Corvallis gazette. [volume] (Corvallis, Benton County, Or.) 1900-1909, 1904-08-05
MAY BE LOST TRIBE or ISRAEL.
Peculiar Race Of People Living Under
ground In Central America.

MAY BE LOST TRIBE OF ISRAEL.
Peculiar Race of People Living Under
ground In Central America.
Colonel J. G. Tucker, former United
States minister at Martinique, relates
a strange story Of race of people liv-
ing in an underground city in Gen.
trail America. Colonel Tucker some
time ago received Information about a
race who live in cities cut out Of the
rocks in the mountains Of Central
America, in an ut-of-the-way place,
very difficult to reach. and which no
stranger had visited before him and
returned alive. He decided to investi-
gate. After reaching certain point
Colonel Tucker had to travel 500 miles
through wild jungles, carrying his pro-
visions on a pack mule and enduring
many hardships on q way. AS he
neared the hidden city his every move
ment was watched and reported to the
high priest Of the tribe dwelling there,
but no harm was offered him. When
he shot pair of lions in the jungles,
which had been killing the natives, he
did an act that turned out to be the
very thing that gave him their friend
ship and protection.
He was welcomed by the high priset,
who spoke good English, and was
shown through their wonderful city,
hewn out of the solid granite rocks
in the mountain side To the uniniat-
ed the surface Of the mountain gave
no clew to the city concealed within
it. 1t was entered by secret passages,
c-nningly concealed by natures handi-
work, and which led to large, commo-
dious rooms, handsomely furnished,
mostly in old mahogany. Passages led
to hundreds of other rooms, and to
pie met and held meetings, while small
Ter openings for ventilation went up
ward, ending among the rocks and
jungles above, so arranged that the
rain could not enter
The tradition among these curious
people was that they originally came
from a country far away. and that
their mission was to outwit their enc
mics, which, in the beginning, pursued
them. At all entrances there were
side rooms, from which, at a moments
notice, deadly gases could be let loose
upon any hostile invaders who might
enter, and which would kill them in
stantly, while by sliding doors of stone
the gas would be kept from entering
the city.
The light Of the sun, moon or stars
never enters their underground city,
except through certain openings, by
which they study the mysteries of the
night skies, but they use electricity
for lighting purposes, science they
have learned by keeping in touch with
the outer world through their young
men.
The colonel says he was an attend
ant at their meetings and was sur
prised to find they were going through
Masonic rituals, which he, being
Mason of high degree, understood.
This was an inheritance of theirs from
their ancestors of the unknown past.
Colonel Tucker has written many
chapters about these people and their
city. He has done so because he
wishes to preserve the knowledge. He
freely shows them to his friends, and
has as yet made no effort to publish
them. The proprietor of a well-known
Eastern magazine, who visited the
City Of Mexico, and who was given
the privilege of reading the manu-
scripts, with the proviso that he would
not publish their contents, offered .ol-
onel Tucker first $1,000 and then
doubled that amount if the colonel
would pilot him to the city in the
rocks. And he may yet do so.
Colonel Tucker believes these people
are part of the lost tribe of Israel.
He has many old parchments they
gave him which he has been unable
to find anyone to decipher for him,
but which he hopes to have read by
some one of the great scholars of the
world, when the mysteries they con-
tain in their tme-stained hieroglyphics
will be made plain, thus revealing to
the world perhaps the strangest story
that ever linked the dim past with the
living present.