hite tombs show bands of such labourers at work in the
fields of the great landowners or of the king.

[Illustration: 132.jpg COLLOSAL STATUE OF A KING]

As a sort of indemnity, a few allotments were left uncultivated for
their benefit; to these they sent their flocks after the subsidence of
the inundation, for the pasturage on them was so rich that the sheep
were doubly productive in wool and offspring. This was a mere apology
for a wage: the forced labour for the irrigation brought them no
compensation. The dykes which separate the basins, and the network
of canals for distributing the water and irrigating the land, demand
continual attention: every year some need strengthening, others
re-excavating or cleaning out. The men employed in this work pass whole
days standing in the water, scraping up the mud with both hands in order
to fill the baskets of platted leaves, which boys and girls lift on to
their heads and carry to the top of the bank: the semi-liquid contents
ooze through the basket, trickle over their faces and soon coat their
bodies with a black shining mess, disgusting even to look at. Sheikhs
preside over the work, and urge it on with abuse and blows. When the
gangs of workmen had toiled all day, with only an interval of two hours
about noon for a siesta and a meagre pittance of food, the poor wretches
slept on the spot, in the open air, huddled one against another and but
ill protected by their rags from the chilly nights. The task was so hard
a one, that malefactors, bankrupts, and prisoners of war were condemned
to it; it wore out so many hands that the free peasantry were scarcely
ever exempt. Having returned to their homes, they were not called until
the next year to any established or periodic _corvee_, but many an
irregular one came and surprised them in the midst of their work, and
forced them to abandon all else to attend to the affairs of king or
lord. Was a new chamber to be added to some neighbouring temple, were
materials wanted to strengthen or rebuild some piece of wall which had
been undermined by the inundation, orders were issued to the engineers
to go and fetch a stated quantity of limestone or sandstone, and the
peasants were commanded to assemble at the nearest quarry to cut
the blocks from it, and if needful to ship and convey them to their
destination. Or perhaps the sovereign had caused a gigantic statue of
himself to be carved, and a few hundred men were requisitioned to haul