* This is shown, inter alia, by the real or supposititious letters in which the master-scribe endeavours to deter his pupil from adopting a military career, recommending that of a scribe in preference.

** Uni, under Papi I., recruited his army from among the inhabitants of the whole of Egypt, from Elephantine to Letopolis at the mouth of the Delta, and as far as the Mediterranean, from among the Bedouin of Libya and of the Isthmus, and even from the six negro races of Nubia (Inscription d’Ouni, 11. 14-19).

*** The Nubian tribe of the Mazaiu, afterwards known as the Libyan tribe of the Mashauasha, furnished troops to the Egyptian kings and princes for centuries; indeed, the Mazaiu formed such an integral part of the Egyptian armies that their name came to be used in Coptic as a synonym for soldier, under the form “matoi.”

**** Later on we shall come across the Shardana of the Royal Guard under Ramses II. (E. de Rouge, Extrait d’un memoire sur les attaques, p. 5); later still, the Ionians, Carians, and Greek mercenaries will be found to play a decisive part in the history of the Saite dynasties.

This motley collection of foreign mercenaries composed ordinarily the body-guard of the king or of his barons, the permanent nucleus round which in times of war the levies of native recruits were rallied.  Every Egyptian soldier received from the chief to whom he was attached, a holding of land for the maintenance of himself and his family.  In the fifth century B.C. twelve arurae of arable land was estimated as ample pay for each man,* and tradition attributes to the fabulous Sesostris the law which fixed the pay at this rate.  The soldiers were not taxed, and were exempt from forced labour during the time that they were away from home on active service; with this exception they were liable to the same charges as the rest of the population.  Many among them possessed no other income, and lived the precarious life of the fellah,—­tilling, reaping, drawing water, and pasturing their cattle,—­in the interval between two musters.  Others possessed of private fortunes let their holdings out at a moderate rental, which formed an addition to their patrimonial income.**

* Herodotus, ii. 168.  The arura being equal to 27.82 ares [an are = 100 square metres], the military fief contained 27*82 x 12 = 333.84 ares. [The “arura,” according to F. L. Griffith, was a square of 100 Egyptian cubits, making about 3/5 of an acre, or 2600 square metres.—­Trs.] The chifliks created by Mohammed-Ali, with a view to bringing the abandoned districts into cultivation, allotted to each labourer who offered to reclaim it, a plot of land varying from one to three feddans, i.e. from 4200.83 square metres to 12602.49 square metres, according to the nature of the soil and the necessities of each family.  The military fiefs of ancient Egypt were, therefore, nearly