The inscriptions tell us that it was his custom to give public audiences to his subjects, and there was not a man amongst those persons whom he interviewed whose name he did not know, nor one who did not leave his presence rejoicing.  Up and down the Nile he sailed a hundred times, until he was able truly to say, “I have improved this entire land; I have learned its whole interior; I have travelled it entirely in its midst.”  We are told that “his Majesty took counsel with his heart how he might expel evil and suppress lying.  The plans of his Majesty were an excellent refuge, repelling violence and delivering the Egyptians from the oppressions which were around them.  Behold, his Majesty spent the whole time seeking the welfare of Egypt, and searching out instances of oppression in the land.”

It is interesting, by the way, to note that in his eighth year the King restored the tomb of Thutmosis IV., which had been robbed during the revolution; and the inscription which the inspectors left behind them was found on the wall when Mr Theodore Davis discovered the tomb a few years ago.  The plundering of the royal tombs is a typical instance of the lawlessness of the times.  The corruption, too, which followed on the disorder was appalling; and wherever the King went he was confronted by deceit, embezzlement, bribery, extortion, and official tyranny.  Every Government officer was attempting to obtain money from his subordinates by illegal means; and bakshish—­that bogie of the Nile Valley—­cast its shadow upon all men.

Horemheb stood this as long as he could; but at last, regarding justice as more necessary than tact, we are told that “his Majesty seized a writing-palette and scroll, and put into writing all that his Majesty the King had said to himself.”  It is not possible to record here more than a few of the good laws which he then made, but the following examples will serve to show how near to his heart were the interests of his people.

It was the custom for the tax-collectors to place that portion of a farmer’s harvest, which they had taken, upon the farmer’s own boat, in order to convey it to the public granary.  These boats often failed to be returned to their owners when finished with, and were ultimately sold by the officials for their own profit.  Horemheb, therefore, made the following law:—­

“If the poor man has made for himself a boat with its sail, and, in order to serve the State, has loaded it with the Government dues, and has been robbed of the boat, the poor man stands bereft of his property and stripped of his many labours.  This is wrong, and the Pharaoh will suppress it by his excellent measures.  If there be a poor man who pays the taxes to the two deputies, and he be robbed of his property and his boat, my majesty commands:  that every officer who collects the taxes and takes the boat of any citizen, this law shall be executed against him, and his nose shall be cut off, and