18 THE PAINTED TOMB. 



and accuse the departed before the body could be 

 borne across. If the charge was held to be proved, 

 the body was denied burial in the consecrated ground, 

 and the crowd silently dispersed. If a verdict of not 

 guilty was returned, the accuser suffered the penalty 

 of the crime alleged, and the ceremony took its course. 

 The relatives began to sing with praises the biography 

 of the deceased ; they sang in what manner he had 

 been brought up from a child till he came to man's 

 estate, how pious he had been towards the gods ; how 

 righteous he had been towards men. And if this was 

 true, if the man's life had indeed been good, the crowd 

 joined in chorus, clapping their hands and sang back 

 in return that he would be received into the glory of 

 the just. Then the coffin was laid in the canoe, and 

 the silent ferryman plied his oar, and a priest read the 

 service of the dead : and the body was deposited in 

 the cemetery caves. If he was a man of rank he 

 was laid in a chamber of his own, and the sacred 

 artists painted on the walls an illustrated catalogue of 

 his possessions, the principal occupations of his life, 

 and scenes of the society in which he moved. For 

 the priests taught, that since life is short and death is 

 long, man's dwelling house is but a lodging, and his 

 eternal habitation is the tomb. Thus the family 

 vault of the Egyptian was his picture gallery, and 

 thus the manners and customs of this singular people 

 have, like their bodies, been preserved through long 

 ages, by means of religious art. 



There are also still existing on the walls of the 

 temples, and in the grotto tombs, grand historical 

 paintings which illuminate the terse chronicles en- 

 graved upon the granite. Among these may be 

 remarked one subject in particular, which appears 



