From La Laguna we passed forward to Tacoronte, the 'Garden of the Guanches,' and inspected the little museum of the late D. Sebastian Casilda, collected by his father, a merchant-captain de long _cours_. It was a chaos of curiosities ranging from China to Peru. Amongst them, however, were four entire mummies, including one from Grand Canary. Thus we can correct M. Berthelot, who follows others in asserting that only the Guanches of Tenerife mummified their dead. The oldest description of this embalming is by a 'judicious and ingenious man who had lived twenty years in the island as a physitian and merchant.' It was inserted by Dr. Thomas Sprat in the 'Transactions of the Royal Society,' London, and was republished in John Ogilby's enormous folio [Footnote: The 'physitian' was Dr. Eden, an Englishman who visited Tenerife in 1662.--Bohn's _Humboldtr_, i. 66] yclept 'Africa.' The merchant 'set out from Guimar, a Town for the most part inhabited by such as derive themselves from the Antient _Guanchios_, in the company of some of them, to view their Caves and the corps buried in them (a favour they seldom or never permit to any, having the Corps of their Ancestors in great veneration, and likewise being extremely against any molestation of the Dead); but he had done many Eleemosynary Cures amongst them, for they are very poor (yet the poorest think themselves too good to Marry with the best _Spaniard_), which endeared him to them exceedingly. Otherwise it is death for any Stranger to visit these Caves and Bodies. The Corps are sew'd up in Goatskins with Thongs of the same, with very great curiosity, particularly in the incomparable exactness and evenness of the Seams; and the skins are made close and fit to the Corps, which for the most part are entire, the Eyes clos'd, Hair on their heads, Ears, Nose, Teeth, Lips, and Beards, all perfect, onely discolour'd and a little shrivell'd. He saw about three or four hundred in several Caves, some of them standing, others lying upon Beds of Wood, so hardened by an art they had (which the Spaniards call _curay_, to cure a piece of Wood) that no iron can pierce or hurt it.[Footnote: The same writer tells that they had earthen pots so hard that they could not be broken. I have heard of similar articles amongst the barbarous races east of Dalmatia.] These Bodies are very light, as if made of straw; and in some broken Bodies he observ'd the Nerves and Tendons, and also the String of the Veins and Arteries very distinctly. By the relation of one of the most antient of this island, they had a particular Tribe that had this art onely among themselves, and kept it as a thing sacred and not to be communicated to the Vulgar. These mixt not themselves with the rest of the Inhabitants, nor marry'd out of their own Tribe, and were also their Priests and Ministers of Religion. But when the _Spaniards_ conquer'd the place, most of them were destroy'd and