he souls into these preserved bodies is not to be ascribed to
those peoples. Herodotus informs us that "the Ethiopians, having
dried the bodies of their dead, coat them with white plaster,
which they paint with colors to the likeness of the deceased and
encase in a transparent substance. The dead, thus kept from being
offensive, and yet plainly visible, are retained a

5 Bonomi and Arundel on Egyptian Antiq., p. 46.

6 Pl. xxxiii. in Lepsius' Todtenb. der. Agypter.

7 Pettigrew, Hist of Egyptian Mummies, ch. xii.

whole year in the houses of their nearest relatives. Afterwards
they are carried out and placed upright in the tombs around the
city." 8 It has been argued, because the Egyptians expended so
much in preparing lasting tombs and in adorning their walls with
varied embellishments, that they must have thought the soul
remained in the body, a conscious occupant of the dwelling place
provided for it.9 As well might it be argued that, because the
ancient savage tribes on the coast of South America, who obtained
their support by fishing, buried fish hooks and bait with their
dead, they supposed the dead bodies occupied themselves in their
graves by fishing! The adornment of the tomb, so lavish and varied
with the Egyptians, was a gratification of the spontaneous
workings of fancy and affection, and needs no far fetched
explanation. Every nation has its funeral customs and its rites of
sepulture, many of which would be as difficult of explanation as
those of Egypt. The Scandinavian sea king was sometimes buried, in
his ship, in a grave dug on some headland overlooking the ocean.
The Scythians buried their dead in rolls of gold, sometimes
weighing forty or fifty solid pounds. Diodorus the Sicilian says,
"The Egyptians, laying the embalmed bodies of their ancestors in
noble monuments, see the true visages and expressions of those who
died ages before them. So they take almost as great pleasure in
viewing their bodily proportions and the lineaments of their faces
as if they were still living among them." 10 That instinct which
leads us to obtain portraits of those we love, and makes us
unwilling to part even with their lifeless bodies, was the cause
of embalming. The bodies thus prepared, we know from the testimony
of ancient authors, were kept in the houses of their children or
kindred, until a new generation, "who knew not Joseph," removed
them. Then nothing could be more natural than that the priesthood
should