he learned the details of their methods of food gathering , of their trade relationships with the other city-states , of their lack of military readiness , of their declining birth rate , of the increasing incidence of infection conceivably brought on by unsanitary conditions from poorly-planned methods of waste disposal , of the excessive and blatant hoarding by the elders and , in particular , by the chief of the village , mamluk , who did very little in the way of governance , purely because his claim to the title had come about as a consequence of noble birth and little more .