The Scythians, who swore by wind and sword, that
is, by life and death, were so far from burning their
bodies, that they declined all interment, and made their
graves in the air: and the Ichthyophagi, or fish-eating
nations about Egypt, affected the sea for their grave;
thereby declining visible corruption, and restoring the
debt of their bodies. Whereas the old heroes, in
Homer, dreaded nothing more than water or drowning;
probably upon the old opinion of the fiery substance of
the soul, only extinguishable by that element; and
* And therefore the inscription on his tomb was made ac-
cordingly, "Hic Damase."
therefore the poet emphatically implieth* the total
destruction in this kind of death, which happened to
Ajax Oileus.
The old Balearians had a peculiar mode, for they
used great urns and much wood, but no fire in their
burials, while they bruised the flesh and bones of the
dead, crowded them into urns, and laid heaps of wood
upon them. And the Chinese without cremation or
urnal interment of their bodies, make use of trees and
much burning, while they plant a pine-tree by their
grave, and burn great numbers of printed draughts of
slaves and horses over it, civilly content with their
companies in
effigy, which barbarous nations exact unto
reality.
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