The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1904-10-20
MUMMY HooDoo.
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Preserved Corpse ~ Egyptian Princess
Brought Bad Luck with It

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Preserved Corpse o. Egyptian Princess
Brought Bad Luck with 1t.
In corner of the first Egyptian room
at the British Museum, behind the
crouching body of the prehistoric chief
who lived before there were Pharaohs
in Egypt or pyramids on the Nile,
stands a woman moulded from some
ancient form of cardboard. She is
merely a shell, the cover of a mummy
case. Her hands are crossed upon her
breast, and her dark eyes stare for
ward into vacancy.
According to the catalogue, she is
No. 22,542, a predetermined royal per-
sonage and a priestess in the mighty
city Of Thebes some thousand years
before Christ.
And about this same coffin cover
there hangs as terrible a story as ever
an Edgar Allan Poe or a Balzac or
Kipling produced from asgloon1y mag
nation.
If yau question the attendants in the
first Egyptian room they will shake
their heads and say nothing. But
there is a famous professor in the
Museum who knows the facts, though
whether they be coincidence or
manifestation of supernatural power it
would be hard to say. These is a Sc
lcond professor Of the more exact
sciences and a traveller Of distinction
who are equally well informed.
About the middle of the SOS a party
of five friends took ship in a dahabeah
for trip up the Nile, They travelled
| to Luxor, on their way to the Second
Cataract, and stayed there to explore
1.-THE ruins Of the great and wonderful
lefty Of Thebes, with it's avenues of
sphinxes and rams, its vast hall of
columns, and its temple to Amen Ra,
(which is unequalled on earth in the
sublimity Of its ruined nagnificence.
| Lady Duff Gordon entertained the
lparty at a dinner, while the consul,
Mustapha Aga, held a strange dance
1 of the Gaivazi women of Luxor. There
were salutes and illuminations to mark
Il the arrival OF the guests.
j One night an Arab sent by Mustapha
Aga came to one OF their number, Mr..
d., as we may call him, saying that
The had Just found a mummy case of
Unusual beauty. What became Of the
mummy the man did not explain. The
next morning Mr.. D. bought the case.
both he and his companions were
Impressed, by its remarkable beauty
land by the curious face of the woman
portrayed, a face that was filled with
a cold smalignancy Of expression I'M
pheasant to witness.
They had agreed that, being all in
tterested in Egyptology, they should
lapportion their finds by lot, land so,
though Mr.. D. had been the cause of
Tits discovery, he lost the mummy cover,
which passed to a friend whom we will
call Mr.. w.
1t was on their return journey that
the series of misfortunes commenced.
Mr.. DIS servant was handing him a
gun, when without visible cause it ex-
Iploded, the charge lodging in his arm,
which had to be amputated; a second
died in poverty within the year; third
was shot; while Mr.. W., the owner OF
the mummy case, discovered on his ar
Trivial in Cairo that he had lost a large
Ipart Of his fortune. He died soon af-
lterward. The priestess of Amen Ra
had signified her displeasure in very
| convincing manner.
From the date it was shipped on
board the steamer Mr.. D. lost sight
of the mummy case for several years.
He did not at the time in any way
associate the misfortunes that had oc-
Cured to the party with it's discovery,
but when the next heard of it and had
full information of the disasters which
had been subsequently associated with
its possession he began to suspect that
it was not merely chance, not merely
coincidence, that had brought so sim