Observed in 1834

A Beggar's Funeral Near Concepcion, Chili. Observed in 1834

AMONG THE PAPERS in the collection of Captain Thomas Nickerson, whose narrative of "The Loss of the Essex" has now been published by the Association, was a personal account of an unusual funeral which he observed in Chili during one of his voyages. This is his description:

I visited Concepcion in 1834 in company with several American gentlemen and all seemed in the highest enjoyment of prosperity. How little could we know of what an awful fate awaited that noble but devoted city which was so soon to lay a heap of ruins. We spent a few very pl(e)asant hours and formed some very pleasing acquaintances amongst the inhabitants.

On our way to town we were met by an old man bowed down with years who accompanied by his son was bearing a burthen upon their shoulders. This consisted of a long pole with a sort of bag suspended horizontally between them and seemed to contain a human body. As the old man beckoned us, we stopped our horses to find what he wished of us. He came to us with tears gushing down his furrowed cheeks and only wished us to aid him by giving him a trifle towards the burial of his daughter. He said this was the third day in which himself and his son had laboured almost without food carrying around the dead body of his daughter striving to obtain enough money by begging to satisfy the demand of their priest to perform for them the burial service and suffer her to be laid in consecrated ground.

Ah, how unlike the good old Father Francisco, who but a few years before occupied the very same situation now held by this wretch. I asked the old man if he had known Father Francisco.

"Ah," said he after crossing his forehead and uttering a few half broken sentences, "I knew him well, but we find none like him now."

We raised among us the amount the old man said was the demand and gave it to him. It gave us pleasure in seeing the countenance of the old man display the workings of his heart as we reached him the desired sum. I dismounted to be sure they had not been deceiving us. And hauling open the shroud, found it to be a face with which we had been familiar. Although somewhat changed in death, we recognized it to have been a girl who used to attend in market, and of whom we used to buy our vegetables.

"Ah," thought I, "how little do we know what we enjoy in our own country until we visit abroad."