The Black Hills union. [volume] (Rapid City, Pennington County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1889-1904, 1891-02-12

Mexico.
Els. I was just pre-
SSS\n. VH pairing to leave
WsAhM Guanajuata, Mexi-
6ln,sA NMi,l CO, writes Edward
l5YHAll8 yyMAV Byron ;Lovather,
N,ME SeoV when ! encount=
@84A @ cred the sexton, /
ST.W .R who was "a verit-
Hf SW able son of his IA
- ther, and who
|~@A came into the Of
~@1 fee of sexton only
&W~ at his fathers
~ death. When the
huge keys of the !Panteon gates were
delivered over to him probably his first
official act was to lock the gates on his
fathers vault. How often had that
father locked those rusty old Panteon
gates? And for what end? Only to
be locked in for all time. But the
sexton never thinks of that; at least, II
he does, it mars not the happiness OF his
heart. I cannot recollect of ever meet
ing a happier-appearing man. He spoke
of the Panteon-in fact, the Panteon
was all he ever thought of-.and the
vaults. were they not beautiful? and
wasn't it a nice, neat place, anyway
and all the while those terrible keys ut
his side jingled, jingled, jingled! He
informed me that the great INTEREST," was
conferred in the tunnel, where los muer-
tos-those that had been disinterred-
were I'LL gathered in rand piles, and if
I desired he would show mo down. l
slipped the obliging sexton a silver
piece, and we proceeded Immediately
to make the descent into the grand
cavern beneath. In an obscure part OF
the cemetery, close up the great wall
that i~ncloses the place, he lifted q slab
from the earth, disclosing an aperture
just large enough to admit q mans
body. Forcing my way through this,
my feet encountered q rock stairway,
which wound around and around, and
went down some thirty or forty feet,
All tbs way down I was almost stifed
BY the close, musty atmosphere which
issued from the place. Once on terra
firma I looked about me. The tunnel,
arched overhead. and the ceiling was
so constructed as to permit the daylight
to stream in through many portlike
holes. The tunnel was completely
filled from top to bottom either way
with skeletons, a space of about seventy
five feet intervening between the two
piles, and all along this clear space
we're scattered skulls and cross-bones
and human bones of all kinds and sizes.
The amount of skeletons in these two
piles has been computed at 40, 1000, but
I think these figures fall far short Of
the actual number. l approached one
of these piles and picked up n of the
skulls, which I thought of taking with
me as a souvenir, but when the sexton
told me that nearly half of the skele-
tons I perceived were the remains of
people who had died of smallpox and
other contagious diseases, I desisted.
I tossed the skull up on the pile and
turned away, when it rolled back down
with much rafting and lay grinning at
my feet. Along the walls were ranged
hundreds of mummies, all standing
erect as life. There were old women,
with their gray hair streaming over
their shoulders; old men, with long
flowing white boards; young women and
young men, and little children, stand
ing as if by the sides of their parents,
dressed in their tattered grave gar.
ments. Some Of the men stood il
boots, and many of them in sandals
All stood with their arms folded across
their breasts. On many of their fore
heads a little slip of paper was pasted
with their respective names writer
thereon. The expressions of these
mummies were something wonderful a.
we'll as terrible to behold. Some ha6
calm expressions, some fierce, som
painful, some frightened, and SOM
seemed actually about to burst out in
loud laugh. Once seen the expires
sions of those mummies will never b.
forgotten. 1t was with o feeling Of al
most relief that I regained the worlt
with it's sunshine and its life.
I must relate q few burial incident
that came under my observation durin,
my stay in the city of Aguas Calientes
While visiting the cemetery one after
noon 1 witnessed no less than half
dozen burials within an hour. At tina
place all the bodies are inferred in tn,
earth in consecrated ground, wher,
they remain unmolested for a few years
then they are dug up and inferred out
side the graveyard in places that ar
specified for such purposes. The frs
burial that 1 noticed on this day wa
| an infant. The corpse was carried il
. on a little table, which was beautiful,
bedecked with flowers. There wer'
hundreds of graves already open from
which bodies had been removed. TIL
funeral party stopped at one of them
, the corpse was uncovered, and Will
the bereaved parents were praying be
side the little n before consigning i
to the grave, one Of the party pickel
up the shell of a coffin, of which Their
! were many bestrewn around, and whici
might have been used two or three time
previous, and the little one WAS place.
+ therein.
The next two or three bodies wer,
buried without collins, and then came
funeral with only the four bearers AM
one old oma behind, who followed
with slow step. When the grave wa.
filled up this old woman, calml,
enough, drew forth a cigarette and Ii
it, and then prostrating herself on tn
grave sent up lamentations pitiable t
hear. Though she stopped OCCASIONAL:
to puff her cigarette, it vas only mo
mentary, and her wailings would burs
forth again. When the first cigarett
was gone she paused long enough t
light another one, and then wept as
her heart would break.
What Makes Beauty?
"What makes beauty?" is the u
ton asked by the London Spectator
!, Beauty is a result Of race, Of circum
stances, such as personal freedom ant