their buildings or in the cultivation of their domains; the work was hard and the mortality great, but gaps were soon filled up by the influx of fresh gangs.  The survivors intermarried, and their children, brought up to speak the Chaldaean tongue and conforming to the customs of the country, became assimilated to the ruling race; they formed, beneath the superior native Semite and Sumerian population,an inferior servile class, spread alike throughout the towns and country, who were continually reinforced by individuals of the native race, such as foundlings, women and children sold by husband or father, debtors deprived by creditors of their liberty, and criminals judicially condemned.  The law took no individual account of them, but counted them by heads, as so many cattle:  they belonged to their respective masters in the same fashion as did the beasts of his flock or the trees of his garden, and their life or death was dependent upon his will, though the exercise of his rights was naturally restrained by interest and custom.  He could use them as pledges or for payment of debt, could exchange them or sell them in the market.  The price of a slave never rose very high:  a woman might be bought for four and a half shekels of silver by weight, and the value of a male adult fluctuated between ten shekels and the third of a mina.  The bill of sale was inscribed on clay, and given to the purchaser at the time of payment:  the tablets which were the vouchers of the rights of the former proprietor were then broken, and the transfer was completed.  The master seldom ill-treated his slaves, except in cases of reiterated disobedience, rebellion, or flight; he could arrest his runaway slaves wherever he could lay his hands on them; he could shackle their ankles, fetter their wrists, and whip them mercilessly.  As a rule, he permitted them to marry and bring up a family; he apprenticed their children, and as soon as they knew a trade, he set them up in business in his own name, allowing them a share in the profits.  The more intelligent among them were trained to be clerks or stewards; they were taught to read, write, and calculate, the essential accomplishments of a skilful scribe; they were appointed as superintendents over their former comrades, or overseers of the administration of property, and they ended by becoming confidential servants in the household.  The savings which they had accumulated in their earlier years furnished them with the means of procuring some few consolations:  they could hire themselves out for wages, and could even acquire slaves who would go out to work for them, in the same way as they themselves had been a source of income to their proprietors.  If they followed a lucrative profession and were successful in it, their savings sometimes permitted them to buy their own freedom, and, if they were married, to pay the ransom of their wife and children.  At times, their master, desirous of rewarding long and faithful service, liberated them of his own accord, without