death._

_Egyptian feudalism: the status of the lords, their rights, their
amusements, their obligations to the sovereign--The influence of the
gods: gifts to the temples, and possessions in mortmain; the priesthood,
its hierarchy, and the method of recruiting its ranks--The military:
foreign mercenaries; native militia, their privileges, their training._

_The people of the towns--The slaves, men without a master--Workmen and
artisans; corporations: misery of handicraftsmen--Aspect of the towns:
houses, furniture, women in family life--Festivals; periodic markets,
bazaars: commerce by barter, the weighing of precious metals._

_The country people--The villages; serfs, free peasantry--Rural domains;
the survey, taxes; the bastinado, the corvée--Administration of justice,
the relations between peasants and their lords; misery of the peasantry;
their resignation and natural cheerfulness; their improvidence; their
indifference to political revolutions._

[Illustration: 003.jpg PAGE IMAGE]




CHAPTER I--THE POLITICAL CONSTITUTION OF EGYPT


_The king, the queen, and the royal princes--Administration under
the Pharaohs--Feudalism and the Egyptian priesthood, the military--The
citizens and country people._