rincipality itself, sometimes in its neighbourhood, and in which
the arrangements of the royal city were reproduced on a smaller scale.

[Illustration: 079.jpg A DWARF PLAYING WITH CYNOCEPHALI AND A TAME IBIS]

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a chromolithograph in Flinders
Petrie's _Medum,_ pl. xxiv.

Side by side with the reception halls was the harem, where the
legitimate wife, often a princess of solar rank, played the role of
queen, surrounded by concubines, dancers, and slaves. The offices of
the various departments were crowded into the enclosure, with their
directors, governors, scribes of all ranks, custodians, and workmen, who
bore the same titles as the corresponding employes in the departments of
the State: their White Storehouse, their Gold Storehouse, their Granary,
were at times called the Double White Storehouse, the Double Gold
Storehouse, the Double Granary, as were those of the Pharaoh. Amusements
at the court of the vassal did not differ from those at that of the
sovereign: hunting in the desert and the marshes, fishing, inspection of
agricultural works, military exercises, games, songs, dancing, doubtless
the recital of long stories, and exhibitions of magic, even down to the
contortions of the court buffoon and the grimaces of the dwarfs.

[Illustration: 080.jpg IN A NILE BOAT]

It amused the prince to see one of these wretched favourites leading to
him by the paw a cynocephalus larger than himself, while a mischievous
monkey slyly pulled a tame and stately ibis by the tail. From time to
time the great lord proceeded to inspect his domain: on these occasions
he travelled in a kind of sedan chair, supported by two mules yoked
together; or he was borne in a palanquin by some thirty men, while
fanned by large flabella; or possibly he went up the Nile and the canals
in his beautiful painted barge. The life of the Egyptian lords may be
aptly described as in every respect an exact reproduction of the life of
the Pharaoh on a smaller scale.

Inheritance in a direct or indirect line was the rule, but in every
case of transmission the new lord had to receive the investiture of
the sovereign either by letter or in person. The duties enforced by the
feudal state do not appear to have been onerous. In the first place,
there was the regular payment of a tribute, proportionate to the
extent and resources of the fief. In the next place, there was military
service: the vassal agreed to supply, when call