Wearied at last by amusements, Ramses declared to the worthy Otoes that he wished to become more nearly acquainted with the management of the province, for he had received a command from his holiness the pharaoh to study it.
His desire was satisfied. The nomarch requested the prince to sit in a litter borne by only two men, and with a great retinue escorted him to the temple of Hator. There the retinue remained in the antechamber, but the nomarch commanded the bearers to carry the prince to the summit of a pylon, which he himself ascended.
From the summit of a tower, ninety feet high, whence priests observed the sky and communicated through colored flags with the neighboring temples in Memphis, Atribis, and Ann, the eye surveyed in the radius of some miles almost a whole province.
From that place, too, the worthy Otoes showed Ramses the fields and vineyards of the pharaoh; he showed what canal they were clearing, what sluice they were repairing; he showed furnaces for smelting copper; he showed where the royal granaries' stood, where the lotus and papyrus swamps were, what fields were covered with sand, and so on till he had finished.
Ramses was charmed with the beautiful view, and thanked Otoes warmly for the pleasure which he experienced. But when he returned to the palace, and, according to the advice of the pharaoh, noted impressions, he convinced himself that his knowledge of the economic conditions of Aa had not widened.
After some days he asked explanations again of Otoes touching the administration of the province. The worthy lord commanded all the officials to assemble and pass before the prince, who sat in the main court on an elevation.
Before the viceroy moved great and petty treasurers; scribes of grain, wine, cattle, woolen stuffs; chief masons, ditch-diggers, naval and land engineers, healers of various diseases, officers over regiments of laborers, police scribes, judges, inspectors of prisons, even executioners and dissectors. After them the worthy nomarch presented the prince's own officials in that province to him. Ramses learned therefore, with no small astonishment, that in Aa and in the city of Sochem he had his own personal charioteer, torch-bearer, shield-bearer, dart-bearer, mace-bearer, some tens of litter-bearers, a number of cooks, cup-bearers, barbers, and many other servitors distinguished for attachment and faithfulness, though he had not even heard their names and did not know them.
Tortured and tired by a barren review of officials, the prince's courage fell. He was terrified by the thought that he understood nothing, hence was unfitted to rule; but he feared to confess this even to himself.
If Ramses could not rule Egypt, and others were able to rule it, what remained to him? Nothing but death. Without the throne he could have no happiness. He felt that for him life would be impossible unless he had power.
But when he had rested a few days, in so far as rest was attainable in that chaos of court life, he summoned Otoes, and said to him,