"Dust and Ashes."

Cromwell Argus, Volume 1, Issue 52, 9 November 1870, Page 1 (Supplement)

"Dust and Ashes."

The following " strange story" is communicated to the Times by Mr W. D. Prichett, of Bishop Stortford : " Returning lately from the eastern sick of the Jordan, I was detained for a time on hoard ship at Alexandria, and while watching all that went on in that vast harbour, my attention was attracted by a number of lighters plying backwards and forwards between some merchant vessels and the shore, livery one who has visited that port will remember the group of windmills and the long ridge of rock running out from them seawards for a distance of several miles. The empty lighters went to a point in this ridge of rocks, and returned with a cargo of brown dust, which was carried up to the shins' sides in baskets, and thrown down in the holds. The captain with whom I sailed informed me that this was guano—human guano—the ' dust and ashes' of the dead, collected from the many ancient sepulchres and catacombs which perforate this ridge of rocks in every direction, like rabbit holes in a warren, and even run underground as far as Porapey's Pillar. He also stated that this trade had been going on for about nine months, and that the ' guano' brought £G 10s per ton in English ports, a price which would give the manure manufacturers a very large profit for mixing it out with the guano of Peru. An English merchant, for eight years resident in Egypt, afterwards cani'3 on board, and, when I had an opportunity of speaking with him alone, he gave me the same account; and he further told me that he had visited the spot where this was going on, and had seen pieces of human bone, as well as small earthenware lamps and tear-bottles of glass, among the dust. I also met with a missionary, who confirmed the tale. " The lower class of Egyptians are among the most degraded people in the world, yet it would be hard to believe that "'/en they would sell their fathers' bones for manure did we not well know that lor a century past they have sold the mummies in such numbers that they are to be found in almost every provincial museum in Europe and America. If they would sell the mummies, which still retain the human shape, much more would they nil the dust into which the dead have crumbled down. Supposing these statements to be correct, myriads of Kgyptians have been drilled and sown broadcast on English fields ; and myriads more are on l,he way. So that we who eat the brfd ami beef thus raised have a poqdf '';>" ef becoming 'chips of the old hloilft 'hVI.T a new and startling process. nt Egyptians too, attaining thus /i eanwj resurrection, may walk through the \--\ \<\f and even revisit their own rifled sepulchres in English form. "Thus ends my 'strange/ story.' nofcy ?iven on my own authority, ■ t on that, of several creditable witnessesfon (fie spo/ Perhaps the publication of these facta mj conduce towards.suppression of this !.':/'" some trade. There is some reel rwr.d ° hope this, because the Egyptian On/' n " ment has already been shamed infy ,lc P" ping the srde of mummies."