MUMMIES OF ECCLESIASTICS.
(Vol. vi., pp. 53. 110. 205. 328.)
Although I have myself seen the natural mummies preserved at Kreuzberg on the Rhine, I can say nothing more with regard to them, than vouch for the accuracy of the accounts transmitted by your various correspondents under this head. Your Querist A. A. however may, if curious on this subject, be referred with advantage to Mr. T. J. Pettigrew's interesting History of Egyptian Mummies. In chap. xvii. of this work, many instances are adduced of the preservation of bodies from putrefaction by the desiccating properties of the natural air of the place in which they are contained. He says:
"In dry, and particularly calcareous vaults, bodies may be preserved for a great length of time. In Toulouse, bodies are to be seen quite perfect, although buried two centuries ago. In the vaults of St. Michael's Church, Dublin, the same effect is produced; and Mr. Madden says he there saw the body of Henry Shears, who was hanged in 1798, in a state of preservation equal to that of any Egyptian mummy."
Garcilasso de la Veya, and more recent historians, may be referred to for accounts of the mummy-pits of Peru, the dry air of which country is an effectual preventive of the process of putrefaction. One of the most curious spectacles, however, of this nature is to be found in the Catacombs of Palermo, where the traveller finds himself in the midst of some thousands of unburied bodies, which, suspended mostly by the neck, have become so distorted in form and feature in the process of desiccation, as to provoke an irrepressible smile in the midst of more solemn and befitting contemplations. (Sonnini's Travels, vol. i. p. 47.; Smyth's Memoirs of Sicily and its Islands, p. 88.)
Similar properties are also attributed to the air of the western islands of Scotland. "To return to our purpose," says P. Camerarius (The Living Librarie, translated by Molle, folio, London, 1625, p. 47.),—
"That which Abraham Ortelius reporteth after Gyrald de Cambren is wonderfull, that the bodies of men rot not after their decease, in the isles of Arran; and that therefore they bee not buried, but left in the open ayr, where putrefaction doth them no manner of hurt; whereby the families (not without amazement) doe know their fathers, grandfathers, great-grandfathers, and a long race of their predecessors. Peter Martyr, a Milannois, saith the same of some West Indians of Comagra. These bee his words: 'The Spaniards being entered the lodgings of this Cacick, found a chamber fulle of dead bodies, hanging by ropes of cotton, and asking what superstition that was, they received this answer, That those were the fathers, grandfathers, and great-grandfathers of the Cacick of Comagra. The Indians say that they keep such relikes preciously, and that the ceremonie is one of the points of their religion. According to his qualities while he lived, his bodie, being dead, is richly decked with jewels and precious stones.'"
Many other instances might be adduced, but you will now think that at least enough has been said on this subject.
William Bates.
Birmingham.