104 
PARK AND CEMETERY. 
DISPOSING OF THE DEAD IN THE 
FRENCH CONGO. 
A writer in the New York Times gives the following 
interesting account of some of the methods of disposing 
of the dead in the region of the French Congo, Africa : 
“The nativesof the French Congo have different methods 
of burial. A dead slave is simply thrown into the bush as 
food for hyenas and other wild beasts. There was a 
place of this kind within a quarter of a mile of the old 
mission-house near Mayumba, and the first missiona- 
ries collected the bones and buried them. The body of 
a convicted criminal who is killed by the witch doctor 
with sasswood is also thrown away. 
“Common persons are buried the day after death in 
one of the huts in the town. A hole about eight inches 
deep is dug and lined with leaves. Then a mat about 
five feet long and three tr four feet wide is put in, and 
the body, after being wrapped in five yards of cotton 
cloth, is placed on it and covered with another mat, 
more leaves, and the soil that was taken from the exca- 
vation. This burial is only temporary, until the witch 
is found who caused the death. This takes days or weeks, 
the time depending largely upon the pay the doctor re- 
ceives. If the pay is large, he takes a longer time, be- 
cause there will be plenty of rum for him, and this is 
about all he cares for. If the relatives are poor, the 
doctor soon finds the witch, and then the body of the 
dead man is placed in a grave on the edge of the forest. 
This grave is deeper than the first, and after it is 
filled sticks are fastened across it, and if stones are avail- 
able these are used to secure the grave. It is necessary 
to do this, or the hyenas would soon find the body. Rich 
pers ms have a monument over their graves, but common 
folk cannot afford this. They place some ot the dead 
person’s property upon the grave instead. A plate, a 
pitcher and a spoon usually are the articles one finds. 
These things are sacred. No one will steal them, or 
even exchange them for broken ones. 
Kings and rich persons are not buried so soon. It 
often takes weeks, months and even years before they 
rest in their graves. Their bodies are preserved in a 
kind of way, but since the natives seem able to stand 
any amount of all kinds of offensiveness, it does not 
matter to them at all how much time elapses before the 
burial takes place. Many yards of cloth are wound 
around the body, sometimes sixty yards or mom, and 
after this the body is placed in a box as large as possi- 
ble. One that we measured for Mongovy Gernando 
measured 7 feet long by feet wide and 3 feet deep. 
The box is put into a new hut and left there until the 
vfitch is found and killed and until the relatives bring 
enough presents to fill the coffin. After all this is ac- 
complished the late lamented is allowed to rest in peace. 
“There is still another way of disposing of the dead. 
The body is cut into pieces and tied in wrapp'ngs made 
of palm leaves, and then hung up inside a hut and 
smoked, the smudge being kept going day and night. 
King Jim N’Gomah of Coango, who died in the spring 
of 1887, was not buried when we left in 1895. The rel- 
atives hid not enough valuable presents to put into the 
coffin, so they delayed the funeral. This old king’s son 
and daughter both died and were buried while his body 
was being smoked. Perhaps he is not buried yet. 
“It is a strange fact that the natives never put rum 
into a coffin, even if they have a good deal of it in their 
possession. Funerals are very noisy affairs. Dancing, 
drinking and shooting are the order of the day. The 
shooting is done at sunrise and sunset to keep the spirit 
of the dead fiom returning. The natives believe in a 
spirit world. The dead have a town just like the living, 
and live in the same manner, marry and are given in 
marriage, buy and sell, make war with one another, in 
fact, carry on all the vocations of life in theii world, 
which is invisible. 
“The cloth and other things are placed in the coffin 
to give the rich a start in the spirit world. The natives 
say that there are ghosts, and for this reason they are 
great cowards after dark. It has often happened that 
the natives have robbed the graves of white people, to 
carry away parts of the body, in most cases the head, 
because they believe there is great merit in this, and 
that any chief who has a white man’s head in his pos- 
session can withstand all foes. These things do not 
happen quite so often now, because there are more 
Europeans there and the graveyards are more carefully 
protected.” 
NATIONAL CEMETERY, GETTYSBURG. 
The one who visits the famous battlefield of 
Gettysburg seems never to tire of the scene. The 
evidences of conflict which meet one on every 
hand, though it occurred thirty- iour years ago, 
brings forth a desire to visit the field again and 
again, and so, early in June last, I found myself 
for the third time footing it over the field, fancying 
myself again one of the 80,000 men who struggled 
there on the Union side, as I was on those fateful 
July days in 1863. The field of battle occupied a 
line nearly 20 miles in length, and I took a day for 
each of the four principal points, viz., the battle 
ground of the first day near Willoughby Run ; that 
of the second day, Cemetery Hill ; the third day, 
the Bloody Angle, and the fourth the Round Tops 
and Culps Hill. The publisher of Park and Cem- 
etery had commissioned me to get him some 
views of what I thought would be of interest, which 
I have done. Among them is the National ceme- 
tery and its Soldiers monument, and these I have 
selected for the chief subject of my notes at this 
time, reserving other photographs for future use. 
The illustration of the cemetery is a somewhat old 
one, but I could not get a recent one showing the 
grounds as well as this. At the present day the 
evergreens that hide the superintendent’s cottage at 
the entrance gate have been cut away, which is an im- 
provement. Then, too, the wooden fence across the 
road — the Baltimore Pike — has given way to a pret- 
ty iron one, enclosing the batteries and monuments 
which are thickly dotted over East Cemetery Hill. 
