Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1916-03-06
AT THE EARTHS CORE
BY EDGAR RICE BURROUGHS AUTHOR osrApzur

| It from all other trails that I have seen
| within or without the earth
! 1t would run on plain and clear and
| well defined to end suddenly in the ,nidst
Of tangle of matted jungle. then ia
/ would turn directly back i'm his tracks
for a little distance, spring into n tree,
climb through 1t to the other side. drop
on to fallen log, leap over n low bush
| Once more alighting upon a distinct trail
he would follow 1t back for a short dis.
tance, only to turn directly about and
retrace his steps, until after q mile or
less this new pathway ended as suddenly
and mysteriously as the former section
Then he would pass again across some
, media which would reveal no spoor, to
take UP the broken thread OF the trail
beyond.
AS the purpose OF this remarkable
avenue dawned upon me I could not but
admire the native shrewdness of the
ancient progenitor of the Mezops who hit
upon this novel plan to throw his enemies
from his track and delay or thwart them
in their attempts to follow him to his
deep-buried cities.
To you of the outer earth It might
seem a slow and tortuous method of
travelling through the jungle, but were
you of Pellucidar you would realize that
time Is no factor where time does not
exist.
So labyrinthine are the windings of
these trails, so varied the connecting links
and the distances which one must retrace
ones steps from the paths ends to find
them that n Mezop often reaches mans
estate before no is familiar even with
those which lead from his own city to the
sea.
In fact, three-fourths of the education
of the young male Mezop consists in fa-
milarizing himself with these jungle ave-
nues, and the status of an adult Is largely
determined by the number of trails which
he can follow upon his own island.
The females never learn them, since
from birth to death they never leave the
village of their nativity, except they be
taken to mate by male from another
village or captured in war by the enemies
OF their tribe.
After proceeding through the Jungle for
what must have been upward of five miles
we emerged suddenly into n large clear
ing, in the exact centre of which stood
as strange an appearing village as ono
might well imagine.
Large trees had been chopped down 10
or 20 feet above the ground, and upon the
tops of them spherical habitations OF
woven twigs, undiscovered, had been built.
Each ball-like house was surmounted
by some manner of carven image, which
IA told me indicated the identity of the
owner
Horizontal Sits, six inches high and two
or three feet wide, served to admit light
and ventilation The entrances to the
houses were through small apertures in
the bases of the trees and thence up
ward by rude ladders through the hollow
trunks to the rooms above.
The houses varied in size from two
to several rooms The largest that I en-
tered was divided into two floors and eight
apartments.
All about the village. between It and
the jungle, lay beautifully cultivated
fields, in which the Mezops raised such
cereals, fruits and vegetables as they re-
quired. Women and children were work.
ing in these gardens as we crossed to-
ward the village.
At sigh of ia they saluted deferental-
", but to me they paid not the slightest
attention Among them and about their
outer verge of the cultivated area were
many warriors. These, too, saluted ia
by touching the points of their spears to
the ground directly before them.
ia conducted me to large house in the