Not being able to get an answer from Mr. B., the figure turned
peevishly to Mr. Gliddon, and, in a peremptory tone, demanded in
general terms what we all meant.
Mr. Gliddon replied at great length, in phonetics; and but for the
deficiency of American printing-offices in hieroglyphical type, it
would afford me much pleasure to record here, in the original, the
whole of his very excellent speech.
I may as well take this occasion to remark, that all the
subsequent conversation in which the Mummy took a part, was carried on
in primitive Egyptian, through the medium (so far as concerned
myself and other untravelled members of the company)- through the
medium, I say, of Messieurs Gliddon and Buckingham, as interpreters.
These gentlemen spoke the mother tongue of the Mummy with inimitable
fluency and grace; but I could not help observing that (owing, no
doubt, to the introduction of images entirely modern, and, of
course, entirely novel to the stranger) the two travellers were
reduced, occasionally, to the employment of sensible forms for the
purpose of conveying a particular meaning. Mr. Gliddon, at one period,
for example, could not make the Egyptian comprehend the term
"politics," until he sketched upon the wall, with a bit of charcoal
a little carbuncle-nosed gentleman, out at elbows, standing upon a
stump, with his left leg drawn back, right arm thrown forward, with
his fist shut, the eyes rolled up toward Heaven, and the mouth open at
an angle of ninety degrees.
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