The prætor, addressing Dr. Baāhar, directed his attention to a pyre in the centre of the orchard enclosure. “That,” he said, “will answer your question with reference to the disposal of our dead during the siege; although it has been long disused for incineration, we still continue the practice in a less objectionable way. Opposite, at the extreme outer curve of the wall, you observe turrets rising above the parapet; these are the vents to ovens or chambers of incineration, and the urns bordering the garden walks are the family receptacles for the united ashes of the deceased. Our present method is of Manatitlan devisement, and it enables us to reduce the bodies to their material ultimatum. The northern garden is used for the same purpose, the alternation being dictated by the direction of the wind draught in its waft from the cinctus enclosure. We were advised by the Manatitlans that your people practiced inhumation, and supposing that you were prejudiced in favor of the burial rites of your ancestors, with the padre’s tenacity, we withheld our method of disposal until your objections had been anticipated by Manatitlan influence. As you have been impressed with the body’s corruptibility in diseased materialism, and adjunct manifestations of instinctive vitality, of voluntary and involuntary source, you will now regard with horror, akin to our own, the putrefactive process of decomposition which of necessity imperils the well-being of the living from the entombment of the dead. How have you been able to escape the conviction that your practice of inhumation is cannibalism in a double sense, as you virtually live on the products of recomposition derived from the decomposition of a dead ancestry, and are subject to corrupt inoculation from the putrefactive emanations of decay. The very fact of the festering incorporation of a dead ancestry with the earth from which you derive sustenance, has conveyed a shock to our sympathies, in your behalf, that exceeds our powers of expression, as it is so directly opposed to the current realization of purity. Have you never thought of the material analogy sustained by the bodies of the present generation’s reincorporation with the future, in resemblance to the ancient Egyptian theory of transmigration, which led them to associate their embalmed relatives with the bodies of reptiles similarly prepared? The bright array of vessels you see arranged in the colonnades on either side of the ovens are the body receptacles for incineration, but they were designed for bath basins, and used by the luxurious old Heracleans, when they visited the City of the Falls, for recuperation from the effects of excessive indulgence. Their massive thickness and primitive design, with the resistant qualities of the metal, has rendered them proof to wearing attrition through the ages they have been in use. The Dosch, on your first arrival, cautioned us not to be over