THE CONVENT OF THE CAPUCHINS. 673 



dwellings were inhabited the country was better watered than now. 

 It has been suggested that these houses were inhabited only for a part 

 of the year, when the streams were high from the spring freshets ; but, 

 as the structures are of stone, built with great labor, and in a perma- 

 nent manner, and as the season when there is water in the streams is at 

 most of but a few weeks' duration, the theory seems scarcely tenable. 

 Moreover, within the observation of white men, the amount of water 

 has decreased. Springs, Avhich a very few years ago were important 

 watering-places for travelers, have decreased in size, and in a few 

 cases have dried up. Still, at that time the climate, though less arid, 

 was in a measure such as it is now, since we find the timber used for 

 beams, etc., in the houses, is the same species of cedar now so abun- 

 dant on the plateaus — a species peculiar to a dry climate. 



The study of the ancient inhabitants of America is one of surpass- 

 ing interest, and the deep mystery in -which the past is wrapped only 

 adds to the zest with which we strive to draw the veil away. But 

 thus far little has been discovered. We know that at some time, far 

 back in the dim past, a great people lived in the Mississippi Valley ; 

 that they built there enormous structures, mere traces of which remain, 

 scarcely enough to mock at the seeker after their history. Whence 

 they came, and whither they went, we know not. In the Southwestern 

 Territories we find these structures of a semi-civilized people — whether 

 the same as the mound-builders, no one can tell. No one knows their 

 earlier history ; their later history has been sketched in its general 

 features. 



THE CONVENT OF THE CAPUCHINS. 



By AETHUE SEAELE. 



TRAVELERS to Rome, endowed with a reasonable measure of that 

 taste for the repulsive which is natural to our paradoxical race, 

 have long been accustomed to include in their round of sights a Capu- 

 chin convent, noted only for the singular manner in which the bones of 

 its deceased inmates have been made to serve as emblems of mortality 

 to the devout. The published accounts of the spectacle here presented 

 are too generally familiar for quotation. A letter before me, dated in 

 November, 1821, will furnish a description which will at least have the 

 merit of not having already appeared in print. 



" I went to the cemetery of the Capucins " (the writer adopts the 

 French spelling of the name), *' where we found, in the cellar of the 

 convent, forty graves in the loose earth, always occupied by Capucins 

 in their usiial dress, without coffins. When a new man dies, they take 

 up him who has been longest in the earth, coat and all, and place him 

 VOL. XVI. — 43 



