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CURIOUS MEN.- - - - Whenever a mysterious oddity arrived in Victorian London, readers knew there was one man they could rely on to be at the scene: Frank Buckland. Rescued after a century of obscurity, and culled from thousands of pages of Buckland's eyewitness accounts, Curious Men is the latest volume in Paul Collins's Collins Library series. The following is an excerpt from the book, which brings back to life 18 tales from one of the most curious men of all. - - - - It is seldom, very seldom, that we are invited to see modern mummies, though ancient mummies are not very uncommon. In the month of February 1862, I received an invitation to examine a great natural curiosity described as "The Embalmed Nondescript," then being exhibited at 191 Piccadilly; I hastened to ascertain its nature. Immediately on viewing it, I exclaimed, "Julia Pastrana!" "Yes, sir," said the proprietor of the exhibition; "it is Julia Pastrana." It may be remembered that some time ago (in 1857) a woman was exhibited in Regent Street, who was remarkable for the immense quantity of long black hair that grew on and about her face. An idea was also attempted to be promulgated that she was not altogether human; and the story was that she had been found among the tribe of Dregig Indians who are reported to inhabit various parts of New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, and the Gulf of Mexico. Her name was Julia Pastrana. It appears that she died in Moscow, in Russia, and it was stated that she was embalmed there by Professor Suckaloff; and the mummy thus prepared was exhibited in 1862. Having had some experience in human mummies, I was exceedingly surprised at what I saw. The figure was dressed in the ordinary exhibition costume used in life, and placed erect upon the table. The limbs were by no means shrunken or contracted, the arms, chest, &c. retaining their former roundness and well-formed appearance. The face was marvellous; exactly like an exceedingly good portrait in wax, but it was not formed of wax. The closest examination convinced me that it was the true skin, prepared in some wonderful way; the huge deformed lips and squat nose remained exactly as in life; and the beard and luxuriant growth of soft black hair on and about the face were in no respect changed from their former appearance. There was no unpleasantness, or disagreeable concomitant, about the figure; and it was almost difficult to imagine that the mummy was really that of a human being, and not an artificial model. I well recollect seeing and speaking to this poor Julia Pastrana when in life. She was about four feet six inches in height; her eyes were deep black and somewhat prominent, and their lids had long, thick eyelashes; her features were simply hideous on account of the profusion of hair growing on her forehead, and her black beard; but her figure was exceedingly good and graceful, and her tiny foot and well-turned ankle, bien chaussée, perfection itself. She had a sweet voice, great taste in music and dancing, and could speak three languages. She was very charitable, and gave largely to local institutions of her earnings. I believe her true history was that she was simply a deformed Mexican Indian woman.1 As regards the history of the embalmment, there were some queer stories told. In my first series of Curiosities of Natural History,2 I gave an account of an exhibition of a modern mummy from the Guano Islands; the name of the man who was preserved in the guano was "Christopher Toledo"; since then I have seen, in a penny show in the streets of Edinburgh, another guano mummy, described in the handbill as follows:
I examined this specimen carefully. On the board (which was made of oak) were rudely carved the words Peter Creed, 1790. The proprietor was exceedingly proud of his mummy. "There is not a scratch upon him," said he; "he is just as perfect in the back as he is in the front. He is as good as a pension to me as long as he sticks together, and what's good for him is good for me. I cleared £21 in eleven nights with him [rather against the scientific sentiments of the handbill, this]. As for Christopher Toledo, I knows him well enough: he did well enough at fust, but he's all going to pieces now, he is; he ain't no use as a scientific mummy now; the more's the luck for me as long as my Peter Creed hold together." A friend of mine, who now commands a large trading steamer, brought back with him, about two years ago, as a speculation, three mummies from Egypt. Immediately on their arrival from London, he asked me to examine them. They were two males and a female, in a remarkably good state of preservation, the hair, nails, skin, &c. being dry and hard like boards, and the features in two of the specimens distinctly visible. My friend described to me the various adventures and escapes he encountered in bringing over his specimens, it being very difficult to obtain mummies of any kind, nowadays, in consequences of the Egyptian government having forbidden them to be taken out of the country. Among other plans he adopted to pass the authorities who came on board, he placed the three mummies in the berth where the sailors usually sleep, and covered them up with rugs, &c., as though they were tired sailors taking a nap; and if I recollect rightly, he told me that a friend who was a partner in the mummy venture lay down with them. When the officials came round, the partner pretended to wake up out of sleep, and, sitting up, yawned and rubbed his eyes as if half awake. The deceit answered capitally; the officials, thinking that the three mummies were only three tired sailors, did not examine further, and so they were passed. In due time these mummies arrived at Liverpool, and the question arose how to sell them to the best advantage; so the owner put it all about the town that some wonderful mummies had just arrived, and were on board the ship in the docks. A paragraph even got into the local newspapers to the same effect, and this was just what they wanted; for a showman who had an exhibition in the town, reading the account in the newspaper, immediately came onboard the ship and made a bid for the mummies. The price tendered, however, was not high enough. The next day the showman came again with a further offer, which, however, was not accepted. To make him more desirous of obtaining the curiosities, my friends found out where his show was situated, and for two or three evenings remained smoking their cigars about the show, and paid boys and idle people they found about the place a small fee to go to the door of the show and ask to "see the wonderful mummies which had just arrived." "We have not got them yet, sir" was the showman's answer. "What? Not got the mummies! Never heard such a thing. No mummies! Can't possibly go into the show," said the visitors. The fact of so many people coming, night after night, so quickened the showman's appetite that he made a higher bid of several hundred pounds, which offer, foolishly, not being accepted, the owners brought the mummies up to London. The last thing I heard of them was from my friend, who told me that he had left his mummies at his lodgings while he went on another voyage; when he returned, he found his landlord had got into trouble, and had pawned the mummies for £10 at some pawnbroker's by the Docks. Reader, if you are very anxious to have them, there may still be a chance of getting the mummies cheap. - - - - 1. Her exhibitor, Theodor Lent, died insane after running onto a bridge and throwing his money into a river. Pastrana's body disappeared soon afterward, eventually turning up in Norway in 1921. After being thrown out and then recovered from a dump in 1979, her mummy was rediscovered at the Oslo Forensic Institute in 1990, where it still resides today. —P.C. 2. A collection of essays by Buckland that first appeared in 1857. —P.C. - - - - OTHER McSWEENEY'S FEATURES: - - - - Curious MenJimmy Jam Johnson, the Classic-Rock DJ, Sufferin' a Nervous Breakdown By Mike Sacks A Classified Ad From a Dynamic Student Looking to Harness Synergy and Innovate 24/7 By Zach Lenane Butterball Help-Line Help-Line By Alysia Gray Painter A Free Copy of My Religion Pamphlet By William Tracy |
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