The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1895-09-16
A MODERN MUMMY.
The Sultan of Johore Embalmed by
French Doctor.

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The Sultan of Johore Embalmed by a
French Doctor.
In white-draped mortuary at the back
OF 80 Keppel street, Russell Square, a
quiet-looking early Victorian red-brick
house of exactly similar appearance to
hundreds of other houses in ed-brick row
in Bloomsbury, the body of his late high
ness The Sultan of Johore is lying en-
balmed in semi-state. The house is that of
DR.. Charles Bayle, Chevalier de la Legion
d Ho nneur, Commander de st. Gregoire-
le-Grand, a French scientist who has made q
special study of the art of embalming.
When you enter at the street door the faint
scent of heavy perfume strikes you and
grows less faint as you walk along the
hall. Then as door is opened-you notice
that it is painted in the prevailing Blooms
bury tint ON the outside and hung with
white cloth on the inside-and as you walk
down white-carpeted stairs into a cham Der
built out at the back of the house where
once was garden, the heavy perfume
comes at you heavier and more powerful,
and separates itself into several distinct
and conflicting scents.
Before you, hiding something behind it,
is screen, all white, standing in room
of which the walls and ceilings are covered
with white and the floor is carpeted with
white, seen in white, soft, subdued light
coming from skylight yelled with white
cloth. The screen hides everything in the
room but it's ghostly self, and high up on
the white hangings of the opposite wall,
the crescent and star of the East in dull
red that thrusts itself out from the white
like moaning in the night.
The dim whiteness of the room, the
heavy perfumes, the somber touch of red
tell quite as plainly what it is That lies be-
hind the screen as could black velvet and
silver, burning tapers, and the damp scent
of dying flowers. In the middle of the
room on low trestle bed, white-draped,
the dead Sultan lies, to all appearance
calmly and peacefully asleep. DR.. Bayles
balsams have changed death into sleep,
and he lies with mis- gray mustache and
wavy hair and his black-arched eyebrows,
his handsome soldierly, dusky, features
smoothed and softened and with his eye
lids lightly closed IN the calm and perfect
repose which easy slumber brings to the
face of the man of the world. He looks ex-
actly as one who knew anything of the
Sultan would expect him to look in sleep.
On his breast there lies bound manu-
script copy of the Koran, and under it,
placed there by the priest in accordance
with some custom or belief, pair of scis-
sors. On the white floor at the side of the
bed are three large paper bags of perfume
-one of rosemary, one of patchouli and
the other of rose leaves. The rosemary is
for membrance as we'll as for its pungent
odor, and, perhaps, besides their strong
perfumes, the patchouii and the dried and
crumpled rose leaves may have their mean
ings. The wonderful triumph over decay
has been effected by DIR. Bayle's system of
arterial injection.
But not that system only has been
carried out. In the Oriental system of
embalming the body is evlscerated and
the organs removed and purified. In the
old days they knew no other way, and
what they did in the old DAYS is, according
to Eastern ideas, the only decorous thing
to-day. So the doctor has taken out the
internal organs, washed and cleansed
them, applied his preservative treatment
to them separately, and then replaced
them in their proper positions. But that
was only to satisfy the ideas of the Sultans
court as to what was right and in order.
Still it was not necessary; it was not scien-
tiic, DR.. Bayle says.
Four pints of the preservative fluid, of
which he holds the secret, forced through
the arteries by air pressure would have
sufficed. you see" he says, 1.-The body is
already beginning to dry; the hand be-
comes to be piece like of wood; the foot
it is the same the face treat it in differ
ent way, so as to keep it the appearance of
softness; but you shall see that ear; it is
already like piece of leather" The ear
looks warm and soft and natural enough,
but when you touch it it is set stiff and
hard. The legs are bound tightly around
with strips of cloth, and another goes
under each instep, keeping the feet in
position.
In a day or two the bindings will be var
nished, and then all will be ready for the
sleeping Sultan to be put in his coffin with
the rosemary and the patchouli and rose
leaves on top of him.
'And those bandages are not removed
when the embalming is complete?" the
visitor asked "Those bandages,' said the
doctor, "shall be removed never" Never
is long time
The Sultan-his full name was Tunkoo
Abubikr bin Ibrahim, known as Abu
Bekar, Sultan of Johore, or more correctly
the Tumongong-died officially on Tues
day, the 4th of June, 1895. That was
the day on which his Ministers and court,
having In the meantime, no doubt, taken
the necessary precautions as to affairs in
Johore, finally abandoned all hope OF his
being really still alive. On that same day
the body was taken to DR.. Bayle, and there
were then present indications that HE
death had taken place quite week earlier.
The embalmed body will remain where it
Is Tor two months longer, and then the
Sultan will go back to Johore to be buried
IL the tomb of his fathers.-Pall Mall
Gazette.
In one of the recent public school ex-
aminations in New York City the pupils
were directed to write what they knew
about Columbus. One little boy handed in
the following: christopher Columbus
was born in 1892. In 1776 he wandered off