on until the next occasion.
Many of the farmers in a small way earned thus, in a few weeks,
sufficient means to supplement their own modest personal income. Others
sought out more permanent occupations, and hired themselves out as
regular farm-servants.

The lands which neither the rise of the river nor the irrigation system
could reach so as to render fit for agriculture, were reserved for the
pasture of the flocks in the springtime, when they were covered with
rich grass. The presence of lions in the neighbourhood, however, obliged
the husbandmen to take precautions for the safety of their flocks. They
constructed provisional enclosures into which the animals were driven
every evening, when the pastures were too far off to allow of the flocks
being brought back to the sheepfold. The chase was a favourite pastime
among them, and few days passed without the hunter's bringing back with
him a young gazelle caught in a trap, or a hare killed by an arrow.
These formed substantial additions to the larder, for the Chaldaeans
do not seem to have kept about them, as the Egyptians did, such tamed
animals as cranes or herons, gazelles or deer: they contented themselves
with the useful species, oxen, asses, sheep, and goats. Some of the
ancient monuments, cylinders, and clay tablets reproduce in a rough
manner scenes from pastoral life. The door of the fold opens, and we see
a flock of goats sallying forth to the cracking of the herdsman's whip:
when they reach the pasture they scatter over the meadows, and while the
shepherd keeps his eye upon them, he plays upon his reed to the delight
of his dog. In the mean time the farm-people are engaged in the careful
preparation of the evening meal: two individuals on opposite sides of
the hearth watch the pot boiling between them, while a baker makes his
dough into round cakes.

[Illustration: 329a.jpg COOKING: A QUARREL.]

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from one of the terra-cotta plaques
discovered by Loftus.

Sometimes a quarrel breaks out among the comrades, and leads to a
stand-up fight with the fists; or a lion, perhaps, in quest of a meal,
surprises and kills one of the bulls: the shepherd runs up, his axe in
his hand, to contend bravely with the marauder for the possession of his
beast. The shepherd was accustomed to provide himself with assistance
in the shape of enormous dogs, who had no more hesitation in attacking
beasts of prey than they had in pursuing game. In these