The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1892-06-17
MINES OF MUMMIES.
DIGGING FOR THE EMBALMED DEAD
Is AN INDUSTRY IN PERU.

The Dry Soil of the Pacific Coast of
South America Seems to Have Preserved
in Remarkable Degree the Remains of
Inhabitants Buried Many Years Ago.
Just north of the Moro is low line of
verdure, modern built houses clustered in
rows around rather handsome church,
| and long mole, the latter piled up with
bags, bales and boxes, and crowded with
soldiers, merchants and cargadores. This
| is africa, port of considerable consequence,
because of being the outlet to Tacna and
rich mines beyond, and the key" to the still
debatable territory Notwithstanding its
mole, steamers must anchor away out in
the bay and passengers be rowed ashore in
canoes. However, they no longer have to
pe carried through the surf on the backs
of men, as during the Peruvian regime,
for the port has quite changed her COM
plexion since claimed by Chill.
But that which brought US here has
nothing to do with the ftful governments
of these burlesque republics, and has re-
mained unchanged through many centu-
ries. Behind the town great windrow OF
yellow sand sweeps back from the Morro
forming kind of ampitheater, unrelieved
by tree or shrub or blade of grass. This
ridge, and all the desert for miles beyond,
is a vast burial ground, which must once
have been of much greater extent, for it is
known that during the last hundred years
the ocean has made considerable inroads.
A few years ago, when workmen were dig
ging up the sand to fill Africa's pier, and
opening track for the railroad that leads
to Tacna (the important city of the district,
forty miles inland), they found mummies
everywhere; not only humble fishermen
wrapped in their nets, and lowly tillers Of
the soil in shrouds of braided rushes, but
the shriveled bodies of chiefs and other per-
sonages of consequence, enveloped in fine
cloth and thin layers of beaten gold.
These aristocrats of a bygone age Jared
worse than their brother plebeians, for,
while the latter were left comparatively
undisturbed, los Ricos, now grim and
CHASTITY as the poorest, were stripped by
rude hands and their crumbling bones
tossed uncovered by the wayside. Our
party went mummy hunting on horseback,
striking straight across the desert to a
point about five miles south of Africa. We
were accompanied by several peones Qabor-
ers) and suitable escort, for it is con-
sidered unsafe for strangers to go out un-
attended, as highwaymen are abroad in
the land and the peones might be tempted
to make new mummies if anything of value
were unearthed. However, people bent on
such blood curdling errands as disturbing
the dead are not likely to hunt alone, but
naturally prefer company to keep their
spirits up.
Dig anywhere and you cannot go amiss
of grave. The spades of other inauisi
tive persons have scratched the desert here
and there, but the great bulk of it is en-
tirely undisturbed except by fitful winds
that whirl the sand into crescent shaped
mounds, and doubtless it will remain SO un-
til, in the lapse of ages, the slowly encroach-
ing Pacific shall swallow it ALL Nothing
can decay protected by the magnetic dust
of this rainlesS region, and the contents of
the tombs look as if they were put there
yesterday. There is no consuming worm
or insect. Flesh dries without decompo-
sition; wood and vegetable matter petrify
from the absence Of moisture, while fabrics
and articles in stone and clay keep" for
ever.
Our workmen dug in several different
places to the depth of five or six fScs, and
brought up a dozen well conditioned ';an
clients two of which I have shipped to
the United States with their wrappings in
tact. The most curious things we found
that day were not the rings of beaten gold
or silver encircling bony fingers, nor clay
water jars nodded in quaint designs, nor
bone spindles, with thread still in them,
Just as the weaver laid down his work
some centuries ago, but the petrified eye
balls, which careful digger may always
find, seldom inserted in the face of the
mummy, but fallen out among the wrap
pings
Modern science cannot comprehend how
these eyes were preserved the commonly
accepted theory is that they were never the
visual organs of human beings, but those
of cuttleish, with which the more perish
able optics of the subjects to be mummi-
fed were replaced. But they are not less
curious, and are really beautiful things
flat on one side, round and smooth on the
other, amberlike yellow in color, holding
light as an opal. and varying in size from
the tip of your smallest finger to the end OF
mans thumb They are eagerly sought
for the settings of pins, sleeve buttons, ETC.,
and are as durable as most jewels.
The early Peruvians preserved their
dead something after the manner of the
Peru are always in sitting posture, with
knees drawn up to the chin and hands
clasped in front of the knees. The head
and all is first envelOped in dyed cotton
cloth, bound with ropes of braided llama
wool (similar to the ropes made today by
Andean Indians); the whole uncaDny bun
die inclosed within another netting of
ropes, or a basketlike case of braided
rushes. Remove the cloth, and the hair,
always long, black and glossy, will be
found elaborately braided, perhaps gold or
silver earrings in the ears and a necklace
of the same metal depending upon the
breast.
The features are well preserved, even to
their expression, which is usually one of
extreme terror and mental agoRy-con-
firming the assertion Of historians that
those about to die were placed by their
obliging relatives in what was considered
the correct position for mummy, and
firmly bound with ropes before the breath
had left the body and death stiffened the
muscles.-Cor. Pittsburg Dispatch.
A Waterproof Rope.
A ropemaking firm in England is manu-