CHAP. XI. NU.MBEItS OVER CATTLE. 131 



detect frauds, and the bastinado was freely * ad- 

 ministered, whenever the peasant or the shepherd 

 neglected the animals entrusted to their care. 



The accompanying woodcuts fully illustrate 

 the mode of bringing the cattle ; and the last is 

 particularly interesting, from the numbers being 

 written over the animals, answering, no doubt, to 

 the report made to the steward, who, in the pre- 

 sence of the master of the estate, receives it from 

 the head shepherd. First come the oxen, over 

 which is the number 834, cows 220, goats 3^34^, 

 asses 760, and sheep 974 ; behind which follows 

 a man carrying the young lambs in baskets slung 

 upon a pole. The steward, leaning on his staff, 

 and accompanied by his dog, stands on the left of 

 the picture ; and in another part of the tomb, the 

 scribes are represented making out the statements 

 presented to them by the different persons em- 

 ployed on the estate. The tomb where this subject 

 occurs, is hewn in the rock near the Pyramids of 

 Geezeh, and possesses additional interest from its 

 great antiquity, having the namet of a king who 

 lived about the era of the founders of those mo- 

 numents, as well as from the subjects it contains, 

 which show the Egyptians to have had the same 

 customs at that early time, and to have arrived at 

 the same state of civilisation as in the subsequent 

 ages of the 18th and later dynasties, — a fact which 

 cannot but suggest most interesting thoughts to an 



* Vide Vol. II. [).+!., where the keepers of oxen are bastinadoed 

 for neglecting the animals. 



t Given in Vol. III. p. 278. Woodcut, No. 380./g. 4. 



K 2 



