large enough for our purposes, and it was solid and strong.

In the late afternoon we carried our belongings on board of it, and
Pablo succeeded by dint of much entreaty in inducing El Sabio to board
it also, and we pushed off from shore. For driving the clumsy thing
forward we had made four rough paddles, which well enough served our
purposes, for there was no current whatever in the lake and the air was
still.

[Illustration: AFLOAT ON THE LAKE]

As we went onward we discovered how considerable the city was that here
lay submerged. Through the perfectly clear water we could see to a great
depth, and beneath us in every direction were paved streets, lined with
houses well built of stone. Near the centre of the valley the size of
the houses greatly increased, and the fashion of their building was more
stately; and fronting upon a great open square in the very centre of the
city was a building of such extraordinary size that we took it to be the
palace of a king; but here the water was so deep that we could make out
but faintly the looming far below us of its mighty walls. Never have I
been more pained than I then was; for in that place I found myself close
to making discoveries of surpassing archaeological value, and yet I was
as completely cut off from them as though they had no existence.

Just beyond the palace, as we went onward, our raft almost touched the
roof of a noble building that stood upon the top of a vast pyramidal
mound, the base of which we could see but dimly far down through the
waters of the lake. This, evidently, had been the chief temple of the
city; and as we passed over it and came to its eastern side, we had
ghastly and certain proof of the terrible suddenness with which the city
had been overwhelmed. On the broad terrace before the temple was the
sacrificial stone, and upon this dark mass we saw distinctly the
gleaming of human bones; and as we peered down into the water we
perceived that all the terrace was strewn thickly with human bones also,
showing that when the rush of water came many thousands of human beings
had here perished miserably. For a little while, no doubt, all the
surface of the water round about where we were had been dotted thickly
with the bodies of the drowned which had floated upward; and then, one
by one, they had sunk again to the place where death first found
them--where their flesh wasted away from them until only their gleaming
bones remained.

I pictured to mys