The Irish standard., 1892-05-14
MINES OF MIJMMIES.

f1Sl-JIGl1kA1l W. - e.. =
MINES OF MuJMMIES.
Digging Up the Dead a Regular In.
dustry in Peru.
A Rainless Region Where Flesh Drios
Without Observation-Disclosures Finds
Among the Tombs of EN-
balmed Ancients.
Just north of the MORO is a low line
of verdure, modern built houses clus-
tered in rows around rather handsome
church. and a long mole, the latter
piled up with bags, bales and boxes,
and crowded with soldiers, merchants
and cargadores. This is africa, a port
of considerable consequence, because
being the outlet to Taena and rich
mines beyond, and the key" to the
still debatable territory. Notwith-
standing its mole, writes correspondent
of the Pittsburgh Dispatch. steamers
must anchor away out in the bay, and
passengers be rowed ashore in canoes.
However, they no longer have to be
carried through the surf on the backs
Of men, as during the Peruvian regime
Behind the town great windrow OF
yellow sand sweeps back from the
MORO, forming kind of amphitheater.
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 hun
dred years the ocean has made consid-
cradle inroads. A few years ago. when
worlxmen were digging up the sand to
fill Arica's pier, and opening a track for
the railroad that leads to Tacna
(the important city of the district, forty
miles inland), they found mummies
everywhere; not only humble fisher
men, wrapped in their nets, and lowly
tillers Of the soil in shrouds of braided
rushes, but the shriveled bodies of
chiefs and other personages of conse-
quence, 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 undisturbe
los Ricos, now grim and CHASTITY as the
poorest, were stripped by rude hands
and their crumbling bones tossed. I'M
covered, 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
(laborers) and a suitable escort: for it
is considered unsafe for strangers to go
out unattended. 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 natu.
rally prefer company to keep their spir-
it's up.
Dig anywhere and you cannot go
amiss of a grave. The spades of other
inquisitive persons have scratched the
desert here and there, but the great
bulk Of it is entirely undisturbed except
by fitful winds that whirl the sand into
it will remain SO until, in the lapse of
ages, the slowly~encroaching 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
decomposition; wood and vegetable
matter petrify from the absence of
moisture, while fabrics and articles in
stone and clay keep forever.
Our worlxmen dug in several different
places to the depth of five or six feet
and brought up dozen well-conditioned
'ancients' of which have
hipped to the United States with their
wrappings intact. The most curious
things we found that day were not the
rings of beaten gold or silver encircling
bony fingers, nor clay water-jars mold
ed in quaint designs. nor bone spindles,
with thread still in them, just as the
weaver laid down his work some cen
turtles ago, but the petrifed eyeballs.
which a careful digger may always find.
seldom inserted in the face of the
mummy, but fallen out among the
wrappings. Modern science cannot
comprehend how these eyes were pre-
served; the commonly accepted theory
is that they were never the visual or
gans of human beings, but those Of cut
fetish, with which the more perishable
optics of the subjects to be mummifed
were replaced. But they are not less
curious, and are really beautiful things
flat on one side, round and smooth on
the other. amber-lilke 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 durable as
most jewels
The early Peruvians preserved their
dead something after the manner of the
Egyptians, except that the 1nummies of
Peru are always in a 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