he describes the
process they adopted as follows:--They first extracted the brain through
the nose, then took out the eyes, and stopped up the sockets with
cotton. The bowels, lungs, and even the tongue, were removed, after
which the body and skull were filled with a kind of powder, which
immediately after it is taken out of the mummies, diffuses a slight
odor of turpentine; this odor, however, it soon loses on being
exposed to the action of the air. The face, hands, and feet, were
rubbed over with an oily substance, after which the body was incased
in the envelopes above described. I am disposed to believe that this
process never had any existence, save in the imagination of Barrera:
it indeed resembles the manner in which the Egyptians prepared their
mummies; but no such method was practised among the Indians. The
mummies collected in the museum of Lima present not the slightest
trace of this powder, or indeed of any kind of preservative
material--a fact which is mentioned by the director of that
establishment, Don E. Mariano de Rivero, in his _Antiguedades
Peruanas_.[106]

On those parts of the coast where it never rains, the combined heat of
the sun and the sand has dried up the bodies; in the mountain districts,
the pure atmosphere and the peculiarly drying nature of the wind have
produced the same effect. Similar appearances may be traced to different
circumstances. Of this fact the burial ground of Huacho, and the
mummified animals seen on the level heights, furnish the most convincing
proofs. In districts exposed to frequent rain, mummies are found in very
bad preservation, most of them being mere skeletons. All are in sitting
postures. In those parts of the Sierra where the soil is impregnated
with nitre, bodies, which must have lain in the ground for several
centuries, are found in a very fresh condition, notwithstanding the
humidity.

Garcilaso de la Vega and the Padre Acosta state that the ancient
Peruvians were acquainted with the art of embalming, but that they
employed it only for the bodies of their kings. In the Temple of the Sun
at Cuzco, there were found excellently preserved mummies of the Incas,
each seated on a throne. Several years after the Spanish conquest, these
mummies were conveyed to Lima, and were buried in the court of the
hospital of San Andres. It is deeply to be deplored that the fanaticism
of the Spanish conquerors should have destroyed these interesting
remains of the ancient sove