[From “A Relation of the Pico Teneriffe. Receiv’d from some considerable Merchants and Men worthy of Credit who went to the top of it," in Thomas Sprat, A History of the Royal Society, London, 1667]
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Having furnish’d our selves with a Guide, Servants, and Horses to carry our Wine and Provisions, we set out from Oratava, a Port Town in the Island of Tenariffe, scituated on the North of it at two miles distant from the main Sea. We travelled from twelve at night till eight in the morning, by which time we got to the top of the first Mountain towards the Pico de Terraira...
About six a clock this evening, we began to ascend up the Pico, but being now a mile advanced, and the way no more passable for our Horses, we quitted and left them with our Servants: In this miles ascent some of our company grew very faint and sick, disorder’d by fluxes, vomitings, and Aguish distempers, our Horses hair standing up right like Bristles: but calling for some of our Wine, which was carried in small Barrels on a Horse, we found it so wonderfully cold, that we could not drink it till we had kindled a fire to warm it, although yet the temper of the Air was very calm and moderate...
[We came to a Grot where] for some height, there is Ice and Icicles hanging down to the Snow. But being quickly weary of this excessive cold place, and drawn up again, we continued our descent from the Mountains by the same passages we went up the day before, and so about five in the evening arrived at Oratava, from whence we set forth, our Faces so red and sore, that to cool them, we were forced to wash and bathe them in Whites of Eggs, &c...
[F]or the Guanchios or antient Inhabitants [a very judicious man] gives this full Account. September the third, about twelve years since, he took his Journey from Guimar (a Town inhabited for the most part by such as derive themselves from the old Guanchios) in the company of some of them, to view their Caves and the Bodies buried in them. This was a favour they seldome or never permit to any (having in great veneration of the Bodies of their Ancestours, and likewise being most extreamly against any molestation of the Dead) but he had done several Eleemosinary Cures amongst them (for they are generally very poor, yet the poorest thinks himself too good to marry with the best Spaniard) which indeared him to them exceedingly, otherways it is death for any Stranger to visit these Caves or Bodies.
These Bodies are sowed up in Goat-skins with thongs of the same, with very great curiosity, particularly in the incomparable exactness and evenness of the seams, and the Skins are made very close and fit to the body: Most of these Bodies are entire, the eyes closed, hair on the head, ears, nose, teeth, lips, beard, all perfect, only discoloured and a little shriveld, likewise the Pudenda of both Sexes; He saw about three or four hundred in several Caves, some of them are standing, others lie on beds of Wood so hardned by an art they had (which the Spaniards call Curar, to cure a piece of wood) as no Iron can pierce or hurt it. He says, that one day being hunting a Ferret (which is much in use there) having a bell about his neck, ran after a Coney into a hole, where they lost the sound of the bell; the owner being afraid he should loose his Ferret, seeking about the Rock and Shrubs, found the mouth of a Cave, and entring in, was so afrighted, that he cryed out. It was at the sight of one of these Bodies, very tall and large, lying with his head on a great Stone, his feet supported with a little wall of stone, the body resting on a bed of Wood (as before was mention’d.) The fellow being now a little out of his fright entered it, and cut off a great piece of the skin that lay on the breast of this body, which, the Doctor sayes, was more flexible and pliant than ever he felt and Kids-leather-glove, and yet so far from being rotten, that the man used it for his Flail many years after...
His great care was to enquire of these people what they had amongst them of Tradition concerning the embalming and presevation of these Bodies: from some of the eldest of them (above a hundred and then years of age) he received this Account, That they had of old one particular Tribe of men that had this Art amongst themselves only, and kept it as a thing sacred, and not to be communicated to the Vulgar: These mixt not with the rest of the Inhabitants, nor married out of their own Tribe, and were also their Priests and Ministers of Religion: That upon the Conquest of the Spaniards they were most of them destroy’d, and the Art lost with them, only they held some Traditions yet of a few Ingredients, that were made use of in this business. They took Butter of Goats Milk [(]some said Hogs Grease was mingled with it) which they kept in the Skins for this purpose, in this they boyled certain Herbs; first a sort of wild Lavender, which grows there in great quantities on the Rocks: Secondly, an Herb called Lara, of a very gummy and glutinous Consistence, which now grows there under the tops of the Mountains only: Thirdly, a kind of Cyclamen or Sow-bread: Fourthly, wild Sage, growing plentifully in this Island: These with others bruised and boiled in the Butter, render’d it a perfect Balsame. This prepared, they first unbowelled the Corps (and in the poorer sort, to save charges, they took out the Brain behind, and these poor were also sew’d up in Skins with the hair on, whereas the richer sort were (as was said before) put up in Skins so finely and exactly dressed, as they remain most rarely pliant and gentle to this day.)...
He was told by these Ancient People, that they have above twenty Caves of their Kings and great Persons, with their whole Families, yet unknown to any but themselves, and which they will never discover. Lastly, he sayes, that Bodies are found in the Caves of the Grand Canaria in sacks, and quite consumed, not as these in Teneriffa. Thus far of the Bodies and embalming.
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