TRIAL OF THE DEAD. 17 



chair. In the paintings their mutual affection is por- 

 trayed. Their fond manners, their gestures of endear- 

 ment, the caresses which they lavish on their children, 

 form sweet and touching scenes of domestic life. 



Crimes could not be compounded as in so many 

 other ancient lands by the payment of a fine. The 

 man who witnessed a crime without attempting to 

 prevent it, was punished as partaker. The civil laws 

 were administered in such a manner that the poor 

 could have recourse to them as well as the rich. The 

 judges received large salaries that they might be placed 

 above the temptation of bribery, and might never dis- 

 grace the image of Truth which they wore round their 

 necks, suspended on a golden chain. 



But most powerful of all, to preserve the morality of 

 the people by giving a tangible force to public opinion, 

 and by impeaching those sins against society which no 

 legal code can touch, was that sublime police insti- 

 tution, the Trial of the Dead. 



When the corpse had been brought back from the 

 embalming house, it was encased in a sycamore coffin 

 covered with flowers, placed in a sledge and drawn by 

 oxen to the sacred lake. The hearse was followed by 

 the relations of the deceased, the men unshorn and 

 casting dust upon their heads, the women beating their 

 breasts and singing mournful hymns. On the banks 

 of the lake sat forty-two judges in the shape of a cres- 

 cent ; a great crowd was assembled ; in the water 

 floated a canoe, and within it stood Charon the ferry- 

 man awaiting the sentence of the chief judge. On the 

 other side of the lake lay a sandy plain, and beyond it 

 a range of long low hills, in which might be discerned 

 the black mouths of the caverns of the dead. 



It was in the power of any man to step forward 



B 



