The result interested me exceedingly. By
the end of the third day the hands and feet had become quite dry and
shrivelled and horny--so that the ring actually dropped off the shrunken
finger--the nose looked like a fold of parchment; and the skin of the
body was so dry and smooth that you could have engrossed a lease on it.
For the first day or two I turned the deceased at intervals so that he
should dry evenly, and then I proceeded to get the case ready. I
divided the lacing and extracted the mummy with great care--with great
care as to the case, I mean; for the mummy suffered some injury in the
extraction. It was very badly embalmed, and so brittle that it broke in
several places while I was getting it out; and when I unrolled it the
head separated and both the arms came off.
"On the sixth day after the removal from the sarcophagus, I took the
bandages that I had removed from Sebek-hotep and very carefully wrapped
the deceased in them, sprinkling powdered myrrh and gum benzoin freely
on the body and between the folds of the wrappings to disguise the faint
odour of the spirit and the formalin that still lingered about the body.
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