Underground

Altogether it was a surprising excavation, exhibiting some degree of engineering skill on the part of these savages. I wondered whether the conception originated within the brain of their alien Queen, or was another of the unique inheritances of their race. Perhaps I may be permitted to add here some information which reached me later, that abundant evidences of the existence of similar passages have been noted elsewhere in the old homes of this people beside the Mississippi. While at Petite Rocher River, I met lately a Jesuit, who had travelled widely and read many books, and he gravely assured me that in the vast cities of the Aztecs, far to the south in Mexico, their temples and palaces were connected by means of such long, secret, covered ways. Hence I incline to the belief that this excavation was largely the labor of slaves; for these Nahuacs had many such, some of negro, others of Indian blood, and that the earth thus removed had been utilized in constructing those mounds above, the entire method of building merely a tradition from the past.

Let that be as it may, here the tunnel extended stretching its snake-like course before me. Along it I carefully felt a passage, nervously gripping the knife hilt, and vainly seeking to distinguish definite outlines amid the darkness. My groping feet encountered numerous obstructions along the path--here a pile of loosened earth over which I plunged headlong, or a flat stone dropped by the rotting away of its supporting prop, or some sharp declivity, as though softer earth had yielded to rude implements; yet it became evident from the start that the tunnel level rapidly descended, boring deeper and deeper into the bosom of the earth. Finally, my fingers came into contact with small fragments of rock strewing the side walls, and I comprehended I must already be beneath the base of that rounded mound upon the summit of which the house of Naladi stood. What worried me most was to what end this tunnel was made. Such vast labor had surely never been performed without adequate purpose. Besides, completed, the passage was well cared for. I met frequently in my blind groping with evidences of comparatively recent labor. Yet for what purpose was it designed? Where did it lead? To my bewildered judgment the general trend appeared northward; but that would carry it directly across the broadest portion of the upper basin. To have an unconcealed entrance in the centre of that unprotected, open plain would be foreign to savage nature; while to imagine that such a tunnel as this, from which a vast amount of earth had been borne upon the backs of workmen, could extend below the full extent of that valley, was beyond conception. Besides, the air was light and pure, as sweet to inhale as if it blew directly upon me from the open sky; itself proof positive that some opening could not be far distant.