In Search of an Unknown Race — page 121: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

VAN. III Preceded by guides with torches, the three walked slowly through immense arches and galleries of the dead. Laid on shelves of stone, or in separate niches, were the bodies of young and old. So wonderful is the process of embalming perfected in Itambezi, that, in connection with the preservative power of the cave atmosphere, it made it almost impossible for the stranger to discriminate between those who had lain there in their last sleep for a century and those borne to their silent resting-place but a few days before. In a separate part of the cavern was the resting-place of the Incas. Here with bowed heads and crossed hands, sitting upon golden chairs, as in life, were the embalmed bodies of successive generations of rulers, attired in their kingly robes. As Van has since said, there was nothing repulsive or even ghastly in these strange forms of death, upon which time had been unable to leave his trace for centuries. It was rather awe-inspiring, and then, too, no one in Itambez seemed to look upon death with anything approaching fear. Reverently and with uncovered head, Van stood with Ninada by the side of her beautiful mother, as beautiful in death as in life; and very tenderly the young girl touched her lips, first to the broad white forehead, then to the folded waxen hands. ‘¢ Why should I weep?” she said, quietly, in answer to some whispered remark from Flores. ‘‘ My mother is only sleeping.” For as Van afterward knew, the people of Itambez have a full faith in a future life, where the good are happy and the wicked punished. EOmicdoo cS (E(0)