4'28 HISTOKY OF 



trier] every art to extend the life of the one by preventing the 

 dissolution of the other. In this practice they were exercised 

 from the earliest ages ; and the mummies they have embalmed 

 in this manner, continue in great numbers to the present day. 

 We are told, in Genesis, that Joseph, seeing his father expire, 

 gave orders to his physicians to embalm the body, which they 

 executed in the compass of forty days, the usual time of embalm- 

 ing. Herodotus also, the most ancient of the profane historians, 

 gives us a copious detail of this art, as it was practised, in his 

 time, among the Egyptians. There are certain men among 

 them, says he, who practise embalming as a trade ; which they 

 perform with all expedition possible. In the first place, they 

 draw out the brain through the nostrils, with irons adapted to 

 this purpose ; and in proportion as they evacuate it in this man- 

 ner, they fill up the cavity with aromatics : they next cut open 

 the belly near the sides with a sharpened stone, and take out 

 the entrails, which they cleanse, and wash in palm oil ; having 

 performed this operation, they roll them in aromatic powder, 

 fill them with myrrh, cassia, and other perfumes, except incense ; 

 and replace them, sewing up the body again. After these pre 

 cautions, they salt the body with nitre, and keep it in the salt- 

 ing place for seventy days, it not being permitted to preserve it 

 so any longer. When the seventy days are accomplished, and 

 the body washed once more, they swathe it in bands made of 

 linen, which have been dipt in a gum the Egyptians use instead 

 of salt. When the friends have taken back the body, they make 

 a hollow trough, something hke the shape of a man, in which 

 they place the body ; and this they inclose in a box, preserving 

 the whole as a most precious relic, placed against the wall. 

 Such are the ceremonies used with regard to the rich. As foi 

 those who are contented with an humbler preparation, they trea 

 them as follows : they fill a syringe with an odoriferous liquor 

 extracted from the cedar-tree, and, without making any incision, 

 inject it up the body of the deceased, and then keep it in nitre, as 

 long as in the former case. When the time is expired, they 

 evacuate the body of the cedar liquor which had been injected ; 

 and such is the effect of this operation, that the liquor dissolves 

 the intestines, and brings them away : the nitre also serves to 

 eat away the flesh, and leaves only the skin and the bones re- 

 maining. This done, the body is returned to the friends, and 



