ter is, that one day Marheyo in my presence poured out
the last drop from his huge calabash, and I observed at the 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
Druid.

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 hillside. 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 its 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