ation is taken from one of the tombs at Tel el-
Amarna. The storehouse consists of four blocks, isolated by
two avenues planted with trees, which intersect each other
in the form of a cross. Behind the entrance gate, in a small
courtyard, is a kiosque, in which the master sat for the
purpose of receiving the stores or of superintending their
distribution; two arms of the cross are lined by porticoes,
under which are the entrances to the "chambers" (dit) for
the stores, which are filled with jars of wine, linen-
chests, dried fish, and other articles.

The writer, or, as we call him, the scribe, was the mainspring of
all this machinery. We come across him in all grades of the staff: an
insignificant registrar of oxen, a clerk of the Double White Storehouse,
ragged, humble, and badly paid, was a scribe just as much as the noble,
the priest, or the king's son. Thus the title of scribe was of no value
in itself, and did not designate, as one might naturally think, a savant
educated in a school of high culture, or a man of the world, versed in
the sciences and the literature of his time; El-kab was a scribe who
knew how to read, write, and cipher, was fairly proficient in wording
the administrative formulas, and could easily apply the elementary rules
of book-keeping. There was no public school in which the scribe could be
prepared for his future career; but as soon as a child had acquired the
first rudiments of letters with some old pedagogue, his father took him
with him to his office, or entrusted him to some friend who agreed to
undertake his education. The apprentice observed what went on around
him, imitated the mode of procedure of the _employes_, copied in his
spare time old papers, letters, bills, flowerily-worded petitions,
reports, complimentary addresses to his superiors or to the Pharaoh, all
of which his patron examined and corrected, noting on the margin letters
or words imperfectly written, improving the style, and recasting or
completing the incorrect expressions.* As soon as he could put together
a certain number of sentences or figures without a mistake, he was
allowed to draw up bills, or to have the sole superintendence of some
department of the treasury, his work being gradually increased in amount
and difficulty; when he was considered to be sufficiently _au courant_
with the ordinary business, his education was declared to be finished,
and a situation was f