The Vancouver independent. (Vancouver, W.T. [Wash.]) 1875-1910, 1881-10-13
nlnlles.


said my friend, the artists color man
"you might like too look at this"
And there in the little room behind
the shop on the table lays complete
mummy in perfect preservation, down to
the gaudy burial cloths wrapped around
him; only portion of the right leg was
wanting.
$50 you do little business in curiosi-
ties?" said to him.
"Well, no, sir, not exactly; not but
what he's curiosity, and fine one too.
Why, Mr.. -, you know him-him that
paints the Egyptian pictures-he was
here looking him over, and he says he
can tell by the clothes and writin how
he was some big swell-a high priest, I
think he said, or maybe IL king.
But did you pick him up a bargain,
then? suppose he's for sale?"
mo, sir; that is, he's for sale and
he's not for sale; we uses them in the
trade.
"Use them! What do yon mean?"
"Well, will tell You, sir. You know
the brown color called mummy; I've
often sold it to you; well, that's what it's
made Of"
"What, out of the cloths ahd fbres?"
"No, sir, out of the body of him. You
see his face there; we'll, that's about the
tone; we'll break him up us we want
him. I've ground up his right leg al
ready; he's all good, head and all"
"Ground him up! Good heavens!
good heavens You grind up dead men
to make paint with?'
"Well, it amt like dead man, quite,
You see, sir; he's been like that three or
four thousand years, maybe; mostly
SPICE reckon; and its fine, solid color
they make. We hal a lot of em over.
about seven pounds they cost us mostly,
delivered in the borough"
Then came shrill Cry of "Wanted in
the shop!' and this vender of human
pigments returned to his counter.
Could it be true that this portly, white
aproned product of civilization was
about, nay, had actually begun to desc
crate this miracle Of time, this guadily
attired, blackened human shape that
had endured four thousand years to be
the monument of the spirit it once con-
tanned; life that had been great nation
ruler among men, perhaps as an interpre-
ter of the gods.
Was he one of the great company OF
priests bound together in the practice of
mysterious rites and the monopoly of
human knowledge, those mathematicians
and astronomers of the ancient world,
who combined with the highest wisdom
then attained the superstition of the
strangest faiths-who on the moOnless
nights at Sais, commemorated the sui.
ferings of Osiris, that god whose name
the historian dared not mention. who
overcame the spirit of evil and died for
the triumph of the good?
Standing before this blackened clay
with the hard, straight features, the thin
lips and long sunken eyes, how it all
rushes back to memory that tale of
Horus, the last of the sons Of heaven
who sat on an earthly throne, and Mem,
the first of the hnman dynasty, the
legend of the ibis and the phoenix bird,
of Lesostris, the mighty conqueror, and
Mycerinus. who made six years into
twelve. What profit that you had the
rich mans funeral, that they washed
your body in the palm oil, filled it with
myrrh and cassia, and laid it in the nitro
the full tale of seventy days? What profit
that so many tides of war, from Cleo
patra to the Pyramids, have left you
sleeping; faiths changed and empires
passed away, but you outlasted them.
Was your life too prosperous that such
Nemesis should come upon after all
these years? For now you lie in the bar
barian's back parlor to be ground to
powder and made up in tube and sold
for sixpence! Such is the irony Of
life.-I London Society.