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it might be as well to proceed with the investigation intended. Here Doctor Fonnonner made ready his instruments.

In regard to the latter suggestion of the orator, it appears that Allamistakeo had certain scruples of conscience, the nature of which I did not distinctly learn; but he expressed himself satisfied with the apologies tendered, and, getting down from the table, shook hands with the company all round.

When this ceremony was at an end, we immediately busied ourselves in repairing the damages which our subject had sustained from the scalpel. We sewed up the wound in his temple, bandaged his foot, and applied a square inch of black plaster to the tip of his nose.

It was now observed that the count, (this was the title, it seems, of Allamistakeo,) had a slight fit of shivering-no doubt from the cold. The doctor immediately repaired to his wardrobe, and soon returned with a black dress-coat, made in Jennings' best manner, a pair of sky-blue plaid pantaloons with straps, a pink gingham chemise, a flapped vest of brocade, a white sack overcoat, a walking cane with a hook, a hat with no brim, patent leather boots, straw-coloured kid gloves, an eye-glass, a pair of whiskers, and a waterfall cravat. Owing to the disparity of size between the count and the doctor, (the proportion being as two to one,) there' was some little difficulty in adjusting these babiliments upon the person of the Egyptian; but when all was arranged, he might have been said to be dressed. Mr. Gliddon, therefore, gave him his arm, and led him to a comfortable chair by the fire, while the doctor rang the bell upon the spot, and ordered a supply of cigars and

wine.

The conversation soon grew animated. Much curiosity was, of course, expressed in regard to the somewhat rémarkable fact of Allamistakeo's still remaining alive. "I should have thought," observed Mr. Buckingham, that it is high time you were dead.”・ ・

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Why," replied the count, very much astonished, "I am little more than seven hundred years old! My father lived a thousand, and was by no means in his dotage when he died."

Here ensued a brisk series of questions and computations, by means of which it became evident that the antiquity of the mummy had been grossly misjudged. It had been five thousand and fifty years, and some months, since he had been consigned to the catacombs at Eleithias.

"But my remark," resumed Mr. Buckingham, "had no reference to your age at the period of interment; (I am willing to grant, in fact, that you are still a young man,) and my allusion was to the immensity of time, during which, by your own showing, you must have been done up in asphaltum."

"In what!" said the count.

"In asphaltum," persisted Mr. B.

"Ah, yes; I have some faint notion of what you mean it might be made to answer, no doubt; but in my time we employed scarcely anything else than the bi-chloride of mercury."

"But what we are especially at a loss to understand," said Doctor Ponnouner, "is, how it happens that, having been dead and buried in Egypt, five thousand years ago, you are here to-day all alive, and looking so delightfully well."

"Had I been, as you say, dead," replied the count, "it is more than probable that dead I should still be; for I perceive you are yet in the infancy of galvanism, and connot accomplish with it. what was a common thing among us in the old days. But the fact is, I fell into catalepsy, and it was considered by my best friends that I was either dead, or should be; they accordingly embalmed me at once. I presume you are aware of the chief principle of the embalming process?" Why, not altogether."

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"Ah, I perceive; a deplorable condition of igno

rance! Well, I cannot enter into details just now; but it is necessary to explain that to embalm, (properly speaking,) in Egypt, was to arrest indefinitely all the animal functions subjected to the process. I use the word 'animal' in its widest sense, as including the physical not more than the moral and vital being. I repeat that the leading principle of embalment consisted, with us, in the immediately arresting, and holding in perpetual abeyance, all the animal functions subjected to the process. To be brief, in whatever condition the individual was, at the period of embalment, in that condition he remained. Now, as it is my good fortune to be of the blood of the scarabæus, I was embalmed alive, as you see me at present.'

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"The blood of the scarabæus," exclaimed Doctor Ponnonner.

"Yes. The scarabaeus was the insignium, or the 'arms,' of a very distinguished and very rare patrician family. To be of the blood of the scarabaeus,' is merely to be one of that family of which the scarabus is the insignium. I speak figuratively."

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"But what has this to do with your being alive ?” "Why, it is the general custom in Egypt, to deprive a corpse, before embalment, of its bowels and brains: the race of scarabæi alone did not coincide with the custom. Had I not been a scarabaeus, therefore, I should have been without bowels and brains; and without either it is inconvenient to live."

"I perceive that," said Mr. Buckingham; "and I presume that all the entire mummies that come to hand are of the race of scarabæi."

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Beyond doubt."

"I thought," said Mr. Gliddon, very meekly, "that the scarabæus was one of the Egyptian gods."

"One of the Egyptian what!" exclaimed the mummy, starting to its feet.

"Gods!" repeated the traveller.

"Mr Gliddon, I really am astonished to hear you.

talk in this style," said the count, resuming his chair. "No nation upon the face of the earth has ever acknowledged more than one god. The scarabæus, the ibis, &c., were with us, (as similar creatures have been with others) the symbols, or media, through which we offered worship to the Creator, too august to be more directly approached."

There was here a pause. At length the colloquy was renewed by Dr. Ponnoner.

"It is not improbable, then, from what you have explained," said he, "that among the catacombs near the Nile, there may exist other mummies of the scarabus tribe, in a condition of vitality."

"There can be no question of it," replied tho count; "all the scarabaei embalmed accidentally while alive, are alive. Even some of those purposely so embalmed, may have been overlooked by their executors, and still remain in the tombs."

"Will you be kind enough to explain," I said, "what you mean by 'purposely so embalmed?"

"With great pleasure," answered the mummy, after surveying me leisurely through his eye-glass-for it was the first time I had ventured to address him a direct question.

"The usual du

"With great pleasure," he said. ration of man's life, in my time, was about eight hundred years. Few men died, unless by most extraordinary accident, before the age of six hundred; few lived longer than a decade of centuries; but eight were considered the natural term. After the discovery of the embalming principle, as I have already described it to you, it occurred to our philosophers that a laudable curiosity might be gratified, and, at the same time, the interests of science much advanced, by living this natural term in instalments. In the case of history, indeed, experience demonstrated that something of this kind was indispensable. An historian, for example, having attained the age of five hundred, would write a

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book with great labour and then get himself carefully embalmed; leaving instruction to his executors pro tem, that they should cause him to be revivified after the lapse of a certain period-say five or six hundred years. Resuming existence at the expiration of this time, he would invariably find his great work converted into a species of hap-hazard note-book-that is to say, into a kind of literary arena for the conflicting guesses, riddles, and personal squabbles of whole herds of exasperated commentators. These guesses, &c., which passed under the name of annotations or emendations, were found so completely to have enveloped, distorted, and overwhelmed the text, that the author had to go about with a lantern to discover his own book. When discovered, it was never worth the trouble of the search. After re-writing it throughout, it was regarded as the bounden duty of the historian to set himself to work, immediately, in correcting from his own private knowledge and experience, the traditions of the day concerning the epoch at which he had originally lived. Now this process of re-scription and personal rectification, pursued by various intervals by various individual sages, from time to time, had the effect of preventing our history" from degenerating into absolute fable."

"I beg your pardon," said Doctor Ponnonner at this point, laying his hand gently upon the arm of the Egyptian-"I beg your pardon, sir; but may I presume to interrupt you for ono moment?"

"By all means, sir," replied the count, drawing up. "I merely wished to ask you a question," said the doctor. "You mentioned the historian's personal correction of traditions respecting his own epoch. Pray, sir, upon an average, what proportion of these Kabbala were usually found to be right?"

"The Kabbala, as you properly term them, sir, were generally discovered to be precisely on a par with the facts recorded in the un-re-written histories themselves; —that is to say, not one individual iota of either, was

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