ought to be invoked!'" There were many sinners, we may believe, among
that ignorant and superstitious population, but the governors of Thebes
did not put their confidence in the local deities alone to keep them
within bounds, and to prevent their evil deeds; commissioners, with the
help of a detachment of Mazaîû, were an additional means of conducting
them into the right way. They had, in this respect, a hard work to
accomplish, for every day brought with it its contingent of crimes,
which they had to follow up, and secure the punishment of the authors.
Nsisûamon came to inform them that the workman Nakhtummaût and his
companions had stolen into his house, and robbed him of three large
loaves, eight cakes, and some pastry; they had also drunk a jar of beer,
and poured out from pure malice the oil which they could not carry
away with them. Panîbi had met the wife of a comrade alone near an
out-of-the-way tomb, and had taken advantage of her notwithstanding her
cries; this, moreover, was not the first offence of the culprit, for
several young girls had previously been victims of his brutality, and
had not ventured up to this time to complain of him on account of the
terror with which he inspired the neighbourhood. Crimes against the dead
were always common; every penniless fellow knew what quantities of gold
and jewels had been entombed with the departed, and these treasures,
scattered around them at only a few feet from the surface of the ground,
presented to them a constant temptation to which they often succumbed.
Some were not disposed to have accomplices, while others associated
together, and, having purchased at a serious cost the connivance of the
custodians, set boldly to work on tombs both recent and ancient. Not
content with stealing the funerary furniture, which they disposed of to
the undertakers, they stripped the mummies also, and smashed the
bodies in their efforts to secure the jewels; then, putting the remains
together again, they rearranged the mummies afresh so cleverly that
they can no longer be distinguished by their outward appearance from the