The Wilmington daily Republican. (Wilmington, Del.) 1890-1902, 1898-05-30
cATAcoMes IN AMERICA. !
The Only Burial Place Of tho Kind In
This Country.

The Only Burial Place Of tho Kind In
This Country.
Knowing what you expect to see here 1t
Ia only natural for you to enter the ceme-
terry with some little nervousness and
trepidation, but you are treasured VIXEN
you do enter the big gate, for there is
nothing uncanny or "triste" yet to be
seen. On the contrary this Mexican
"God's acre" is all tranquil and bright
and beautiful, and you do not think even
Of the square black lettered Hpnces that
are honeycombcd one above tho other, all
tho way around the great wall of tho pan
theon. These square spaces, five rows of
them, contain a vault each, and that is
where the interment Is made.
1t Is an eIiSrmous place, this cemetery,
and well that 1t is so, for during the great
typhus epidemic in 1893 it received, 50
people say, about third Of the then popu-
lation of Guanajuato. For time the city
council kept some sort Of tally on the
deaths, but as later on the council itself
and most Of the physicians succumbed to
tho fatal disease no count was kept, and
interment was made in great trench dug
in the center Of the pantheon, one coffin,
NlJA u hHilIl& III tllo bCrNihB lOl
all, when the ceremony Of q coffin was
used at all.
= However, waving the matter of epidem-
les, in Guanajuato when q person dies
tho family at once arrange to rent one of
tho boxlike spaces in this pantheon, rent 81
per month, payable In advance. Then tho
"deader" Gas Sentimental Tommy has
it) is put away In one of the vaults-not
to walt tho last trump, but to await tho
next pantheon pay day. When tho day
comes, II tho family can't raise the $12 for
the next fiscal year, tho city council has
the vault unsealed, the coffin taken out and
tho "deader" transferred to the huge pas
sages below tho pantheon, In the cata-
cumbas. The catacumbas comprise enor-
nous underground passages that run all
tho way around the pantheon.
The pantheon man pushes back q big fat
stone over in a corner of the cemetery and
invites you to step into small dark holo
which admits only ono person at timo
and contains q small, winding stone stair,
built pretty much on the corkscrew plan.
Some goddess person, with more sense Of
humor than grace, has placed 4he tallcst,
ugliest and uncanniest Cf there is such O
word) Of all the mummies at the very bot
tom Of tho last step, so arranged that as
you descend tho crooked stairs you land
right into his bony arms.
1t is truly grisly thing to see, once you
are safely there. Imagine to yourself long,
seemingly endless white passages, silent
us only death can make them, heaped up
at each end with great piles of bones-the
bones of those who refused to mummy
and lined thickly with mummy after
mummy, horrible, brown, skinny things,
fastened in standing position against
the walls, many Of them with their grin.
ming, acshless faces turned toward other
mummics, as though In conversation, 9th.
ers with heads bowed, as in meditation or
prayer, and others with faces blankly
staring up at tho stone walls above Once
seen. 1t Is thing that you do not soon
forget.
Along ono sido are tho gentleman mum.
mics, on tho other the ladies, and indis-
mixed among them are the
poor baby mummies.
There is not, strange to say, the slight
est hint Of disagreeable odor; rather
there Is smell Of lime. The place is beau
tifully clean and white, and there are
even somo birds that build down here and
bring up their young ones among the
Gilbert Cunningham In
Godey's Magazine