ly fanned the flame of discontent. The Pharaoh,
aroused to indignation by such plotting, reminded them of their
former oaths and treaties. The king in question would thereupon deny
everything, would speak of his tried friendship, and recall the fact
that he had refused to help a rebel against his beloved brother.* These
protestations of innocence were usually accompanied by presents, and
produced a twofold effect. They soothed the anger of the offended party,
and suggested not only a courteous answer, but the sending of still more
valuable gifts. Oriental etiquette, even in those early times, demanded
that the present of a less rich or powerful friend should place the
recipient under the obligation of sending back a gift of still greater
worth. Every one, therefore, whether great or little, was obliged to
regulate his liberality according to the estimation in which he held
himself, or to the opinion which others formed of him, and a personage
of such opulence as the King of Egypt was constrained by the laws of
common civility to display an almost boundless generosity: was he not
free to work the mines of the Divine Land or the diggings of the Upper
Nile; and as for gold, "was it not as the dust of his country"?**

* See the letter of Amenothes III. to Kallimmasin of
Babylon, where the King of Egypt complains of the inimical
designs which the Babylonian messengers had planned against
him, and of the intrigues they had connected on their return
to their own country; see also the letter from Burnaburiash
to Amenothes IV., in which he defends himself from the
accusation of having plotted against the King of Egypt at
any time, and recalls the circumstance that his father
Kurigalzu had refused to encourage the rebellion of one of
the Syrian tribes, subjects of Amenothes III.

** See the letter of Dushratta, King of Mitanni, to the
Pharaoh Amenothes IV.

He would have desired nothing better than to exhibit such liberality,
had not the repeated calls on his purse at last constrained him to
parsimony; he would have been ruined, and Egypt with him, had he given
all that was expected of him. Except in a few extraordinary cases,
the gifts sent never realised the expectations of the recipients; for
instance, when twenty or thirty pounds of precious metal were looked
for, the amount despatched would be merely two or three. The indignation
of these disappointed beggars and