"And dost thou know, O Rameses, servant of the gods, whither those spaces have vanished where on a time were fields of wheat and barley, or where flocks and herds pastured? Thou knowest that sands of the desert have covered them. But has any one told thee why this came to pass? It came to pass because there was a lack of men who with buckets and ploughs fight the desert from morning till evening. Finally, dost thou know why these toilers of the gods disappeared? Whither did they go? What swept them out of the country? Foreign wars did it. Our nobles conquered enemies, our pharaohs immortalized their worthy names as far away as the Euphrates River, but like beasts of burden our common men carried food for them, they carried water, they carried other weights, and died along the road by thousands. "To avenge those bones scattered now throughout eastern deserts, the western sands have swallowed our fields, and it would require immense toil and many generations to win back that dark Egyptian earth from the sand grave which covers it." "Listen! listen!" cried Mefres, "some god is speaking through the lips of Pentuer. It is true that our victorious wars are the grave of Egypt." Rameses could not collect his thoughts. It seemed to him that mountains of sand were falling on his head at that moment. "I have said," continued Pentuer, "that great labor would be needed to dig out Egypt and restore the old-time wealth devoured by warfare. But have we the power to carry out that project?" Again he advanced some steps, and after him the excited listeners. Since Egypt became Egypt, no one had displayed so searchingly the disasters of the country, though all men knew that they had happened. "During the nineteenth dynasty Egypt had eight millions of inhabitants. If every man, woman, old man, and child had put down in this place one bean, the grains would make a figure of this kind." He indicated with his hand a court where one by the side of another lay eight great quadrangles covered with red beans. "That figure is sixty yards long, thirty yards wide, and as ye see, pious fathers, the grains composing it are of the same kind, for the people of that time were from Egyptian grandfathers and great-grandfathers. But look now." He went farther, and indicated another group of quadrangles of various colors. "Ye see this figure which is thirty yards wide, but only forty-five yards in length. Why is this? Because there are in it only six quadrangles, for at present Egypt has not eight, but only six millions of inhabitants. Consider, besides, that as the former figure was composed exclusively of red Egyptian beans, in the present one are immense strips of black, yellow, and white beans. For in our army and among the people there are now very many foreigners: black Ethiopians, yellow Syrians and Phœnicians, white Greeks and Libyans." They interrupted him. The priests who listened began to embrace him; Mefres was weeping.