and operatives were obliged to run into debt to supplement their
straitened means. When they had once fallen into the hands of the
usurer, the exorbitant interest which they had to pay kept them a long
time in his power. If when the bill fell due there was nothing to meet
it, it had to be renewed under still more disastrous conditions; as the
pledge given was usually the homestead, or the slave who assisted in the
trade, or the garden which supplied food for the family, the mortgagor
was reduced to the extreme of misery if he could not satisfy his
creditors, This plague of usury was not, moreover, confined to the
towns; it raged with equal violence in the country, and the farmers also
became its victims.

If, theoretically, the earth belonged to the gods, and under them to
the kings, the latter had made, and continued daily to make, such large
concessions of it to their vassals, that the greater part of their
domains were always in the hands of the nobles or private individuals.
These could dispose of their landed property at pleasure, farm it out,
sell it or distribute it among their heirs and friends.

They paid on account of it a tax which varied at different epochs, but
which was always burthensome; but when they had once satisfied this
exaction, and paid the dues which the temples might claim on behalf
of the gods, neither the State nor any individual had the right to
interfere in their administration of it, or put any restrictions upon
them. Some proprietors cultivated their lands themselves--the poor by
their own labour, the rich by the aid of some trustworthy slave whom
they interested in the success of his farming by assigning him a certain
percentage on the net return. Sometimes the lands were leased out in
whole or in part to free peasants who relieved the proprietors of all
the worry and risks of managing it themselves. A survey of the area of
each state had been made at an early age, and the lots into which it had
been divided were registered on clay tablets containing the name of
the proprietor as well as those of his neighbours, together with such
indications of the features of the land, dykes, canals, rivers,
and buildings as would serve to define its boundaries: rough plans
accompanied the description, and in the most complicated instances
interpreted it to the eye. This survey was frequently repeated, and
enabled the sovereign to arrange his scheme of taxation on a solid
basis, and to calculate the pr