how spells and exorcisms
were muttered, and how every person and thing, which had approached or
been brought into contact with the dead body, was subjected to numerous
purifications with water and pungent fluids.

The same evening Cambyses was seized by one of his old epileptic attacks.
Two days later he gave Nebenchari permission to embalm Nitetis' body in
the Egyptian manner, according to her last wish. The king gave way to the
most immoderate grief; he tore the flesh of his arms, rent his clothes
and strewed ashes on his head, and on his couch. All the magnates of his
court were obliged to follow his example. The troops mounted guard with
rent banners and muffled drums. The cymbals and kettle-drums of the
"Immortals" were bound round with crape. The horses which Nitetis had
used, as well as all which were then in use by the court, were colored
blue and deprived of their tails; the entire court appeared in mourning
robes of dark brown, rent to the girdle, and the Magi were compelled to
pray three days and nights unceasingly for the soul of the dead, which
was supposed to be awaiting its sentence for eternity at the bridge
Chinvat on the third night.

Neither the king, Kassandane, nor Atossa shrank from submitting to the
necessary purifications; they repeated, as if for one of their nearest
relations, thirty prayers for the dead, while, in a house outside the
city gates Nebenchari began to embalm her body in the most costly manner,
and according to the strictest rules of his art.

[Embalming was practised in three different ways. The first cost a
talent of silver (L225.); the second 20 Minae (L60.) and the third
was very inexpensive. Herod. II. 86-88. Diod. I. 9. The brain
was first drawn out through the nose and the skull filled with
spices. The intestines were then taken out, and the body filled in
like manner with aromatic spices. When all was finished, the corpse
was left 70 days in a solution of soda, and then wrapped in bandages
of byssus spread over with gum. The microscopical examinations of
mummy-bandages made by Dr. Ure and Prof. Czermak have proved that
byssus is linen, not cotton. The manner of embalming just described
is the most expensive, and the latest chemical researches prove that
the description given of it by the Greeks was tolerably correct. L.
Penicher maintains that the bodies were first somewhat dried in
ovens, and that then resin of the cedar-tree, or