It has been already explained that the seclusion of Egypt from foreign influences, which was desired both by the prejudices of the people and the principles of the Government, was not endangered by commercial intercourse, because, so far as Egypt was concerned, such commercial intercourse was conducted by wandering merchants, or by the servants of the king under his instructions, not for the private profit of any class of the native population. Ancient Egypt, like modern China, did not have to go abroad to seek a market for her wares; other nations were ready and anxious to bring to her ports such of their productions as her rulers might be willing to accept, but they did not readily obtain a footing in the country; and while they carried away countless flattering reminiscences of Egyptian art and wisdom, they exercised no corresponding influence upon the land they visited. Internal trade was always of the simplest kind, the raw material being produced and the manufactured articles sold, as often as not, by the same persons, whether upon a large scale or a small, by great landowners or petty artisans.

The Egyptians were not a nation of traders, and we must go to Babylon or China to trace the full development of commercial law under the domestic civilizations. Egyptian law recognises sales and loans, but the customs respecting both have retained a curious, half-artificial simplicity. As the political government of the country excludes as far as possible all complex relationships and reciprocal obligations, so the private contracts recognised are made as far as possible one-sided in form.