r the lake it had to cross. A
branch of cypress placed at the door where the deceased lay, indicated
that there was a dead body within. People were invited to public
funerals by a herald. Magistrates and priests were supposed to be
violated by seeing a corpse, and therefore the dead were generally
buried at night with torch-light. At funeral processions pipers and
other musicians attended, and women sang the funeral song or the
praises of the deceased to the sound of the flute. By the law of the
twelve tables, the number of flute players was restricted to ten. Next
followed actors and buffoons, who danced and sang, while one of them
imitated the deceased's words and actions when alive. Before the
corpse there were carried the images of the deceased and of his
ancestors. The ancients buried their dead at their own houses, whence
arose the fear of hobgoblins, and a belief in lares, supposed to be
the souls of the deceased.

When the body was laid in the tomb, the people present were sprinkled
three times with pure water by the priest, and when the friends
returned home they were again sprinkled. Beans, lettuces, bread, eggs,
etc. were laid in the tombs, in the belief that the ghosts would come
and eat them. Offerings were made to appease the manes. If a person,
falsely reported to have been dead, returned home, he did not enter
his house by the door, but went into it through the roof. Dead bodies
were often violated for magical purposes, by stripping them of
valuable articles, or cutting off fingers, toes, or arms. Wax images
of deceased persons were made, and, after a variety of ridiculous
ceremonies, burned on piles, from the tops of which eagles were let
loose to convey to heaven the souls set free from the body.

CHAPTER VII.

Ethiopian Superstition--Sacred Bread--Customs of
Ethiopian Monks--Heathen Indian Gods--Paraxacti and
her three Sons--Thirty thousand millions of Gods--Fate
of a Child written on its Forehead--Transmigration of
Souls--Seven Seas--Mountain of Gold--Adder of
monstrous size with a Hundred Heads--Vixnu--Dispute
between Bruma, Vixnu, and Rutrem--Curse pronounced
against the Thistle--Iranien the
Giant--Transformation--Morning Star--Vixnu's different
Forms--A King's Head kicked into the lowest
Abyss--Prediction by Soothsayers--A Tyrant's
Intentions frustrated--Vixnu's Guilt and Punishment;
his Marriages and suppose