Daily independent. [volume] (Elko, Nev.) 188?-1915, 1892-10-06
MINES OF MUMMIES.
Digging Up the Dead Regular In
dustry In Peru.

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 It's mole, writes a 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
1or miles beyond, is vast burial
ground, which must once have
been of much greater extent, for
1t Is known that during the last hun
dred years the ocean has made consid-
cradle inroads. A few years ago, when
workmen were digging up the sand to
NIL Arica's pier, and opening track for
the railroad that leads to Tacna
1.-THE important city of the district fortv
miles inland), they found mummies
everywhere; not only humble fisher
men, wrapped in their nets, and lowlv
tillers of the soil in shrouds of braided
PUSHES, 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 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, I'M
covered, by the wayside. Our party
went mummy hunting on horseback,
striking straight across the desert to
point about five miles south of africa.
We were accompanied by several peones
Qaborers) and suitable escort; for it
is considered unsafe for strangers to go
out unattended, as highwaymcn are
abroad in the land and the peones might
be tempted to make new mummies il
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-
its up.
Dig anywhere and you cannot 90
amlss OF a grave. The spades of other
1nquisitive persons have scratched the
desert here and there, but the great
bulk OF it is entirely undisturbed except
by ttful winds that whirl the sand into
crescent-shaped mounds; and doubtless
1t Will remain 30 until, in the lapse of
ages, the slowIy-encroaching Pacific
shall swallow it all. Nothing can decay
protected by the magnetic dust of this
ralnless 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 workmen dug in several different
places to the depth of five or six feet
and brought up dozen aforementioned
"ancients"-two of which l have
shipped 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 encirclinR
DoNJ AheSio, hoI Gay WuCcT-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 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 che subjects to be mummified
were replaced. But they are not less
curious, and are really beautiful things
flat on one side, round and smooth on
the other, amber-lile yellow In color,
holding light as an opal, and varying In
size from the tip of your smallest finger
to the end of n mans thumb. They are
eagerly sought for the settings of pins,
sleeve-buttons, ETC., and are durable as
most jewels.