Page:H. D. Traill - From Cairo to the Soudan Frontier.djvu/234

 and a ruler who loves his town. I have passed the course of years as the ruler of Meh, and all the labours of the palace have been carried out at my hands. I have given to the overseers of the temples of the gods of Meh 3000 bulls with their cows, and I was in favour in the palace on account of it, for I carried all the products of the milk-bearing cows to the palace, and no contributions to the king's storehouses have been more than mine. I have never made a child grieve, I have never robbed the widow, I have never repulsed the labourer, I have never shut up a herdsman, I have never impressed for forced labour the labourers of a man who only employed free men. There was never a person miserable in my time, no one went hungry under my rule, for if there were years of scarcity I ploughed up all the arable land in the home of such up to its very frontiers on the north and south. By this means I made its people live and procured for them provisions, so that there was not a hungry