, who very soon mastered important
documents relative to the army. He commanded to make a list of all men
in the state who belonged to the military order, but who for years had
not fulfilled any duty. He opened two new schools, one for the
education of officers, and one for children of twelve years, and
renewed a custom then in abeyance, that youths in the army should
receive breakfast only after three hours' marching in line and in
column.

Finally, no division of the army was permitted to dwell in villages,
all must live in camps or in barracks. Each regiment had its fixed
field of exercise, where for whole days the warriors hurled stones from
slings or shot arrows from bows at marks from one to two hundred yards
distant.

A command was issued to all families of military rank that the men
should exercise themselves in hurling missiles under direction of
officers and decurions of the army. The command was carried out
straightway, therefore Egypt looked like a camp in no longer than two
months after the death of the twelfth Ramses. For even village or city
children, who before had played as scribes and priests, now, imitating
their elders, began to play as warriors. So on every square and in
every garden, from morning till evening, stones and arrows were
whistling, and the courts were filled with complaints about bodily
injuries.

Egypt was transformed, as it were, and in spite of complaints a great
movement reigned in it, and all because of the new ruler.

The pharaoh himself was pleased and his pride increased, seeing that
the whole state arranged itself to his wishes.

But a moment arrived when he became gloomy.

On the very day that the embalmers took the body of Ramses XII from the
soda bath, the chief treasurer, when making his usual report, said to
the pharaoh,

"I know not what to do. We have two thousand talents in the treasury,
and for the funeral of the dead pharaoh we need at least one thousand."

"How, two thousand?" asked Ramses, with astonishment. "When I assumed
power Thou didst tell me that we had twenty thousand."

"We have expended eighteen."

"In two months?"

"Our outlays are enormous."

"True, but new taxes come in every day."

"The taxes, I know not why, have decreased again, and do not come in so
plentifully as I expected. But they too are expended. Be pleased to
remember, holiness, that we have five new regiments; hence, about eight
thousand men have left their occupations and