The daily morning journal and courier., 1903-06-27
IN AREQUIPA.
THE QUICK AND THE DEAD--
 HoW MODERN PERUVIANS
Dispose of Their Dear Departed Scenes In a Typical Cemetery.

Scenes tn Typical Cemetery.
 Especial Correspondence of the Journal
 and Courier.)
 Arequipa, Peru, May 20, 1903.
 Passing along the street one day. my attention was drawn to the subject of funerals in forcible and rather un- pleasant manner. With head in the clouds and hands full of roses, musing on the beauty of eternal summer amid snow-elad mountains, barely escaped being knocked down and run over by four horses driven furiously, the fore most one ridden by postilian, that came dashing around the corner at tached to hearse. About the only thing that goes with speed in lazy Peru is a funeral procession; and when wheels are out Ca comparatively rare occurrence in Arequipa), they claim the right of way, not only in the street, but on both pavements. invariably cutting off all corners so closely as to graze the houses. This is not always the result of carelessness. however nor due to malice aforethOught" on the part of the driver. The city streets are very narrow and irregular, paved with small, slippery stones. and sloping sharply from the middle toward deep gutter on either side. Consequently clumsy wheels will slide toward the edges, and in many cases the only way to prevent them from actually leaning up against houses is to drive pell mell. Considering the fearful jolting over hrOI<aT1 Yn1aapS induced by such locomotion, there is lit- tie danger of being buried in a trance ill Arequipa-at least where the hearse is employed. The poor people, of course, cannot afford to hire it, but carry the dear departed on their heads to the cemetery-a distance of something more than three miles from the central plaza. Most of the latter class cannot even afford a coffin, though the luxury of wooden box, painted black, blue or yellow, may be rented for the journey between the cathedral and the place of interment-the same coffin serving the purpose over and over again, day after day, for years. It is not uncommon to meet company of men carrying their dead on public bier, the latter being constructed of five narrow pieces of wood, about foot apart, nailed cross wise to the side poles that serve for handles, the end-boards stained black and showing a cheerful skull and cross bones outlined upon them with white paint.
 The procession which I so unpleas- antly encountered was evidently that of a swell Arequipanian, for the coffin had silver handles on it, (the gauge of high est sWelldom fere). while several priests rode mkt to the hearse, fol- lowed by forty or fifty men, all on horseback. The sight reminded me that I had not yet seen the cemetery; and few afternoons later l, too, rode out on horseback, accompanied by party of resident foreigners-for it is utterly impossible to induce a native, of high or low degree, to escort any stran- ger to the campo Santo; fact ceased to wonder at after having visited the place. y
 Arequipa's only burying ground is sit uated on barren foot-hill, reached, after the city limits are passed. by an uninhabited road whose deep sands are alternated by stretches of loose bould- CTS. It is a very small place, consider Ing that the city is more than three centuries old, and during all that time has had a population verying between twenty and fifty thousand. The front of it is quite imposing, with high adobe walls and massive iron gates set in two high arches; and just inside is we'll kept space devoted to flower beds, which give no hint of the horrors to be met a few steps beyond. In this end aristocrats are buried in three tiers of nitches in the surrounding wall, whose top and sides are of lava stone six inches thick with foundation of adobe. Most of the nitches have no mark ex- cept a number rudely painted on the face, corresponding to figures placed opposite the tenants name in the church records. Some of them have name scratched on the dried mortar with lead pencil, and few have mar bic slabs deliberately lettered, setting forth not only the name and virtues of the deceased- but also advertising the fact of his or her wealth and social prominence. At the top of these are generally inscribed the Sponish words, nicho perpetuo. to indicate that the ca- daver will occupy the place ''for life," so to speak.
 As grove robbery is of very common oecurrence-not for scientific purposes, as there is no medical college anywhere near, but simply to secure whatever of value may have been buried with the corpse, even to the boards of it's coffin, wood being scarce hereabouts-the front of each hitch is not only firmly closed with mortar but farther guarded by an iron grating. Of course the bfoulish work of the resurrectionist is done at night, because there is hardly an hour in, the day without an inter- 1nent; and innumerable ghastly stories are told of finding the pale clay of we'll known men and women tumbled out on the ground and stripped of grave clothes, rings, shoes, everything that the love of the living had arrayed them in. for the last long sleep. An incident, : of this kind, illustrating the Cholo character, occurred few months ago. and is said to be directly responsible for the terrible epidemic of small pox that afterwards carried off its victims at the rate of a hundred week. AS in most parts of South America, isolated cases of that dread disease are alwys to be found in Arequipa, and no native minds it more than measles, malaria