Another communication for my Lord’s good pleasure, to the effect that two of the field labourers of the _mine_ land of Pharaoh which is under my Lord’s authority, have fled before the face of the stable-master Neferhotep, he having beaten them. And now, look, the fields of the _mine_ land of Pharaoh which are under my Lord’s authority are abandoned and there is no one to till them. This letter is for my Lord’s information.[164] A somewhat patriarchal relationship between master and men persists in many rural districts of old countries even to-day. A certain amount of arbitrariness, even of despotism, is taken for granted in the great; it is their privilege, but only if it is counterbalanced by a sense of responsibility for the land and for those who till it. We may, therefore, accept as inherently probable such statements as the following, made by an Upper Egyptian nomarch who had taken matters in his own hands in the First Intermediate period. I was one who computed (carefully) the consumption of Lower Egyptian grain.... I made a canal for this town when Upper Egypt was in a bad way, and one did not see any water.... I made high fields into marsh, I made the Nile inundate wasteland.... Whoever needed water got Nile water as he desired.... I was great in Lower Egyptian grain (barley) when the country was in tribulation. I was the one who fed the town with measure and bushel. I made the small man and his wife carry away Lower Egyptian grain and (likewise) the widow and her son. I had all imposts reduced which I found registered (as arrears) from the time of my father.[165] Another nomarch, at Crocodilopolis in Upper Egypt, south of Thebes, reports: I fed the “island in the river” (Crocodilopolis) during years of drought when 400 men were (in penury) there. I did not take away a man’s daughter nor his field. I acquired ten flocks of goats with people to take care of them, two herds of cattle and one of asses. I bred small livestock. I obtained thirty boats of one kind and thirty of another and brought Upper Egyptian grain to Hermonthis and Asphynis after Crocodilopolis was taken care of. The nome of Thebes came upstream (_i.e._ to obtain grain from me), but Crocodilopolis never sent downstream nor upstream (for grain) to another nome.[166] The last inscription makes much of livestock, and stock-breeding was next in importance to agriculture. We have seen that a special official, “The Master of the King’s Largesse,” was in charge of its supervision. In antiquity, in contrast with now, plenty of marshland was available for grazing in the valley, and the large herds were also sent to the Delta in spring to graze. One official of the Sixth Dynasty lists 1000 head of cattle, 760 asses, 2200 goats, and nearly 1000 sheep as his own.