"But Egypt manufactured in those days. Look at these immense pitchers,--how many forms, and what a variety of colors. "Or the furniture: that armchair was made of ten thousand pieces of gold, mother-of-pearl, and woods of various hues. Look at the robes of that period: what embroidery, what delicacy of material, how many colors! And the bronze swords, the brooches, bracelets, earrings and implements of tillage and crafts of various descriptions. All these were made in this country during the nineteenth dynasty." He passed to the next group of objects. "But to-day, look: the pitchers are small and almost without ornament, the furniture is simple, the stuffs coarse and devoid of variety. Not one thing made to-day can we compare as to shape, durability, or beauty with those of former ages. Why has this happened?" He advanced a number of steps again, surrounded by torches. "Here is a great number of things," said he, "which the Phœnicians bring us from various regions. Some tens of kinds of incense, colored glass, furniture, vessels, woven stuffs, chariots, ornaments,--all these come from Asia and are bought by us. "Do ye understand now, worthy fathers, why the Phœnicians tear away grain, fruit, and cattle from the scribes and the pharaoh? In pay for those foreign goods which have destroyed our artisans as locusts destroy vegetation. "Among things obtained through Phœnicians for his holiness, the nomarchs, and the scribes, gold has the first place. "This kind of commerce is the most accurate picture of calamities inflicted on Egypt by Asia. "When a man borrows gold to the amount of one talent, he is obliged in three years to return two talents. But most frequently the Phœnicians, under pretext of decreasing trouble for the debtor, assure payment in their own way: that is, debtors for each talent borrowed give them as tenants for three years two measures of land and thirty-two people. "See there, worthy fathers," said he, pointing to a part of the court which was better lighted. "That square of land one hundred and ten yards in length and as wide signifies two measures; the men, women, and children of that crowd mean eight families. All that together: people and land pass for three years into dreadful captivity. During that time their owner, the pharaoh or a nomarch, has no profit at all from them; at the end of that term he receives the land back exhausted, and of the people, twenty in number at the very highest, the rest have died under torture!" Those present shuddered with horror. "I have said that the Phœnician takes two measures of land and thirty-two people for three years in exchange for one talent. See what a space of land and what a crowd of people; look now at my hand. "This piece of gold which I grasp here, this lump, less than a hen's egg in size, is a talent.