mulated till it was quadrupled, after which, no
doubt, the security was taken by the creditor. They probably
calculated that the capital and compound interest was by
then equal in value to the person or object given as a
security.

*** The creditors protected themselves against this right of
redemption by a maledictory formula inserted at the end of
the contracts against those who should avail themselves of
it; it is generally inscribed on the boundary stones of the
First Chaldaean Empire.

The small tradesman or free workman, who by some accident had become
involved in debt, seldom escaped this progressive impoverishment except
by strenuous efforts and incessant labour. Foreign commerce, it is true,
entailed considerable risk, but the chances of acquiring wealth were so
great that many individuals launched upon it in preference to more
sure but less lucrative undertakings. They would set off alone or in
companies for Elam or the northern regions, for Syria, or even for so
distant a country as Egypt, and they would bring back in their caravans
all that was accounted precious in those lands. Overland routes were not
free from dangers; not only were nomad tribes and professional bandits
constantly hovering round the traveller, and obliging him to exercise
ceaseless vigilance, but the inhabitants of the villages through which
he passed, the local lords and the kings of the countries which he
traversed, had no scruple in levying blackmail upon him in obliging him
to pay dearly for right of way through their marches or territory.**
There were less risks in choosing a sea route: the Euphrates on one
side, the Tigris, the Ulai, and the Uknu on the other, ran through a
country peopled with a rich industrial population, among whom Chaldaean
merchandise was easily and profitably sold or exchanged for commodities
which would command a good price at the end of the voyage. The vessels
generally were keleks or "kufas," but the latter were of immense size.

* We have no information from Babylonian sources relating to
the state of the roads, and the dangers which merchants
encountered in foreign lands; the Egyptian documents partly
supply what is here lacking. The "instructions" contained in
the _Sallier Papyrus,_ No. ii., show what were the miseries
of the traveller, and the _Adventures of Sinuhit_ allude to
the insecurity of the roads in Syria, by the