King Kalakaua of Hawai'i died in San Francisco in 1891, and then his body was transported back to Honolulu. What procedures would have been in place at the time to keep his body... presentable?
I'm not sure about his particular case, but when Admiral Nelson died at Trafalgar in 1805, he was transported to Gibraltar in a barrel of brandy with camphor and myrrh, and from there put into a lead-lined coffin filled with "spirits of wine" (aqua vitae, ethanol) for the trip home to England. The spirits of wine or other alcohol would have a pickling effect, and those were used to preserve specimens for naturalists.