Even Egypt is a confirmation of these statements, for it is
probable that, had much less care been taken to preserve the dead, they
would not there have yielded to decay as in other lands; and that
moisture is so far absent from the atmosphere that the dead would have
been preserved from decay by desiccation had not embalming been resorted
to. Upon the elevated Western plains of this continent, the bodies of
beasts and men by thousands have been preserved from decomposition by
desiccation. To take one instance out of many that might be cited: A
cave was not long ago discovered high up among the Sierra Madre
Mountains, within which were found, where they had rested undisturbed
for many years, the lifeless figures of a little aboriginal household,
dried and undecayed. Father, mother, son and daughter, one by one, as
death had overtaken them, had been brought thither, bound so as to keep
in death the attitude that had marked them when at their rest in life,
and there they bore their silent but impressive witness to the
beneficent action of the unmoist air that had stayed decay and kept them
innocuous to the living that survived them. In Peru, instances of this
simple, wholesome process abound on almost every side; upon the elevated
plains and heights, as also beside the sea, the dead of Inca lineage,
with the lowliest of their subjects, are found in uncounted numbers,
testifying that in their death they did not injure the living, because
desiccation saved them from decomposition; and a recent traveller has
vividly described the scene that a battlefield of the late war presents,
and that illustrates the same process, where, though years have passed
since the last harsh sound of strife was heard, the fierce and bitter
combatants still seem eager to rush to conflict or to sink reluctant
into the embrace of death.
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