Overshadowing the fallen blocks of stone, the date-tree and palmyra waved their fan-like leaves. Dense masses of powerful creepers crept up the ruins, rending the solid masonry; and the seeds of the trees dropping year by year had produced a rapid undergrowth, those which had once been valuable fruit-trees having degenerated into wild ones. Chaos had, in a word, re-appeared where once trade and prosperity, order and regularity reigned.
“Let us gather some of the custard-apples, and climb yonder ruin,” said the missionary, speaking for the first time.
It was no easy task; for the accumulation of fallen masonry, and the dense growth of the brush, rendered it often necessary for the onward path to be cleared by the use of the knife. The whole mass appeared at one time to have been encircled by a wall, now fallen, the entrances to which could be distinctly traced, and this confirmed the report which, had been gathered by the missionaries of Santa Lucia Bay.
Slowly the two forced their way towards the vast ruined mound they were striving to gain, often stumbling and falling among the loose stones and treacherous creepers.
A crowd of half-fallen passages led away to right and left, terminating in what appeared to be a court-yard, in which were the remains of pillars of stone.
“There has once been carved work on these pillars, Hughes,” said the missionary, as they paused, breathless with their exertions, before a mighty column. “The action of ages has worn it away.”
“And what is more singular,” replied Hughes, who now seemed as much interested in the ruins as his comrade, “no mortar of any kind appears to have been used, the massive stones fitting into one another exactly.”
“This temple or palace has stood upon a kind of platform of masonry,” remarked the missionary, “with broad steps leading up to it. What a commanding object it must then have been.”
“The difficulty will be to climb what was once the flight of steps,” said Hughes. “I don’t see how we can manage it.”
Slinging their rifles behind them, and after many failures, the two helping each other from time to time, and taking advantage of every projection, stood at last on the raised platform on which the building had rested. Below them ran a maze of crumbled galleries and court-yards: and wherever the eye could penetrate, mounds of fallen masonry cropped up amidst the dense forest growth.