task which he had set himself as a boy.

His work, however, lived after him.

Others continued his studies and today Egyptologists can read
hieroglyphics as easily as we can read the printed pages of our
newspapers.

Fourteen pictures in twenty years seems very slow work. But let me tell
you something of Champollion's difficulties. Then you will understand,
and understanding, you will admire his courage.

The old Egyptians did not use a simple sign language. They had passed
beyond that stage.

Of course, you know what sign language is.

Every Indian story has a chapter about queer messages, written in the
form of little pictures. Hardly a boy but at some stage or other of his
life, as a buffalo hunter or an Indian fighter, has invented a sign
language of his own, and all Boy Scouts are familiar with it. But
Egyptian was something quite different and I must try and make this
clear to you with a few pictures. Suppose that you were Champollion and
that you were reading an old papyrus which told the story of a farmer
who lived somewhere along the banks of the river Nile.

Suddenly you came across a picture of a man with a saw.

[Illustration: saw]