They Spoke To Each Other And Smiled, Stood Till The
Pit Was Filled To The Surface, And The Bearers Had Departed, And Then
Retired In Their Turn.
This was one of the more respectable class of
funerals.
Commonly the dead are piled without coffins, one above the
other, in the trenches.
The funerals now multiplied. The corpse of a little child was brought in,
uncoffined; and another, a young man who, I was told, had cut his throat
for love, was borne towards one of the niches in the wall. I heard loud
voices, which seemed to proceed from the eastern side of the cemetery, and
which, I thought at first, might be the recitation of a funeral service;
but no funeral service is said at these graves; and, after a time, I
perceived that they came from the windows of a long building which
overlooked one side of the burial ground. It was a mad-house. The inmates,
exasperated at the spectacle before them, were gesticulating from the
windows - the women screaming and the men shouting, but no attention was
paid to their uproar. A lady, however, a stranger to the island, who
visited the Campo Santo that afternoon, was so affected by the sights and
sounds of the place, that she was borne out weeping and almost in
convulsions. As we left the place, we found a crowd of volantes about the
gate; a pompous bier, with rich black hangings, drew up; a little beyond,
we met one of another kind - a long box, with glass sides and ends, in
which lay the corpse of a woman, dressed in white, with a black veil
thrown over the face.
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