se which sent me back rather quickly, and
completely routed them. It proceeded from a rushing of bats, and,
having a sort of horror of these beastly birds, this was an ugly place
to meet them in, for the passage was so low, and there was so little
room for a flight over head, that in walking upright there was great
danger of their striking the face. It was necessary to move with the
head bent down, and protecting the lights from the flapping of their
wings. Nevertheless, every step was exciting, and called up
recollections of the Pyramids and tombs of Egypt, and I could not but
believe that these dark and intricate passages would introduce me to
some large saloon, or perhaps some royal sepulchre. Belzoni, and the
tomb of Cephrenes and its alabaster sarcophagus, were floating through
my brain, when all at once I found the passage choked up and
effectually stopped. The ceiling had fallen in, crushed by a great mass
of superincumbent earth, and farther progress was utterly impossible.

I was not prepared for this abrupt termination. The walls and ceiling
were so solid and in such good condition that the possibility of such a
result had not occurred to me. I was sure of going on to the end and
discovering something, and I was arrested without knowing any better
than when I entered to what point these passages led, or for what
purposes they had been constructed. My first impulse was, not to turn
back, but to begin immediately and dig a way through; but the
impossibility of accomplishing anything in this way soon presented
itself. For the Indians to carry out the earth on their backs through
all these passages would be a never-ending work; besides, I had no idea
how far the destruction extended, and, for the present at least,
nothing could be done.

In a spirit of utter disappointment, I pointed out to the Indians the
mass of earth that, as it were, maliciously cut off all my hopes, and
told them to put an end to their lying stories about the Laberinto and
its having no end; and in my disappointment I began to feel most
sensibly the excessive heat and closeness of the place, which I had
hardly perceived before, and which now became almost insufferable from
the smoke of the torches and the Indians choking the narrow passage.

All that I could do, and that was very unsatisfactory, was to find out
the plan of this subterraneous structure. I had with me a pocket
compass, and, notwithstanding the heat and smoke, and the little h