The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1891-06-07

Ahout another skull the bones OF an arm
were thrown almost caress1ngiy, and legs
and arms. ribs and thighs, whoie and in
bits, were piled up one on the TOP OF
another like so many stones, and the
Whole pbastIy as it was, looked more like
the niled up Indian corn in crib than
anything else.
SOME DEAD AZTEcs.
The most CHASTITY things, however, in
tbis great vault were the mummies who
stood leaned against the wall guarding, as
+ Il were, the remains of the thousands Of
skeletons beyond them. There were at
least one hundred of these mummies, each
of which was more horrible than anything
YOU win see in the museum of Boulak,
near Cairo, in Egypt, or any of the horrid
examples of South American and Alaskan
mummies which you will find in our
National museum in Washington City.
The air here is so dry that it sucks the
Juices out of the dead, and these mummies
have been made not by spices and by
linen bands, but by the atmosphere. They
are more horrible and lifelike than the
artifcially preserved article, and they re-
tain the features and the expressions OF the
dead, shriveled 1t is true. but all the
more horrible in their thousands of
wrinkles. Here against the wall
Is propped the mummy of bearded
man. His face is perfect and the
whiskers faded into bleached dust color
by hundreds of years, cover the whole
OF the lower part of his face. His clothes
have long since rotted OF OF him, and his
bare chest, slightly sunken, looks like the
parchment of an old drum. / tap it with
nv pencil to test his lungs. and it gives
forth hollow, drum-like sound of remon-
STRANGE. His shriyelled arms are crossed
and his withered, brown legs are straight.
AS nv eyes travel down them / see that a
part Of an old boot still clings to one OF
his feet and that the other, like
all the rest of his clothing, has
rotted off long, long ago. Next to this
CHASTITY object stands q mummy more
CHASTITY still. It is that of woman whose
white teeth are as well preserved in death
as in life, and whose black tongue sticks
through these in sort of leer. She has
a wealth of long black hair reaching TO her
waist, and even in death she shows some
signs of grace and beauty. Next her
stands another man whose features seem
TO be contorted with agony, and a little
further on is the mummy of boy OF
twelve, whose mouth is wide open and
whose sunken frame makes you think of a
skeleton of Smi1e, the prosecuted student
of Squeers at Dotheboy's Hall.
COFFIN FOR A TRIPOD.
/ had nv camera with ne in this vault
and I wished to take a photograph OF it.
There was. however. no place TO rest the
camera, and suggested to the guard of
the cemetery that he go and get me a
board. He at once picked up coffin from
q pile which contained the mummies of
babies, and taking the mummy out held it
under his arm, while he propped the coffin
on end and made it stand level by putting
o thigh-bone from the great heap under
one corner. Upon this rested my camera
and succeeded in taking very fair picture.
Before / left / took picture of this man
with the mummy in his arms, and an
other of him and his brother ghoul hold
ing up the municipal coffin, in which all
the dead of this town have to be brought
to the graveyard. There are no hearses in
this mountain city. and the town has fixed
rates for the rent of its collins. These cof-
fins are so big that another coffin can be
put inside Of them, and they are carried
on the shoulders of the bearers up the
steep hill. As soon as they. enter the Gem
etery, the collins are placed on ledge or
stone table, and are opened, for the pur-
pose, IL is said, of seeing that not more
than one corpse is buried in one coffin,
and that the cemetery gets its full fees for
every corpse. The roadway up to the
cemetery has many coffin shops, but the
caskets, though expensive, are very rudely
painted light blue or grained in oak.
eawin Zacatecas q boy carrying one of
these blue collins on his head, but whether
he was on his way to the cemetery or to
the house Of mourning could not tell.
MEXICAN FUNERALS.
The general customs of mourning in
Mexico are somewhat different from ours
Mourning Ii much more general, and black
l.. ~ Ga sAS 81 Er:o e.
distant relatives. It is, however, worn a
shorter time. but the occasions for mourn
ing dresses are so frequent that every lady
has her mourning suit in her wardrobe.
If, for instance, young lady dies, her
friends wear black for her for thirty days,
and If it is the young girls mother who
is dead, the friends viii put on black for
half that time. Ladies do not attend
funerals in Mexico, but they. pay visits
OF coincidence soon after the death,
and such visits are made in mourning
clothes. Cards and letters of regret are
always sent to the family at the time of a
death by such friends who cannot call,
and the announcements OF funerals are OF
the most touching and extravagant nature.
Funerals are celebrated, as rule, imme-
diately after death, and in Mexico city,
as soon as possible after the twenty-four
hours which the law prescribes that the
dead should be kept before interment.
The coffin is procured Immediately, the
cards are sent OUT and the ceremonies take
place.
STREET CARS AS HEARsEs
Mexico city is perhaps the only place in
the world where the street cars are the
hearses. There are no other kind used,
and the car lines make good thing out of
their funeral business. There are $50
deaths day in Mexico city, and you see
these cars draped in black and driven by
drivers in mourning, spinning along the
road towards the cemetery every hour or
so during the week. The funeral car has
a raised place in its center for the coffin.
IL IS open at the sides but has black can
opy at the top, and its decorations are
more or less elaborate according to the
charge for the service. Behind il comes a
second car containing the mourners. and
the cars go very fast, as they have to go on
the same tracks as the other cars. and here
the dead have to run TO get out of the way
of the living. This car service costs ali
the way from So to $40 per funeral and
some OF the higher priced cars are covered
with silk, and in the case of the dead being
infants or young people, are often trimmed
IN white satin.
WHAT IT cosrs TO DIE IN MEXICO.
Mexico city is in fact very expensive
place IN which to die. A funeral costs
$500 at the least, if ii is at all respectable
and In the case of foreigners the expense:
run up into the thousands. This i:
especially so when 1t is desired to take III,
bodies out of the country. If the friend.
of the dead are not posted, al sorts o
extravagant charges are imposed upor
them, and the estate Of a Kansas million