Pharaoh may not always have been a model of propriety or of rectitude; but he was far too strictly hedged about by precedent to allow of the brutal tyranny and licence which have so often marked other Eastern monarchies, and, besides, one fails to see how, with his time so completely filled as we know it to have been, with all sorts of necessary routine, he can have had much opportunity for mischief, even if he had the desire. The king’s chief functionary and right-hand man was the Vizier, who must have been just about as hard-worked a man as his master. The inscription in the tomb of Rekhmara, who was vizier under Thothmes III, enumerates thirty separate functions which had to be discharged by the fortunate holder of this great office. “The vizier is Grand Steward of all Egypt, and all the activities of the State are under his control. He has general oversight of the treasury, and the chief treasurer reports to him; he is chief justice, or head of the judiciary; he is chief of police, both for the residence-city and the kingdom; he is minister of war, both for army and navy; he is secretary of the interior and of agriculture, while all general executive functions of State, with many that may not be classified, are incumbent upon him. There is indeed no prime function of the State which does not operate through his office. He is a veritable Joseph, and it must be this office which the Hebrew writer has in mind in the story of Joseph.” Altogether we may conclude that, whatever the salary of the vizier may have been, he probably earned it. A quaint picture of the way in which a high Egyptian official was hedged about with routine is given by Rekhmara in his description of the procedure of the court of justice. “As for every act of this official, the vizier while hearing in the hall of the vizier, he shall sit upon a chair, with a rug upon the floor, and a dais upon it, a cushion under his back, a cushion under his feet, and a baton at his hand; the forty skins [parchments of the codified law] shall be open before him. Then the magnates of the South shall stand in the two aisles before him, while the master of the privy chamber is on his right, the receiver of income on his left, the scribes of the vizier at his either hand; one corresponding to another, with each man at his proper place. One shall be heard after another, without allowing one who is behind to be heard before one who is in front.”