"Look now at the food of the earth-tillers. At times barley and dried fish, lotus seed always, rarely a wheat cake, never flesh, beer, or wine. "Ask them where their utensils and furniture are. They have none, unless a pitcher for water; nothing could find room in the dens which they inhabit. "Pardon me now for that to which I turn your attention: Over there a number of children are lying on the ground; that means that they are dead. It is wonderful how many children of laborers die from toil and hunger. And those that die are the happiest, for they who survive go under the club of the overseer, or are sold to the Phœnician as lambs to the--" Emotion stopped his voice; he rested awhile, and then continued amid the angry silence of the priesthood,-- "And now look at the officials,--how animated they are in rouge, how beautiful their clothes are! Their wives wear gold bracelets and earrings, and such fine garments that princes might envy them. Among laborers not an ox or an ass is now visible, but to make up officials journey on horseback or in litters. They drink only wine, and that of good quality." He clapped his hands, and again there was movement. The laborers gave the officials bags of wheat, baskets of fruit, wine, game. These objects the officials as before placed near the throne, but in quantities considerably smaller. On the pharaoh's platform there was no longer a mountain of products, but the platform of the officials was covered. "This is the Egypt of our day," continued Pentuer. "Laborers are in indigence, scribes are wealthy, the treasury is not so full as it once was. But now--" He gave a sign, and a thing unexpected took place there before them. Certain hands seized grain, fruit, stuffs from the platforms of the pharaoh and the officials; and when the amount of the goods had decreased greatly, those same hands began to seize and lead away laborers, their wives and children. The spectators looked with amazement at the peculiar methods of those mysterious persons. Suddenly some one cried out,-- "Those are Phœnicians! They plunder us in that way." "That is it, holy fathers," said Pentuer. "Those are the hands of Phœnicians concealed in the midst of us; they plunder the pharaoh and the scribes, and lead away laborers captive when there is nothing to drag from them." "Yes! They are jackals! A curse on Phœnicians! Expel them, the wretches!" cried the priests. "It is they who inflict the greatest damage on Egypt." Not all, however, shouted in that way. When there was silence, Pentuer commanded to take the torches to the other side of the court, and thither he conducted his hearers. There were no tableaux there, but a kind of industrial exhibition. "Be pleased to look," said he. "During the nineteenth dynasty foreigners sent us these things: we received perfumes from Punt; gold, iron weapons, and chariots of war came from Syria. That is all.