[299] It is noteworthy that Herodotus represents the question of disposal of the dead as having been raised by the Egyptians: they decided in favour of embalming and rock entombment, as against cremation or burial, the reason given for the preference being that fire was “a savage beast,” in the one case, while in the other case, the devouring beast was the worm. Bk. III. § 16.
[300] Curiously enough it was among the Christians of Egypt that the controversy as to the corruptibles and the incorruptibles raged most furiously. See Gibbon.
[301] Clot Bey, Peste en Egypte. Paris, 1840.
[302] Benoit de Maillet, Description de l’Egypte. Paris, 1735, p. 281. See also Wilkinson, Ancient Egyptians, III. 456, 465.
[303] Justus Doolittle, Social Life of the Chinese, 2 vols. New York, 1867, I. 33, 198, 213.
[304] T. T. Cooper, Travels of a Pioneer of Commerce, Lond. 1871, p. 23, 33.
[305] This is one of the remarks in Dr Gilbert Skene’s treatise on the Plague, Edinburgh, 1568 (reprinted for the Bannatyne Club, 1840):—Among the causes are “deid cariounis unbureit, in speciale of mankynd, quhilkis be similitude of nature is maist nocent to man, as everie brutall is maist infectand and pestilentiall to thair awin kynd,” p. 6.
[306] A. von Kremer, “Ueber die grossen Seuchen des Orients nach arabischen Quellen.” Sitzungsber. der Wien. Akad., Philos.-histor. Classe, Bd. 96 (1880), p. 69.
[307] Ch. M. Doughty, Travels in Arabia Deserta, 2 vols. Cambridge, 1888.
[308] Communicated to Herr von Kremer (l. c.) by Nury Effendi, who visited Assir, and wrote a report preserved in MS. in the Archives at Constantinople.