ticles,
the nature of which I found it difficult to determine in such dim
light. Nor did I pause for close inspection, but, so soon as search
revealed an opening into a narrow passageway beyond, I pressed forward
amid dense gloom, feeling my way, fearful lest I meet some pitfall. It
was a low, contracted gallery, so extremely irregular in excavation
that I sometimes stood erect, unable to reach the roof with extended
fingers, yet a moment later was compelled to creep on hands and knees
in order to progress at all. Had it led through solid rock I should
have accepted this as evidence of natural origin, but sides, floor, and
roof were of earth, while every few feet, rendering progress uncertain
and perilous, were huge posts of wood, usually roughly hewn tree
trunks, each topped by a flat piece of stone, supporting the sagging
roof.

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
sta