183 



THE LAST CKUISE OF THE MIKANDA. 



Cremation in a rude form among certain other ancient peoples 

 was also practised. To-day in India some deposit their dead 

 in the water, and the Parsees leave their dead on the roof of 

 a mausoleum or chapel, where the cormorants or birds of 



prey eat the 

 flesh from the 

 corpse. In other 

 portions of the 

 globe the dead 

 are placed in 

 trees or on poles. 

 It remains for 

 •the poor Eski- 

 mos of Green- 

 land to show to 

 the civilized 

 world that the 

 dead may be 

 buried without 

 even digging 

 a hole in the 

 ground. 



In Greenland, cremation, or earth-covering, or embalming, 

 is utterly impossible, and, owing to the climate, quite unne- 

 cessary. The views of the cemetery at Sukkertoppen which 

 accompany this article were photographed by the writer in 

 August, 1894. No. 1 represents the cemetery looking north 

 up the fiord, with the great ice-cap and snow-mountains in the 

 distance, forty miles away or more. No. 2 shows the ceme- 

 tary looking south toward Davis Straits. It is a large plot 

 in a cafion, the rock projections exhibiting deep glacial 

 marks. No. 3 shows a party opening graves to collect speci- 

 mens for scientific purposes. No. 4 shows wooden enclosures, 

 and No. 5 the Lutheran church. All of the Eskimos south 



No. 3.— OPENING A GRAVE. 



