The relatives now fix the day for the obsequies in order that the judges, the relations, and the friends of the dead may be present, and they characterize it by saying that he is going to pass the lake; afterwards the judges, to the number of more than forty arriving, place themselves in the form of a semicircle beyond the lake. A bateau approaches, carrying those who have charge of the ceremony, and in which is a sailor whom the Egyptians name in their language, Charon. Before placing in the bateau the coffin containing the body of the deceased, it is lawful for each one present to accuse him. If they prove that he has led a sinful life, the judges condemn him, and he is excluded from the place of his sepulture, if it appear that he has been unjustly accused, they punish the accuser with severity. If no accuser presents himself or if the one who does so is known to be a calumniator, the relatives, putting aside the signs of their grief, deliver an eulogism, on the deceased without mentioning his birth, because they consider all Egyptians equally noble. They enlarge on the manner in which he has been schooled and instructed from his childhood; upon his piety, justice, temperance, and his other virtues since he attained manhood, and they pray the Gods of hell to admit him into the dwelling of the pious. The people applauded and glorified the dead who were to pass all eternity in the abodes of the happy. If any one has a monument destined for his sepulture, his body is there deposited; if he has none, they construct a room in his house, and place the bier upright against the most solid part of the wall. They place in their houses those to whom sepulture has not been awarded, either on account of crimes, of which they are accused, or on account of the debts which they may have contracted; and it happens sometimes in the end that they obtained honorable sepulture, their children or descendants becoming rich, pay their debts or absolve them. The Egyptian embalmers knew how to distinguish from the other viscera, the liver, the spleen, and the kidneys, which they did not disturb; they had discovered the means of withdrawing the brain from the interior of the body without destroying the bones of the cranium; they knew the action of alkalies upon animal matter, since the time was strictly limited that the body could remain in contact with these substances; they were not ignorant of the property of balsams, and resins to protect the bodies from the larvae of insects and mites; they were likewise aware of the necessity of enveloping the dried and embalmed bodies, in order to protect them from the humidity, which would interfere with their preservation.