Although the art of embalming be seldom practised by the more civilized nations, it is not rare among those still comparatively rude. An anxiety to " sleep with their fathers" has animated the greater part of mankind ; and where this has been precluded by the perishable condition of decaying bodies, the bones motile heart have been selected for interment in a chosen sepulchre. Thus, if one of the Abiponians, an erratic South American peo ple, should decease at a distance from his principal re sidence, the body is converted to a skeleton, and carried along with the tribe, until there be a fit opportunity for inhumation. If some of the North American Indians lose a relative OD a pressing march, he is interred ; but when more at leisure, they return to despoil his bones of the putrid flesh, and convey them to the cemetery of his kindred. Perhaps a similar custom of carrying the bones of their leaders along with them prevailed among the Jews.
At Nukahiwa, one of the Marquesas, we are told by the late Russian circumnavigators, that embalment is practised at the present day. The body of the deceased is washed and laid on a platform, after which it is con stantly rubbed during nine months with cocoa-nut oil, to repel putrefaction. By this continued application it becomes as hard as stone, and quite incorruptible. In twelve months, a feast takes place among the survivors, to thank the gods for having permitted the deceased to arrive safe in the other world, when the body is bro ken into pieces, which, being packed in a small box, is carried to the morai, or burying-place. Captain Cook had previously remarked, that the Otaheitans, by withdrawing the intestines, stuffing the body with cloth, and using cocoa-nut oil, preserved their chiefs a long time for public exposure.
We know that of old, a devout monarch or noble sometimes appointed his heart to be embalmed and transmitted to the Holy Land : or when one died in a remote country, it was frequently inclosed in a silver urn, and sent to the cemetery of his family, which is practised at the present day. Thus urns or cups con taining hearts are occasionally discovered in vaults and churches, or even among the family archives long un opened. Such was the fact regarding the heart of Ar thur Lord Capel in England, who suffered for his at tachment to Charles I.: and very recently the heart of a young nobleman who had many years ago been kill ed in a duel, was found in the church of Culross in Scot land. It was wrapped in linen, and inclosed in a silver cup with a cover, but had greatly shrunk from its origi nal size.
Somewhat analogous to this subject, is the preserva tion of the dead by simple desiccation, at Palermo in Sicily. There it is said none of the higher ranks are interred according to the fashion of other European na tions, but consigned to the catacombs of a Capuchin convent about a mile without the city. After the per formance of a funeral service, the body is dried in a stove heated by a composition of lime, and then placed up right in niches in the subte•raneous galleries, clothed in its usual attire. Although they have remained there
three hundred years, the flesh dried hard is still upon the bones, but the contraction and distortion of the features exhibit a hideous picture of mortality. The inhabi tants pay frequent visits to their deceased friends in this repository, which some years ago is said to have contained a thousand bodies. It is wonderful how lit tle of the animal substance remains in the human frame, thus intentionally or accidentally preserved. A mum my from Tene•iffe weighed only 30 pounds ; and the body of Robert Braybrough, Bishop of London, who died in 1404, weighed but nine pounds 270 years after wards.
There are extensive catacombs near the city of Kiow, on the banks of the Dnieper, containing great num bers of bodies in a state of perfect preservation ; but it is not known whether they have undergone any artificial process, or how long they have been there, though it has been conjectured that the catacombs were constructed in the tenth century.
Sometimes the progress of corruption is arrested by means which are little understood or explained. The bodies of travellers who perish in the sands of Arabia,or in the snows of the north, frequently remain entire. We have heard that on the hill of Busaco in Spain, the scene of a sanguinary contest a few years ago, some of the bo dies of the slain are still seen in preservation. But more permanent preservation ensues with persons who are lost in mosses, of which, besides others, a remarkable example occurred in the year 1747. In an extensive morass in the Isle of Axholm, in Lincolnshire, the body of a woman was found lying bent together, on one side, the head and feet almost in contact. From the figure of her sandals, and other circumstances, it was conjec tured that her death had taken place 400 years previous to this discovery. It is not animal substances alone which thus resist decay, for nosegays and branches of bays de posited along with the dead, have preserved their ver dure for ages.
See Gough's Sepulchral Monuments, var loc. Ab dollatiph Compendium Egypti, p. 149 Augustini Scr nzo 361. § 12. Opera, torn. v. p. 1411. Memoires de l'4cadenzie des Belles Lettres, tom. 23. Golberry, Voy ages, tom. 2. Philosophical Transactions, vol. xliv. p. 571. vol. liv. p. 3-14. 1794. part 2. M iddl eton's Mis cellanies, vol. iv. p. 166. ?rchceologia, vol. xv. p. 301. Greaves' Pyramidographia, p. 49. Munimenta Vetusta. vol. iii. p. 1-3. plate 7, 8. Cook's Third Voyage, vol. ii. p. 52, 53. •Krusenstern's Voyage, vol. i. p. 173. Suth erland's Tour, p. 300. Brydone's Tour. v. 2, p. 66. Blainville's Travels, vol. iii. p. 357. Breval's Travels, v. i. p. 49. Riegerus hztroductio ad Notitiain Rerum, tom. ii. Herbinius Cryptce Kiovienses. (c)