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- 6948
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-30T20:48:25.203Z
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- structure-extraction-lambda
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- 6898
- text
- bottom of the vessel a small quantity of gravelly sediment very much
resembling our common sand. Whether this is always found in the water,
and gives it its peculiar flavour and virtues, or whether its presence
was merely incidental, I was not able to ascertain.
One day in returning from this spring by a circuitous path, I came upon
a scene which reminded me of Stonehenge and the architectural labours of
the Druids.
At the base of one of the mountains, and surrounded on all sides by
dense groves, a series of vast terraces of stone rises, step by step,
for a considerable distance up the hill side. These terraces cannot
be less than one hundred yards in length and twenty in width. Their
magnitude, however, is less striking than the immense size of the blocks
composing them. Some of the stones, of an oblong shape, are from ten
to fifteen feet in length, and five or six feet thick. Their sides are
quite smooth, but though square, and of pretty regular formation, they
bear no mark of the chisel. They are laid together without cement, and
here and there show gaps between. The topmost terrace and the lower
one are somewhat peculiar in their construction. They have both a
quadrangular depression in the centre, leaving the rest of the terrace
elevated several feet above it. In the intervals of the stones immense
trees have taken root, and their broad boughs stretching far over, and
interlacing together, support a canopy almost impenetrable to the sun.
Overgrowing the greater part of them, and climbing from one to another,
is a wilderness of vines, in whose sinewy embrace many of the stones
lie half-hidden, while in some places a thick growth of bushes entirely
covers them. There is a wild pathway which obliquely crosses two of
these terraces; and so profound is the shade, so dense the vegetation,
that a stranger to the place might pass along it without being aware of
their existence.
These structures bear every indication of a very high antiquity and
Kory-Kory, who was my authority in all matters of scientific research,
gave me to understand that they were coeval with the creation of the
world; that the great gods themselves were the builders; and that they
would endure until time shall be no more.
Kory-Kory’s prompt explanation and his attributing the work to a
divine origin, at once convinced me that neither he nor the rest of his
country-men knew anything about them.
As I gazed upon this monument, doubtless the work of an extinct and
forgotten race, thus buried in the green nook of an island at the ends
of the earth, the existence of which was yesterday unknown, a stronger
feeling of awe came over me than if I had stood musing at the mighty
base of the Pyramid of Cheops. There are no inscriptions, no sculpture,
no clue, by which to conjecture its history; nothing but the dumb
stones. How many generations of the majestic trees which overshadow them
have grown and flourished and decayed since first they were erected!
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