Page:History of the Royal Society.djvu/234

 no Iron can pierce or hurt it. He says, that one Day being hunting a Ferret (which is much in use there) having a Bell about his Neck, ran after a Coney into a Hole, where they lost the Sound of the Bell; the Owner being afraid he should lose his Ferret, seeking about the Rock and Shrubs, found the Mouth of a Cave, and entring in, was so affrighted, that he cried out. It was at the Sight of one of these Bodies, very tall and large, lying with his Head on a great Stone, his Feet supported with a little Wall of Stone, the Body resting on a Bed of Wood (as before was mention'd.) The Fellow being now a little out of his Fright entred in, and cut off a great Piece of the Skin that lay on the Breast of this Body, which, the Doctor says, was more flexible and pliant than ever he felt any Kids-leather Glove, yet so far from being rotten, that the Man used it for his Flail many Years after.

"These Bodies are very light, as if made up of Straw, and in some broken Limbs he observ'd the Nerves and Tendons, and also some Strings of the Veins and Arteries very distinctly.

"His great Care was to enquire of these People what they had amongst them of Tradition concerning the Embalming and Preservation of these Bodies: from some of the eldest of them (above a hundred and ten Years of Age) he received this Account, That they had of old one particular Tribe of Men that had this ArrArt [sic] amongst themselves only, and kept it as a thing sacred, and not to be communicated to the Vulgar: These mixt not with the rest of the Inhabitants, nor married out of their own Tribe, and were also their Priests and Ministers Rh