CITY LOST IN JUNGLE.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVI, 12 February 1927, Page 12

CITY LOST IN JUNGLE.

SuR I 1 R fSE FO R EXPLOR ERS

SITE COVERED BY TREES. A dramatic story of iris return to the ureal ruined Maya City of JL.ubaaiitun. in British Honduras, has been told by Air M itchell-Hedges. the exploiter. JLmbnanton iie s .some 55 miles by river irom Puuta Gorda. and after an adventurous journey Mr Hedges and his party reached the Maya Indian village of San Pedro. “Half a mile be.,end. iiigii above the river, was the welcome sight of our old shack.” he said. “The following morning we took the trail to the ruins—to find they had magically disappeared. It was as if some giant hand haw swept- across and entire y obliterated them. Only ten months, had elapsed -since we left the great ruined city thoroughly cleaned and shining beineath the blazing sun. Now 12ft of solid jungle covered all. “Even more ..surprising was the fact that- since we 'eft the Indians had planted corn. This had grown and In-en picked, so that the immense growth had .sprung from the earth in a period of no more than seven months. There were many paw-paw trees 16 and J.7it iiign. bearing fruit-. Cohune palms were waving everywhere in this gigantic super-heated hot-house. “In a week wo had a camp erected. 1 11 a fortnight the great stairways, pyramids, plazas and courtyards were oner more standing out above the -angle. “it was a wonderful sight as we fired acres of the cut-down vegetation, which had dried rapidly in the -sun: Great volumes of smoke, resembling a violent voicanic eruption, were shooting lmridr:ds of feet into the air; the jungle was a raging furnace. Hot ashes and volumes of acrid -smoke swept over us while the crackling and roaring flames quivered in the air. “As we cleared the immense -stone edifices, the great- ruined M"aya city, a veritable city of mystery, grew more impressive and vast- every day. Standing on. tile highest pyramid in the setting sun. the full impressiveness of the ruins came to me with inresistiVe forcr. . .

• -Into my mind crept a conviction which inpv be the solution to the inscrutable mvstervof Dubaantun. It-was that this gigantic citadel was a Maya cit.v of the- dead—a vast cemetery—that witli’n the great amphitheatre tli? last- mystical and -solemn rituals were held and .sacrifices made to the spirits jf the clenarted. “Wo found hundreds of stone-faced mound* surrounding Lubnanbin. Excavations in three- of them yielded 270 comprising flint and obsidian spear-heads, -small axeheads cut from a •lino'll,s bluish-green stone, pottery and flgwinos. Tho. excavations proved berorifl donht +hat these mounds arc burial places.”