Wichita eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1886-1890, 1888-03-25

gtitions and though there was no Drawer man
upon the sea, yet I really believe be was
afraid in that city of the dead, Of what can
not tell; but there is an awe inspired by the
silence of great ruins, the sad unbroken
silence attendant upon their decay, and this
may have worked upon him; at any rate, he
wanted to go at once when he first saw tho
| breeze swaying the sea weed draperieSto and
fro, and shaking drops of moisture from
| them that looked like diamonds in the moon
light as they fell.
In spite of the captains protestations, we
| decided to ascend the walls of the city and
overlook our Surroundings before leaving,
and began our ascent at place where they
were crumbling away Our foothold was
not sure for moment, between the slippery
sea weed and loose stones, but we succeeded
in reaching the top of the wall, and were
well paid for cur toll
| We could not, however, see the extent Of
the ruins; pile on pile they stretched away
as far as.the eye could see, apparently end
less-and everywhere was that glittering
green covering.
| Upon the mountain side we could discern q
huge pile, formed like the Egyptian pyra-
mids, but larger and grander in every way.
Had we been able to reach it, do not doubt
that we should have found it to be the work
| of man, but we did not make the attempt,
| for we noticed dark clouds gathering on the
horizon and moving rapidly forward.
| Fearing they would soon obscure the moon,
upon whose light we depended to find cur
way, we set out at once to return to the yacht
On the road we heard curious rumbling
noise and felt slight trembling Of the earth,
so slight, in fact, that we were at first in
clined to doubt our own senses, but another
| tremor soon occurred, and the fall of a tot
tering piece of masonry convinced us that we
were not mistaken.
We made all haste to reach the gate by
which we had entered, DESTROYS of escaping
from such precariOus quarters as quickly as
| possible, but the task of finding it was not
such an easy one as we anticipated.
| We retraced our steps, as we Supposed, until
we reached the spot where the gate should
have been, according to our reckoning, but it
was not there; then it dawned upon US that
| we were lost amid the ruins.
Our danger was heightened by continually
recurring tremors and rumblings in the
earth, which threatened to overthrow
some mighty mass of stone and crush us all
beneath it. We looked at each other in blank
| dismay. What were we to dos
| Suddenly bright idea occurred to me,
and clambered up to the top of the pile of
masonry to take an observation, and sure
enough, not fifty yards away saw the great
open circus or race course, which we had no
ticed near the gate; hurrying across it we
soon found the path by which We had come.
Occasionally we could hear the crash Of
some falling mass as it toppled down, over
thrown by the trembling earth, but this only
served to heishten our fears and accelerate
our pace.
| All the poetic beauty of our surroundings
which had SO impressed us, seemed to have
| fed the moment the danger of remaining be-
came apparent.
| When we reached the gate we discovered
! that it had fallen, and the shock of its fall
had badly Jared the surroundings, causing
the overthrow of several pillars and COM
| pletely blocking up that mode of egress.
| The wall here was in much moro perfect
state of preservation than in the place we had
climbed before, and it seemed an impossible.
| ity to mount its perpendicular sides.
! Fortunately one of the pillars, whose fall
had barred our way, lay .diagonally against
the wall, and we decided to crawl along its
sides and reach the top by that means,
Capt. Jack, being a sailor and consequent
ly the best climber, went first.
| Had our position been less serious We
would have had the heartiest of laughs at
him, but as it was, we were in no laughing
hunor, and knew we would all have to go
| through the same performance
The pillar was quite smooth, and, being
covered with seaweed, very slippery. Just
how many times we almost reached the top,
only to slide back again, l haven't the
slightest idea, but it was more than once.
We finally reached the top of the wall only
| to come to a stand still as regards a mode of
descent upon the other side. 1t was fully
twenty-five feet high at the lowest point, and
| drop OF twenty-five feet is not pleasant
prospect.
| At Capt. Jacks suggestion we removed our
coats and, knotting the sleeves together,
| formed short rope. He held this while Ned
and l hung from it and dropped, but then
came the question, how was he to get down.
Ned and l scraped together lot Of sea-
weed and piled it up, making sort Of cush-
| ion for him to fall upon. He jumped and
landed upon the stuff, but managed to turn
his ankle, SO that he beguiled the rest Of our
way with groans and profanity, but it must
have been very painful, for he was laid up
for fortnight with it afterward
We tried to support him as we went along,
and managed tolerably well, for we were
fortunate enough to come upon the road
leading to tbs cliff, from which we had first
caught sight Of the ruins We expected to
get along easily for the rest of the way, but
the clouds that had been rising obscured the
moon, leaving us in almost total darkness.
To add to the interest of our unenviabie
position, fragments of volcanic stone and
lava began dropping about US, and, looking
| back, we could see red glow upon the sum-
| NIT of one of the mountains behind the city,
| which lnomentarily increased in intensity as
| q broad river of molten lava flowed down the
mountain side.
We stumbled on, guided by the sound Of
the water, which was becoming rather rough,
as the breeze which we had felt in the ruins
steadily grew in strength. We must have
| lost the road again, for the way began to
grow rougher, eliciting groans from the poor
| captain
Ned started on ahead to lead US, but scarce
| " minute after we lost sight of him in the
darkness he began to halloo for help. Fol-
| lowing the sound of his voice we discovered
him struggling in quicksand, into which he
was rapidly sinking. We tugged and strained
| with all our might to release him, but /
| unougnr we never couIo. at IAsu. Win a
herculean effort, we got him free, with the
| loss of his boots, but it must have cost poor
| Capt. Jack an awful pang, for he ceased
swearing and sat down, utterly exhausted
We started on again, and in few moments
the welcome sight of the cliff greeted our
eyes. Hurrying on, we rounded the pro-
montory, but stood aghast when we found
the waves beating against its further side
! where the stone wharf had been before. The