182 



THE LAST CRUISE OF THE MIRANDA. 



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 

 ._ v prey eat the 



MtSMMMMBKM.. ., **-.''is',. .. . I * J 



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 



No. 3. OPENING A GRAVE. 



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 canon, 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 



