396 
LAMENTATIONS POE THE DEAD. 
The affectionate respect evinced for the memory of 
the dead by the Egyptians, induced them to preserve 
by various methods the remains of those they had 
cherished in life; and not only was the period of 
mourning long, but at various seasons the family met 
together, to revive the reminiscences of the departed. 
Among the Western Africans, of course it would be 
in vain to look, for anything assimilating to so costly 
and difficult a process as that of embalming, although 
the Ashantis smoke the bodies of the dead to preserve 
them'^^; and in every tribe where cotton clothes are 
found, the deceased is wrapt up in various quantities 
according to his wealth; and several articles of orna- 
ment are either buried with him, or placed over the 
grave, as we had occasion to point out, in describing 
places visited by the Expeditionf . Both in Egypt and 
Abyssinia, lamentation was made for the dead ; a sort 
of wake being held, on the assembling together of the 
relatives and friends, who tore their hair, and likewise 
bewailed the loss, which is just as it is observed by 
the West Africans. That this could not have been 
engrafted on the Abyssinians by their adoption of 
• King, an intelligent African, who was left in charge of the 
‘Amelia’ schooner at the Confluence, states in his journal, that some 
Bassa youths, who worked at the model farm, did so to obtain cow- 
ries sufficient to bury their father, in a proper manner; they had 
kept the body five months, by smoking it over a fire, frequently 
washing it, and repeating the preservative process, as also decorating 
it with powdered camwood. 
t Vide also vol. ii., p. 201 and 220 of this narrative. 
