d be made, like that of the Egyptian mummy, entirely by water, that is
to say, very cheaply, very easily, and very rapidly.

We are brought up, however, by one objection. Although as a rule subject to
the Assyrians, the Chaldaeans were from the eleventh to the seventh century
before our era in a constant state of revolt against their northern
neighbours; they struggled hard for their independence and waged long and
bloody wars with the masters of Nineveh. Can the Assyrian kings have dared
to confide their mortal remains to sepulchres in the midst of a people who
had shown themselves so hostile to their domination? Must they not have
trembled for the security of tombs surrounded by a rebellious and angry
populace? And the furious conflicts that we find narrated in the Assyrian
inscriptions, must they not often have interrupted the transport of bodies
and compelled them to wait without sepulture for months and even years?

Further explorations and the decipherment of the texts will one day solve
the problem. Meanwhile we must attempt to determine the nature of
Chaldaeo-Assyrian beliefs as to a future life. We shall get no help from
Herodotus. Intending to describe the manners and customs of the Chaldaeans
in a special work that he either never wrote or that has been lost,[430] he
treated Mesopotamia in much less ample fashion than Egypt, in his history.
All that he leaves us on the subject we are now studying is this passing
remark, "The Babylonians put their dead in honey, and their funerary
lamentations are very like those of the Egyptians."[431] Happily we have
the Chaldaean cemeteries and the sculptured monuments of Assyria to which we
can turn for information. The funerary writings of the Egyptians allow us
to read their hearts as an open book. We know that the men who lived in the
days of the ancient empire looked upon the posthumous life as a simple
continuation of life in the sun. They believed it to be governed by the
same wants, but capable of infinite prolongation so long as those wants
were supplied. And so they placed their dead in tombs where they were
surrounded by such things as they required when alive, especially by meat
and drink. Finally, they endeavoured to ensure them the enjoyment of these
things to the utmost limit of time by preserving their bodies against
dissolution. If these were to fall into dust the day after they entered
upon their new abode, the provisions and furniture with which it was
sto