The American family Robinson

by D. W. Belisle

"Poor fellow," said the trapper, "he has carried away a sad heart—an inadequate return, indeed, for all he has done for us."

"I would willingly have had it otherwise, but it seems they were both too strongly attached to customs and kindred among which they were born and which have become a part of their being, to give them up for each other."

"Well, well," said Howe, "I have little faith in broken hearts; at least what I have had was never strengthened by observation or experience. It is all for the best, I suppose, but I liked the chief, and feel as though I had parted from a brother."

While assembled together in a group a few evenings after, of which the curate occupied a prominent position, our wanderers had been recounting some of the wonders they had seen, among which Mr. Duncan related to the curate the story of the Old Man of Lake Superior, and Howe gave them a description of the ruins among the mountains. The curate listened silently, but, evidently, with great interest to the recital until its conclusion. He then commenced telling what he had seen:

"Last summer I was in Nacogdoches, an inland village of Texas, and while transacting some business that had called me thither, I incidentally heard a curious road spoken of, and much speculation was entertained as to who could have been the builders. 'It never was built by the Mexicans,' said one, who seemed both learned and gentlemanly, 'for had it been some record would have survived, and I am confident there is none, for I have made the early annals of the country my sole study for years, and must have found a record or something to throw light upon such a costly and stupendous undertaking had it been built by them.' This was enough to arouse my curiosity, for I had already seen works of art still perfect, that were known to be older than any erected by the inhabitants of this continent at the time of the conquest; and, joining the group of gentlemen, learned that the road referred to was a broad paved avenue leading west, and was said to extend many hundred miles: so far indeed into the wilderness that its termination was unknown. Rumor said it terminated at the Pacific Ocean. My resolution was at once taken. I determined to return to the Pacific valley by this route, for if there was such a road it would be conferring an incalculable benefit on travellers to explore it. My business completed, in company with four others, one of them being Don Quavale, an amateur antiquarian, with his servant, Jose, and a man by the name of Campbell, we set out. I had a servant, Diego, the same who you see here every day. It was a small party for such an adventure, but we were not aware of the dangers that lay before us, and we entered the wilderness with light hearts."

"You followed it up, then?" said Howe; "bravo! you priests have nerve as well as kind words, it seems."

"Yes: we followed it up," replied the curate, quietly. "Light hearted and eager to explore the whole extent of this stupendous monument of a lost people, we entered the wilderness, and soon struck the object of our search. We examined it closely and found it about eighty feet wide and paved with granite in slabs twenty feet long and ten wide, and were evidently of great thickness. The whole road was covered with a soil, made up of decayed leaves and branches sometimes, more than a foot in thickness. Still we were enabled to follow the road without the slightest difficulty, as it would not support a large growth of trees, for the blocks of granite were so closely fitted against each other that it precluded the possibility of their taking root between them. Consequently they ran along the surface, and as soon as the branches attained any large size the wind overturned them, leaving a broad avenue through the tall forest trees. We followed this road through the day; sometimes the ground had been raised, as was plainly visible from the low lands on either side; then again it went through hills that had been excavated, as they rose on either side in their original height, giving the road the appearance of a broad defile between them. Towards sunset of the fourth day we came to a cluster of what we at first thought to be rocks overgrown with shrubs and moss, but which, on a closer view, proved to be a large building in ruins. Removing the accumulated soil we found it still perfect in some of its parts. One of its doors in particular had its lintel of granite on which rested a huge mass of fallen stone without displacing it. Passing inside this door we entered a room perfect in all its proportions, being about twenty feet square; but what excited us still more than the discovery of the ruins was some beautiful hieroglyphics carved on one side of the room directly beneath a human figure cut in relief and curiously decorated, holding a sceptre in its hand.

"Observing a curious knob in one side of the room, Don Quavale took hold of it roughly to see if it was a part of the wall, when to our astonishment it clicked heavily, and an unseen door slowly swung open revealing an inner room of the same size as the first, but different in appearance. Having been kept closed and, as near as we could tell, air-tight, it was still in its original appearance. The floor which was entirely destitute of rubbish, was of beautiful white marble, smooth and even as glass, while the sides were covered with paintings drawn on the wall of the size of life, the colors still vivid and beautiful. The characters drawn were men, birds and fishes, and sometimes a nondescript animal—half eagle and half man—a perfect monster in appearance. Overhead was a representation of the sun, the rays emanating from the centre in flashing colors covered the surface and finally died away in the softest possible tints of rose color. A more perfect representation of the sun I never beheld, and as we gazed upon it, it seemed as if we were contemplating some beautiful creation of an artist of our own day rather than the remains of a people of whom we know not even the name."

"What you have seen, exceeds in finish our discoveries," said Howe.

"Yes: we found there stranger things still," continued the curate. "Ranged around three sides of the room, at regular intervals, were knobs like the one on the door by which we entered, and on pressing one with considerable force it slowly opened, and within we discovered a small, low niche in which lay a corpse as perfect as if just deposited there. It was that of a young woman with symmetrical form, dimpled cheeks and flowing hair, decorated in rich habiliments of gorgeous dyes, her waist encircled by a zone of diamonds, and her arms with bracelets of precious stones. Wonder stricken at what we saw we gazed in silence upon her, and while we gazed the body slowly crumbled away and in half an hour it had dissolved in air leaving but a handful of dust and the glittering gems that had decked her a bride of death, to mark the spot where she lay. Turning another knob another door opened like the previous ones, and in a niche before us lay a warrior in the prime of manhood. He was very tall and muscular, a perfect Hercules in proportions, with a broad, massive forehead and prominent features. He was attired in a sort of uniform of curious workmanship. This apparition vanished quicker than the other, owing probably, to the room being better filled with fresh air. We had, without doubt, lighted on a mausoleum of the lost people; and wishing to preserve the rest of the niches for scientific investigation, we did not open any more. With reverence we left the bodies of the builders of these ruins to their repose.