r some clue to the labyrinth, into which I
had entered? For hours I sat and gazed at the voiceless signs before me,
dreaming of Champollion, and the _Rosetta Stone_, and vainly hoping that
some unheard-of miracle would be wrought in my favor, by which a single
letter might be interpreted. But the longer I gazed, the darker became
the enigma, and the more difficult seemed its solution.

I had not even the foundation, upon which Dr. Young, and Lepsius, and De
Lacy, and Champollion commenced. There were no living Copts, who spoke a
dialect of the dead tongue in which the historian had engraved his
annals. There were no descendants of the extinct nations, whose sole
memorials were the crumbling ruins before me. Time had left no teacher
whose lessons might result in success. Tradition even, with her
uncertain light, threw no flickering glare around, by which the groping
archaeologist might weave an imaginary tale of the past.

"Chaos of ruins, who shall trace the void,
O'er the dim fragments cast a lunar light,
And say, '_Here was_, _or is_,' where all is doubly night?"

CHAPTER III.

"I must except, however, the attempt to explore an aqueduct,
which we made together. Within, it was perfectly dark, and we
could not move without candles. The sides were of smooth stones,
about four feet high, and the roof was made by stones lapping
over like the corridors of the buildings. At a short distance
from the entrance, the passage turned to the left, and at a
distance of one hundred and sixty feet it was completely blocked
up by the ruins of the roof which had fallen down."--INCIDENTS OF
TRAVEL IN CHIAPAS.

One day I had been unusually busy in arranging my drawings and forming
them into something like system, and toward evening, had taken my seat,
as I always did, just in front of the large _basso-rilievo_ ornamenting
the main entrance into the corridor of the palace, when Pio approached
me from behind and laid his hand upon my shoulder.

Not having observed his approach, I was startled by the suddenness of
the contact, and sprang to my feet, half in surprise and half in alarm.
He had never before been guilty of such an act of impoliteness, and I
was on the eve of rebuking him for his conduct, when I caught the kind
and intelligent expression of his eye, which at once disarmed me, and
attracted most strongly my attention. Slowly raising his arm, he pointed
with the forefinger of his ri