Brugsch, Heinrich: Egypt under the pharaohs: a history derived entirely from the monuments (London, 1891)

26 THE FATE OF MEN A OH. n.

and expenditure, and kept his books in good order.
For a scribe of talent the way was open to the highest
honours. The mass of servants and skilled workmen,
were also divided into fixed orders and gradations.

In this way the welfare of the court and country
was secured by the adjustment of the individual
members. Everyone maintained his place according
to his own worth; and the machinery of the state ran
in the regular course, being set in motion by the all-
powerful will of Pharaoh. Blind obedience was the oil
which caused the harmonious working of the whole.

And this great world, buried in its deep desert grave
for more than 6,000 years, is now beginning to wake up'
out of its long sleep, like the briar rose in the legend,.
and to relate in childishly simple language its long past
history in home and state.

To return to King Mena. After conducting a cam-
paign against the Libyans he was seized and devoured
by a crocodile. Such is the story of the ancients.
Was Set, the lord of the horrid water-monsters, embittered
with envious hatred against the founder of the most
ancient state ?

The names alone of the successors of the first
Pharaoh are preserved in the Tablets of Saqqarah and
Abydos, and harmonise to some extent with the Turin
Papyrus, which when complete contained the names of
the same kings, together with the length of their reigns
in a similar order. From a merely superficial examina-
tion * it is clear that, with the exception of two or three
names towards the end of the Third Dynasty, they are
radically different from those of the Pharaohs who
succeeded them. For the most part the older ones
suggest the ideas of strength and terror. Thus Mena is
' the constant;' Teta, ' the smiter;' Ka-kau, ' the bull of

1 See Table of Kings, p. xix. et seq.