not to outweigh the vexation, and he frequently had a quiet laugh over this side of the story.
In later life, when he was largely thrown into their company, “The Lord,” or “Lordy” as he was called by the Egyptians, contrived to establish more points of contact with Orientals of all classes from pasha to fellah than is usually possible to the Western man. But indeed he had an undeniable charm, which, when he chose to exert it. attracted the confidence of men and women all the world over. An instance in point which also illustrates the mingled shrewdness and whimsicality of his character concerned a visit to California. On his way thither he paused in New York, where he had promised a friend he would try to obtain information respecting a certain commercial undertaking. The fashion in which he sought for information was, to say the least, highly original. For it was of his hair-cutter that he inquired as to the person in control of the venture. The hair-cutter having proved, strange to say, able to enlighten him on the subject. Lord Carnarvon wrote a note to the financier in question requesting an interview. In due course he was received by a typical captain of industry, with eyes like gimlets and a mouth like u steel trap, who must have admired the candour of the stray Englishman asking him straight out for advice. The magnate listened courteously to his request for information and then unequivocally urged him on no account to touch the stocks. Carnarvon looked hard at him, thanked him, and went straight off to the telegraph office, where he cabled instructions to buy. He then departed to California, where he fished rapturously—he delighted in all varieties of sport—for tarpon. Six weeks later he returned to New York to find that the shares had soared upwards, and that his city friend was in ecstasies at the profit made owing to Carnarvon’s decision. He then asked for another interview with the financier, and was again chilly received. This time, Carnarvon explained that he felt he could not leave America without returning thanks for advice which had proved so profitable that it had defrayed the expenses of a very costly trip. Hie magnate stared and exclaimed, “But Lord Carnarvon, I advised you against buying.” “Oh, yes, I know you said that, but of course I saw that you wished me to understand the reverse.” There was a moment’s pause and then the great man burst into a roar of laughter, held out his hand and said, “Pray consider this house your home whenever you return to America.” “And was your captain of industry the most interesting person you met on that journey?” his hearer inquired. “Oh dear no!” was the characteristic reply, “the most interesting man by far was the brakesman on the railway cars to California. I spent hours talking with him.”
