the chief motive; but repeated refusals would have discouraged traders,
and by lessening the facilities of transit, have diminished the revenue
which the state drew from its foreign commerce.

The question became a more delicate one when it concerned the rights of
subjects residing out of their native country. Foreigners, as a rule,
were well received in Egypt; the whole country was open to them;
they could marry, they could acquire houses and lands, they enjoyed
permission to follow their own religion unhindered, they were eligible
for public honours, and more than one of the officers of the crown
whose tombs we see at Thebes were themselves Syrians, or born of Syrian
parents on the banks of the Nile.*

* In a letter from the King of Alasia, there is question of
a merchant who had died in Egypt. Among other monuments
proving the presence of Syrians about the Pharaoh, is the
stele of Ben-Azana, of the town of Zairabizana, surnamed
Ramses-Empirî: he was surrounded with Semites like himself.

Hence, those who settled in Egypt without any intention of returning to
their own country enjoyed all the advantages possessed by the natives,
whereas those who took up a merely temporary abode there were more
limited in their privileges. They were granted the permission to hold
property in the country, and also the right to buy and sell there, but
they were not allowed to transmit their possessions at will, and if by
chance they died on Egyptian soil, their goods lapsed as a forfeit to
the crown. The heirs remaining in the native country of the dead man,
who were ruined by this confiscation, sometimes petitioned the king to
interfere in their favour with a view of obtaining restitution. If the
Pharaoh consented to waive his right of forfeiture, and made over