This excess of cultivable land was subdivided into portions of equal dimensions, which were distributed among the inhabitants of neighbouring villages by the officers of a “regent” nominated for that purpose.  Those dispensed from agricultural service were—­the destitute, soldiers on service and their families, certain employes of the public works, and servitors of the temple;* all other country-folk without exception had to submit to it, and one or more portions were allotted to each, according to his capabilities.** Orders issued at fixed periods called them together, themselves, their servants and their beasts of burden, to dig, sow, keep watch in the fields while the harvest was proceeding, to cut and carry the crops, the whole work being done at their own expense and to the detriment of their own interests.***

* That the scribes, i.e. the employes of the royal or princely government, were exempt from enforced labour, is manifest from the contrast drawn by the letter-writers of the Sallier and Anastasi Papyri between themselves and the peasants, or persons belonging to other professions who were liable to it.  The circular of Dorion defines the classes of soldiers who were either temporarily or permanently exempt under the Greek kings.

     ** Several fragments of the Turin papyri contain memoranda
     of enforced labour performed on behalf of the temples, and
     of lists of persons liable to be called on for such labour.

*** All these details are set forth in the Ptolemaic period, in the letter to Dorion which refers to a royal edict.  As Signor Lumbroso has well remarked, the Ptolemies merely copied exactly the misdeeds of the old native governments.  Indeed, we come across frequent allusions to the enforced labour of men and beasts in inscriptions of the Middle Empire at Beni-Hasan or at Siut; many of the pictures on the Memphite tombs show bands of such labourers at work in the fields of the great landowners or of the king.

[Illustration:  132.jpg COLLOSAL STATUE OF A KING]

As a sort of indemnity, a few allotments were left uncultivated for their benefit; to these they sent their flocks after the subsidence of the inundation, for the pasturage on them was so rich that the sheep were doubly productive in wool and offspring.  This was a mere apology for a wage:  the forced labour for the irrigation brought them no compensation.  The dykes which separate the basins, and the network of canals for distributing the water and irrigating the land, demand continual attention:  every year some need strengthening, others re-excavating or cleaning out.  The men employed in this work pass whole days standing in the water, scraping up the mud with both hands in order to fill the baskets of platted leaves, which boys and girls lift on to their heads and carry to the top of the bank:  the semi-liquid contents ooze through the basket, trickle over their