Morning Star

A MELANCHOLY SIGHT.—Dr. Reid, a traveller through the highlands of Peru, is said to have found lately in the desert of Alacoama the dried remains of an assemblage of human beings, five or six hundred in number, men, women, and children, seated in a semi-circle as when alive, staring into the burning waste before them. They had not been buried; life had not departed before they thus sat around but hope was gone; the Spanish invaders were at hand, and no escape being left, they came hither to die. They still sat immovable in the dreary desert; dried like mummies by the effect of the hot air, they still kept their position, sitting up as in solemn counsel, while over the Areopagus silence broods everlastingly.