that the nobility was mostly recruited.  In the Delta, where the authority of the Pharaoh was almost everywhere directly felt, the power of the nobility was weakened and much curtailed; in Middle Egypt it gained ground, and became stronger and stronger in proportion as one advanced southward.  The nobles held the principalities of the Gazelle, of the Hare, of the Serpent Mountain, of Akhmim, of Thinis, of Qasr-es-Sayad, of El-Kab, of Aswan, and doubtless others of which we shall some day discover the monuments.

[Illustration:  077.jpg HUNTING WITH THE BOOMERANG AND FISHING WITH THE DOUBLE HARPOON IN A MARSH OR POOL]

     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Gayet.

They accepted without difficulty the fiction according to which Pharaoh claimed to be absolute master of the soil, and ceded to his subjects only the usufruct of their fiefs; but apart from the admission of the principle, each lord proclaimed himself sovereign in his own domain, and exercised in it, on a small scale, complete royal authority.

[Illustration:  078.jpg PRINCE API, BORNE IN A PALANQUIN, INSPECTS HIS FUNERARY DOMAIN]

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Emil Brugsch- Bey.  The tomb of Api was discovered at Saqqara in 1884.  It had been pulled down in ancient times, and a new tomb built on its ruins, about the time of the XIIth dynasty; all that remains of it is now in the museum at Gizeh.

Everything within the limits of this petty state belonged to him—­woods, canals, fields, even the desert-sand:  after the example of the Pharaoh, he farmed a part himself, and let out the remainder, either in farms or as fiefs, to those of his followers who had gained his confidence or his friendship.  After the example of Pharaoh, also, he was a priest, and exercised priestly functions in relation to all the gods—­that is, not of all Egypt, but of all the deities of the nome.  He was an administrator of civil and criminal law, received the complaints of his vassals and serfs at the gate of his palace, and against his decisions there was no appeal.  He kept up a flotilla, and raised on his estate a small army, of which he was commander-in-chief by hereditary right.  He inhabited a fortified mansion, situated sometimes within the capital of the principality 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.