8 PRACTICAL TAXIDERMY. 



Whatever may have been the composition of — and manner 

 of applying — the foregoing agents, it is certain that they had the 

 effect intended, for Diodorus writes fully within bounds when 

 mentioning the life-like appearance of the features in mummies, 

 as we know by later discoveries, for there are some well-known 

 specimens still in existence of which the eyelids, lashes, eye- 

 brows, and hair are still in their natural state, and this after an 

 interval of thousands of years. In some mummies, for instance, 

 the contour of the features is plainly discernible, and surely this 

 is scientific " preparation of specimens " not to be excelled in 

 the present day. 



The Egyptian mode of embalming was imitated occasionally by the 

 Jews, Greeks, Komans, and other nations, and has sometimes been 

 adopted in modern times, but never to the same extent or perfection as 

 they attained. The only other method which is known to have been 

 adopted as a national custom was that practised by the Gaanches, the 

 ancient inhabitants of the Canary Isles. Their mummies are particularly 

 described by M. Bortj de St. Vincent, in his " Essai sur lea Isles 

 Fortunees." Numerous and vast catacombs are filled with them in each 

 of the thirteen islands, but the best known is one in Teneriffe, which 

 contained upwards of a thousand bodies. The mummies are sewn up in 

 goat or sheep skins, and five or six are commonly found together, the 

 skin over the head of one being stitched to that over the feet of another ; 

 but those of the great are contained in cases hollowed out of a piece of 

 savin wood. The bodies are not bandaged, and are dry, light tan- 

 coloured, and slightly aromatic. Several of them are completely pre- 

 served with distinct, though distorted, features. 



The method of embalming adopted by the Guanches * consisted in 

 removing the viscera in either of the same ways as the Egyptians 



* My friend, the late Thcs. Baker, -wrote me, some time before his sad death by shipwreck : 

 "In ail old work which I have, 'A General Collection of Voyages,' I find the following 

 relating to the 'Guanches,' in vol. i., book ii., chap, i., page 184, "The Voj'age of Juan 

 Re.ion to the Canary Islands, AD. 1491 " : " When any person died, they preserved the body 

 in this manner : First, ttiey carried it to a cave and stretched it on a tlat stone, where they 

 opened it and took out the bowels ; then, twice a day, they washed the porous parts of the 

 body, \'iz., the arm-pits, behind the ears, the groin, between the lingers, and the neck, with 

 cold water. After washing it sufficiently they anointed those parts with sheep's butter {';'), 

 and sprinkled them with a powder made of the dust of decayed pine trees, and a sort of 

 brushwood which the Spaniards call Brefsos, together with the powder of pumice stone. 

 Then they let the body remain till it was perfectly dry, when the relatives of the deceased 

 came and swaddled it in sheep or goat skins dressed. Girding all tight with long leather 

 thongs, they put it in the cave which had been set apart by the deceased for his burying 

 place, without any covering. There were particular- persons set apart for this office of 

 embalming, each sex performing it for those of their own. During the process they 

 watched the bodies very carefully to prevent the ravens from devouring them, the relations 

 of the deceased bringing them victuals and waiting on them during the tinie of their 

 watching." 



