“At the Canaries, they do not limit themselves always to placing the mummies in grottoes; they elevated special tombs to certain distinguished dead. These privileged dead, dressed in their garment, called tamareo, were placed upon elevated planks of pine wood, with the head turned towards the north; they afterwards constructed above, a monument of hard stone, pyramidal in form, and often very high. Many catacombs are known to exist in Teneriffe; the most celebrated is that of Baranco de Herque, between Arico and Guimar, in the Abona country: it was discovered during the time that Clarijo wrote his _Noticias_. He states that they there met with more than a thousand mummies, whilst in other cases only three or four hundred had been found at a time. From hence they brought the xaxos, which are in the cabinet of the King of Spain, and the two which M. de Chastenet-Puysegur sent in 1776, to the Garden of Plants: one of them unfortunately wants the feet.” We abstain from all reflection on the recital which precedes. Their analogy to the Egyptian process will occur of itself to the mind of the reader, in the description which follows. Nevertheless, we ought to indicate a fact observed of two Guanch mummies; a fact omitted in the preceding description. M. Jouannet, a modest and laborious investigator, has proved, that two Guanch mummies that were in his possession, had the eyes, nose, and mouth, filled with bitumen, like some of the Egyptian mummies. The skins which enveloped them were carefully closed, and nothing indicated that the bitumen was an addition posterior to embalming. CHAPTER IV. EMBALMING AMONG THE ANCIENT EGYPTIANS. Since the ignorance we are in, relative to the language of this great nation, places it out of our power to know, of ourselves, the causes and processes for the preservation of dead bodies, let us follow the recital of ancient authors, let us endeavour to detect, not by the imagination, but by positive facts, by the study of invariable exterior conditions, the different data of the question of embalming among the Egyptians. In the first place, if we make allowance for all that the successive perfection of the arts, luxury, or the love of distinction could add to simple preservation, we shall arrive, with Rouelle, to this conclusion, that the work of embalming is reduced to two essential parts: first, the drying of the body, that is to say, removing the fluids and grease which they contain; secondly, to protect the body thus prepared, from external humidity and contact of the air. We have already seen all the aid which they derived from their climate to fulfil the first condition: a detailed description will teach us what their industry enabled them to add to it. As to the second, the nature of their caverns powerfully contributed.