At the threshold of what our limited knowledge considers as positive history, therefore, we meet a highly developed society and nation, which for long centuries enjoyed a political existence, normal when compared with contemporaneous and surrounding nations, and _domestic slavery neither lay at the basis of the structure, nor formed an integral element of Egyptian life_. In the monuments, paintings, and inscriptions which remain as records and reminiscences of Egypt's palmy ages, no traces are found in the regular national and domestic economy, of agricultural or industrial labor which could have been performed by slaves or chattels. Slaves and slavery existed in Egypt, not as an intrinsic and integral part of society, but as an unhealthy excrescence--not under the sanction of right or law, but as the result of a violation of both. Egyptian slavery was an atonement for social and personal crime--an abnormal monstrosity, and not the normal and vital force of Egyptian activity. If slavery had been a normal social institution, it would have had its deity and its rites; but, as exclusively the result of a disease, it was regulated and dealt with as such. Egyptian slaves consisted of prisoners of war made on the field of battle, or captives taken in forays made into neighboring or distant countries. In early times, also, all strangers whom accident or tempest threw on the shores of Egypt, and who had no claims to a legal hospitality, were enslaved; for, for centuries Egypt was closed against the intrusion of foreigners--certain merchants and traffickers only being specially excepted. Furthermore, conquered countries paid their tribute partly in children, who thus became slaves. All these slaves were the property of the Pharaohs, who employed them in various ways, distributed them to their officials, sold them to their subjects of all castes, or to domestic and foreign traffickers. But the exportation of slaves belongs to a later period--the epoch of Egypt's historical decay. Slaves were imported, but not exported, as there was no special economical slave-breeding for this or other purposes. It is unnecessary to dwell on the generally known fact of the captivity and enslavement of the Jews, or to detail the researches concerning the Hycksos--first slaves, then masters and rulers, and finally again overpowered and reduced to captivity. But beside these Shemites, Hebrews--be they Hycksos or not--all other races and nations were at some time or other captives and slaves in Egypt. The Pharaohs warred with Asiatics, and especially with what is now called Caucasian races; and the monuments show that red, white, and yellow slaves taken in war were far more numerous than the blacks.