The time, expense, and character of a burning depend mainly on the rank and wealth of the parties, though the ceremony is always performed by the priests, and always within the precincts of a temple. The only exception is in seasons of epidemics or when the land is laid waste by famine. Among the better classes the dead body is laid unmutilated, save by the removal of the intestines, in a coffin, and it is more or less carefully embalmed, according to the time it is to be kept. If the deceased belonged to a private family of moderate means, the burning takes place from four to six days after death; if he was wealthy, but not high-born, the body may be kept a month, but never longer, while the remains of a noble lie in state from two to six months, according to his rank; and for members of the royal family a still longer period intervenes between the death and the burning. But, whatever the interval, the body must lie in state, and the relatives make daily prostrations, prayers, and offerings during the whole time, beseeching the departed spirit to return to its disconsolate friends. When the time for the funeral has arrived, the body is laid in a receptacle on the summit of a stately pyramid, the form and material of which indicate the wealth and position of the deceased. It is thickly gilded, and the receptacle lined with plates of solid gold when the body has belonged to one of royal lineage and well-filled coffers. The last is quite as essential as the first to a gorgeous Oriental funeral, since for rank without money an East Indian has ever the most profound contempt.