Staunton vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1860-1896, 1890-05-16

in their order, but as Whole. Ny story
must be brief, OF this scant means Of record
will fail me.
This place seems to have been approached
only by the river It consists of six large
domed halls, connected with a seventh, in
which the light burns There are swords OF
bronze, spearheads and other weapons stored
in one chamber. There have been costly fab
RIGS also, but they have persisted, and only a
few fragments are left In another hall are
many treasures accumulated.
One hall is especially the hall of pictures
and of writing. 1 spend many hours there.
l see the history of this race-their wars,
their heroes, their mythology.
The most wonderful chamber of all is the
hall to the north. That is the chamber of
death and silence. When first I entered this
hall I lighted all the gas jets. Around the
walls were high cases Of drawers and on the
front Of each was a portrait. l examined
them for hours before l felt any desire to dc
more. Among them 1 observed a very beau
tiful face-that of a young girl just entering
womanhood. This wonderful race possessed
the highest artistic skill and delicacy of ex-
preston. The face of this girl, except that
the colors had faded, might have been the adj
mired masterpiece OF the Paris Salon. 1 felt
a sudden interest in the face and caught the
drawer handles and pulled it out. In the
wide, deep space into which I looked lay,
robed in white her hands folded, the form of
the girl whose picture was outside. How
beautiful she was She lay as if only asleep.
Then slowly, as I looked, the whole figure
melted down and faded away to a pile of dust.
l closed the shrine and touched no more of
them, but l often go and look at the faded
painting and think how lovely the girl was.
The paintings on the walls of this mural
chamber show that the people had two sys.
TENS of disposing of their dead. The great
mass were consigned to the river, but the bod
les of all those who were famous for beauty,
wisdom or any good quality were preserved
by a process of embalming, which they evil
IDENTIFY thought would make them endure for
ages There are probably 1900 separate
bodies here, and they represent more than
twenty successive generations, if I rightly
understand the system of family grouping If
people lived as long as they do now, there was
an average of about fifteen additions each
year to this great Westminster Abbey of the
past. From a sort of a map painted on one
of the walls obtain the idea of many and
thickly populated communities which used
this place as the sepulcher Of their chosen
few
Evidently that was before volcanic out
bursts made the channel of the river like a
caldron boiling over endless fires All along
the course are towns marked, groups of rock
hewn rooms on the cliffs, populated lands on
the river, promontories from whose sides foun-
tains of light seem to spring. Did thousands
OF people once live and find happiness in these
vast vaults Of death? Things must have been
very different then from now. They must
have had many reservoirs of natural gas.
The animal life in the river must have been
much more varied. Indeed, there are pict-
ures in the Hall of War, as 1 have named it,
that show two things plainly-that there were
thousands Of caverns, extending over hum
dreds of miles, and peopled by animals with
which the heroes fought, and that the river
was swarming with existence
Moreover, find everywhere, chief of the
symbols of life, i'll the most sacred places. a
food root like water nut, from which grew
white leaves and seeds. There must have
been some electric principle evolved here, by
the vast warm lakes of the river, lit with soft
light everywhere at certain seasons For
now | come to the strangest fact of all that |
gather from the records of the race; these
people had two kinds of light; one they found
and ht-that they knew as the lesser God of
Life: the other, coming from north to south,
twice each year, filled for many weeks the
whole channel of the river, from depth to
dome, making the very water translucent
The water root and its grain ripened and
were harvested in the last days of the light.
Two crops year they gathered, and held
their days Of the feasts of the greater God of
Life.
l have tried to put together all can of
their picture writings and their paintings, Sc
as to understand what sort Of men and women
they were. l confess that have learned t.
admire them greatly. They were strong
brave, loving and beautiful people. 1 am
sorry they are all gone. l never cared half
so much about the dead Etruscans or Cartha
ginians. The earliest chapter in their history,
SO far as l discover, is picture of line OF
men and women descending into cave and
dragon pursuing them. This seems to point
to a former residence on the face OF the earth
and to some disaster-war, flood, pestilence OF
some fierce mOnSter-which drove the SUI
vivors into the depths of the earth for shelter
But all these thoughts are vain and foolish
l have explored the cliffs of the river and the
walls of the mighty halls which shelter me.
| have attempted to cut tunnel upward past
the waterfall, using the ancient weapons
which lie in such numbers on the floor. The
bronze wears out fast. but if 1 live long
enough something may be done. l will close
my record and launch it down the river
Then will try to cut my way out to the sun
light.
Here the story closed Some day, perhaps,
an old man, white haired and pale one
from the lowest dungeon of bastile, will
climb slowly out of some canyon of the Rock
iI,s to tell the world more about his discovery
of lost race-Charles Howard Sim in
Washington Critic.