to the precincts of the palace proper,
where, because of numerous sentries and above all because of high
walls, access to him was made difficult.

During the ten days which preceded his departure, representatives of
all Egypt, if not of the whole world of that period, passed before the
eyes of the new viceroy.

First of all were admitted great personages. Hence to congratulate him
came the high priests of temples, ministers, ambassadors, Phoenician,
Greek, Hebrew, Assyrian, Nubian, men whose dresses even he could not
remember. Next came the chiefs of neighboring provinces, judges,
secretaries, the higher officers of the army corps in Memphis, and
landowners.

These people desired nothing, they simply expressed their delight at
honor shown him. But the prince, while listening to these persons from
morning till midday and from midday till evening, felt confusion in his
head, and a quivering in all his members.

After these came representatives of the lower classes with gifts:
merchants bringing gold, foreign stuffs, amber, fruits, and perfumes.
Then bankers and men who loaned money for interest. Further, architects
with plans for new buildings, sculptors with projects for statues and
carvings in relief, masons, potters, makers of ordinary and ornamental
furniture, blacksmiths, founders, tanners, wine-merchants, weavers,
even dissectors who opened the bodies of the departed.

The procession of those men rendering homage had not finished when an
army of petitioners approached the viceroy. Invalids, widows, and
orphans of officers requested pensions; noble lords required court
offices for their sons. Engineers presented new methods of irrigating
Egypt; physicians offered means against diseases of all sorts;
soothsayers offered horoscopes. Relatives of prisoners petitioned to
lessen punishments; those condemned to death begged for life; the sick
implored the heir to touch them, or to bestow on them his spittle.

Finally, beautiful women announced themselves, the mothers of stately
daughters begging the heir humbly but insistently to receive them into
his mansion. Some indicated the amount of the pension demanded,
praising their virginity and their talents.

After ten days of looking every moment at new persons and faces, and
hearing petitions which only the possession of a world and divine power
to dispense it could satisfy, Prince Ramses was exhausted. He could not
sleep; he was so excited that the buzz of a fly pai