The Austin weekly statesman. (Austin, Tex.) 1883-1898, 1893-11-02
A SOUTH AMERICAN oEMErERY.
Where Mourners Are Hired, Graves Rented
and Collins Borrowed.

- OOOlS II fNWGniSNtN SENE En- .
Where Mourners Are Hired, Graves Rented
and Collins borrowed.
Arrived at the gates of Asuncion's
'recoleta" you find women squatting
on the ground outside, each with few
dulces fruits and flowers to sell for the
consolation of visitors. But trade can
not be brisk, for there are never any
visitors, except an occasional foreigner,
the followers of funeral professions
and on the annual recurrence of All
Souls day. Entering, you find bare,
unkempt inclosure-which strikes you
as being exceedingly small for so
old and large city, until you
remember the grewsome custom of
piling corpse upon corps, of borrowed
collins and rented graves for periods of
from three months to three years, ac-
cording to the means or affections OF
the mourners, and the semi-annual
burning of the evicted bones. Although
the living are so profuse in their use of,
flowers, there are few for the dead in
this neglected Gods Acre-only the
faded wreathes OF the more recently
bereaved. And there are no trees but
the useful orange, whose fruit the ma.
tives do not hesitate to eat, although
its abnormal lusciousness speaks of the
decay in which the roots were nour-
ished.
The burial Enclosure is crowded with
wooden crosses painted black and
mural tombstone of the latter elab-
crate specimens of the Italian stucco
workers art; others with some architec-
tural merit, but the ajority pretty good
representations Of Dutch bake ovens.
On the tombs of the well-to-do the lack
of flowers is compensated by ugly
wreaths of black and white beads
strung on wires after the French fash
ion, which give the mourning relatives
little trouble, not being perishable.
They have but to place a bead wreath
upon the grave of the dear departed
and wash their hands of the decorative
business for whole year-until both
fashion and religion demand their at.
tention to the spot on All Souls day.
The simple burial places of the poor
in every case the poor cadaver beneath
is only temporary tenant to be pres
emily turned out into the general
pile of its former friends and
neighbors. Nearly all the black,
wooden crosses have placed in front
of them two common tin lanterns, each
surmounted by q little tin cross, with
candles burning inside, and scraps of
white linen beautifully embroidered
at the ends or finished with deep fall
of nanduti lace are draped around the
arms of the cross.
An old church connected with the
recoleta is at one side of it, and on the
other, strange to say, is an Italian
beer garden, where the SORROWS of the
stricken may be literally drowned"
In iG are fruit and flower stands, be.
sides the usual booths devoted to beer,
and the contrast between this cheer
full and well-patronized garden of Bac-
chus and the adjoining neglected and
forsaken "Field of Saints" Campo
Santo), is something startling. A re-
cent American traveller said of
it: "The beer garden is a
very nice place, but do not
recollect ever before having seen the
quick and the dead under such circum-
stances in such juxtaposition. Instead
Of reminding one that in the midst of
life we are in death, it suggests that in
the midst of death one may be very
much alive"
The richer classes decorate their
family vaults with splendid wreaths
and numerous candles, and stand in
rows before them, murmuring prayers;
but you can not help noticing that
most OF them are not too much engaged
to watch the strangers every move
ment with Unsuitable curiosity. Here
and there one sees poor woman kneel-
ing upon some newly-made grave, her
face literally bowed to the dust, which,
in true Biblical fashion, she has thrown
over herself, uttering meanwhile
the most heartrending shrieks and
sobs, which seem likely to end in fit.
Naturally your sympathies are aroused
and you yearn to go and mingle your
tears with hers; when you are amazed
to see her suddenly brace up, cease her
cries, shake the dirt from her head,
leisurely pick out another grave and
fall upon it in the same manner, with
her face in the dust, beginning anew
the sobs and tears more violently than
before; and then you understand that
she is a professional mourner, hired to
weep by the hour at n stated sum, and
paid so much per sob. There are real
mourners, too, whose grief is undoubt-
edly genuine, in whose sad eyes one
reads that death is alwaysia tragedy,
as grim and inscrutable in palace as in
hovel.
Let fancy picture to You the extraor-
binary scene. The crowds of barefoot
ed, black-gowned women, the mumbling
priests and hustling sightseers. the
wild, pathetic music, mingled with the
shrieks of hired mourners, the fragrant
heaps of flowers, the odd shapes of the
monuments, the quaint old church lin
which all this time corpse was lying),
palms and bananas peering over the