Page:Tale of Paraguay - Southey.djvu/180

174. A preference was even given to virgin mummy!

The bodies of the Incas from the founder of the empire were preserved in the Temple of the Sun; they were seated each on his litter, and in such excellent preservation that they seemed to be alive; according to the testimony of P. Acosta and Garcilaso, who saw them and touched them. It is not known in what manner they were prepared, so as to resist the injuries of time. Gomara (c. 195.) says they were embalmed by the juice of certain fragrant trees, which was poured down their throats, and by unguents of gum. Acosta says that a certain bitumen was used, and that plates of gold were placed instead of eyes, so well fitted that the want of the real eye was not perceived. Garcilaso thought the chief preparation consisted in freezing them with snow. They were buried in one of the courts of the hospital of St. Andres.—''Merc. Peruano'', No. 221.

Hideous exhibitions of this kind are sometimes made in monasteries, where they are in perfect accord with monastic superstition. I remember seeing two human bodies dry and shrivelled, suspended in the Casa dos Ossos, at Evora, in a chapel, the walls of which are lined with skulls and bones.

"Among the remarkable objects in the vicinity of Palermo pointed out to strangers, they fail not to singularise a convent of Capuchins at a small